Hu 1Atlantis is a story written by Plato about 2,600 years ago (www.dailymail.co.uk). Plato was a Greek philosopher who wrote stories based on travelers' accounts to teach important lessons to the citizens of Athens. In the story of Atlantis and many of his other stories, he highlighted the failures of the city and the people who lived there (www.telegraph.co.uk). Plato described the location of Atlantis as "an island in front of the strait called the Pillars of Hercules" in two of Plato's dialogues: the Timaeus and the Critias (www.dailymail.co.uk) (www.csiop .org). Just like in In Atlantis, the people of Athens had many problems that few people noticed. The story of Atlantis warned people of what would happen if they were too greedy and petty. They would be punished for their ways, and Plato was trying to warn the people of Athens that the same thing could happen to them if they did not change their ways (www.science.nationalgeographic.com). The legend of Atlantis tells of a very modern and advanced civilization that lived on a large island founded by half-god and half-human creators. According to Plato, this island existed 9,000 years before him. Their islands contained exotic wildlife and precious metals, and they were very powerful. The Hu 2 people of Atlantis became "morally bankrupt"; they began to be greedy and power hungry. When Zeus saw this, he decided to punish the people of Atlantis by destroying the island with a tsunami. The island was lost to the sea and the inhabitants of Atlantis were never seen again (www.science.nationalgeographic.com). Many argue that Atlantis is not just a legend and that Plato was actually writing about a real island in Timaeus and Critias. There is evidence that there are underwater ruins in the middle of paper... whatever the fact behind it, its legend would have always been mostly fictional. The "observations" and "evidence" that prove Atlantis is real do not entirely match the story, for example the time and place may differ from where or when Plato described the 'Atlantis. Plato himself mentioned that one way to teach a lesson to younger generations is to invent a fictional story and then present it as a real story (www.csiop.org). He may have simply used fiction to try to prove a point, but he was misunderstood. It's possible that we've just taken a work of fiction and turned it into historical nonfictionHu 5 (www.history.howstuffworks.com). I believe that Atlantis did not exist. The only evidence that proves this to be the case is the story of Timaeus and Critias, which was only written as a fictional story to teach a lesson (www.csiop.org).