The Walls of Atlantis (cont.)
By Doug Fisher

Figure 5 - The Long Walls of Athens as they existed at the time of the Peloponnesian War. Similar to the walls of Atlantis they provided a secure narrow corridor through which the city was able to maintain access to the sea.

Adding substantial credibility and practicality to this proposed layout is the existence of the similarly fashioned Long Walls of Athens. (Figure 5) Like the walls of Atlantis, the Long Walls of Athens encircled the city and extended out forming a long narrow corridor to the sea. The only difference being that Athens' passage was of land while Atlantis' passage was of water. Similar long wall constructions were established throughout Greece as a means of securing access to the sea. In the case of the Long Walls at Athens, the walls secured a 40-stadium (4.5 miles/7 km) passage to the port city of Piraeus from where supplies could be safely transported to the city of Athens in times of land siege.

Of course this shared attribute between Atlantis and Athens also introduces an interesting chicken versus the egg debate. If the Atlantis saga is true, could Solon's description of its city walls, which Critias claimed to be recounting, have influenced the building of the Long Walls a century later, or if either Plato or Critias invented a fictitious Atlantis, did they base the design of its capital city on the Long Walls which existed in their day?