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Try to follow this. Critias did not write it down. Plato did. That means no one wrote the story before Plato did. That means Plato wrote it first.
Let's say that I write that in 1863 Abraham Lincoln told my great great grandfather that there would in the future be a company named Starbucks selling coffee all across the country. Does that prove that Lincoln had great powers of prediction and was a personal friend of my great great grandfather, or does it prove that I am able to make up a story about Lincoln 150 years later?
You're obviously convinced that the story of Atlantis is made up because that's the implication here. If you wish to dismiss the writing as some "metaphor" and Plato's way of beating-around-the-bush, all the while secretly trying to illustrate some hidden moral, so he made up the Atlantis story... well... that's to me is a very simplistic view that doesn't have to stand up to much scrutiny. It seems uncharacteristic of Plato's other writings. To me, sorry, it just doesn't hold much weight. Would you like to explain to me and everyone else, what was the moral of Plato's story is? Maybe I'm over-looking something here.
How do you know he did? Although he was a prolific author in his day, nothing that he wrote along those lines exists today. The information to which you refer comes to us from a man named Procus, who told the story of Crantor visiting Egypt roughly 700 years later. In fact, the passage about seeing the hieroglyphics to which you refer is ambiguous and may not be referring to Crantor at all.
You asked for something, I provided you with something.
...and they repeated other stories from Greek mythology as if they were historically accurate as well. Again, this is all hundreds of years after Plato.
Additionally, although some did believe what Plato wrote, most did not. In his book Greek Mythography in the Roman World, historian Alan Cameron says, "It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity."
What is Mr. Cameron basis for making such a broad all-encompassing statement?