
Timaeus by Plato - winter_blue
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html
======
winter_blue
Found this via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19311544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19311544),
which quotes this:

> _" There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising
> out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of
> fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is
> a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the
> son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he
> was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was
> upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the
> form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in
> the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the
> earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon
> the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction
> than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity
> the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When,
> on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the
> survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the
> mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers
> into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does
> the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to
> come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the
> most ancient."_

