One of the theories about Atlantis says that Plato based his story on the destruction of the Minoans. I thought you were talking about that. It's a posibility, but IMO it is a stupid one and very shortsighted, as it assumes that historians back then, Plato himself and the pupils that the story was supposedly created for, completely lacked any knowledge about the recent story of an island so close to them, while they knew Egypt so well and they knew something, although not as much, about the Iberian peninsula (to the point they supposedly traded wit them). Hell there's apparently even some mention to Britain islands. So they knew a fair bit about the surroundings as to Plato needing to invent a story about a civilization that didn't exist, when with the same purpose of teaching morals, he could have just mentioned the Minoans. There's no need to place the event in another place.
Regardng the accuracy of ancient historians, it's the same I said earlier, we assume they always used the hyperbole and that their claims were overly exagerated, but IMO that's too much assumption with no single proof. One example is when the number of soldiers brought to battles are mentioned. Historians always say the actual number was probably 10 or 20 times lower and on what do they base their claims? On the number of soldiers brought to battle in middle age, and between many other stupid "evidences", the notion that population has always always been on the rise.
As if population had not been halved twice during the middle age due to plagues and war. And that was during a span of around 800 years and very localized, while just before the rise of the Greeks as a power, a longer, widespread and probably blodier dark age happened, which probably decimated all the civilizations beyond what it's conceivable today. The very existence and nature of Sea People suggest a massive devastation. (ironically though, many historians say Sea People are another myth too, whatever)
But it's always the same, as we move into the future we must be more intelligent, we must be stronger and we must be simply more of us and we don't see the truth even when part of this truth could be explained by this very notion of the superiority of "today". For example, you would say that after the democratic Greeks extended a more elaborated diplomacy around their area of influence, the need for war and the required defense forces would decrease dramatically, but apparently this simple notion is not even considered.
Greeks themselves often talked about themselves as a nation made of slaves of some other civlization that escaped after a glorious victory. An story that resembles a lot the failed attempt made later by Spartacus and his men some centuries later. In this one many died too and I don't think it's too far fetched to think that a bigger "anything" (in this case a revolt) has ever happened before we have records, for the simple reason that we do not have records. It's stupid but a norm no matter which modern historian you read... I'm kind of sick of that actitude whenever I read history.
