The ancient city of Lacedaemon – is it the legendary Atlantis?

The name Lacedaemon is derived from the verb, λαγχάνω (lachano), to assign somebody something by lot, and δαίμων (daemon), which means God in ancient Greek. Lacedaemon therefore denotes the divine lot, a piece of the world given to the God Poseidon, according to Plato, who identifies Lacedaemon with Atlantis.

I consider it worthwile to mention a remark by J. Spanuth in his book, ‘Atlantis:  Heimat, Reich and Schicksal der Germanen’, (Tuebingen 1965), that Atlantis is “the oldest, most disputed, most hazardous and clearly most thankless, but still the most rewarding and most intriguing  matter that Antiquity has bequeathed to us”.

There is a vast bibliography about Atlantis, but the modern scholarship concluded that to locate Atlantis and to prove the validity of its identification, four points of agreement must be met and generally accepted. (See E.Bloedow. ‘Fire and Flood from Heaven: Was Atlantis at Troy?’ La Parola del Passato 48, 1993, pp.109-160.