Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 2 -- Greek Philosophers
that was there absorbed, it provided all the various districts with abundant supplies of springwaters
and streams.
Perhaps recounting ancient Athens through the voice of the historical figure Criticas freed Plato’s
mind to ponder more of the the mundane.
He [Plato] says that they all flow into each other beneath the earth through channels pierced
through it, and that their original source is a body of water in the center of the earth called
Tartarus, from which all waters running of standing are drawn. This primary and original mass
causes the flow of various rivers by surging perpetually to and fro; for it has no fixed position
but is always oscillating about the center, and its motion up and down fills the rivers. Many of
them form lakes, one example of which is the sea by which we live, but all of them pass round
again in a circle to the original source from which they flowed; many return to it again at the
same place, others at a point opposite to that of their outflow, for instance if they flowed out
from below, they return from above.
Plato identifies Tartarus as the underworld's lowest abyss because it pierces through the whole
earth. Repeating Anaxagoras, all waters begin in Tartarus and endlessly journey to return to their
Tartarean source. Water does this because a liquid has no bottom or foundation; hence, it
oscillates up and down as do air and winds. Points of egress and ingress may be close together
or far apart.
That much said, however, we must note that Plato identified little with Homer's world view. As
reality is something else, the latter's version about Tartarus was good enough. Had not Aristotle -
- concerned with worldly things more than was than Plato -- not quoted his teacher as a basis for
further discussion, we'd not have Plato's reference to the myth. Plato, we must suppose, wasn't
arguing for the folklore's veracity as much as he was summarizing popular belief.
Plato’s successors as head of his Academy, Speusippus and Xenocrates, deemed in turn that
mathematics was the highest level of existence, even primary to soul. We can only speculate if
such metaphysics might have segued into quantifiable science had not the Romans sacked the
Academy in 86 BC.
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