Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World

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MOUNTAINS DON’T DANCE

Your theory is crazy. The question is, is it crazy enough?

—NIELS BOHR, DANISH PHYSICIST AND NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE

SOMEWHERE BEYOND the “Pillars of Hercules” lay the fabled island of Atlantis, home of an advanced civilization that once exerted a profound influence over the known world. After rising to a peak of power, refinement, and grace, this virtual paradise soon succumbed to vice and folly. Then, in a single “day and night of misfortune,” earthquakes shook the island to its foundation, and sent the formerly unrivaled civilization to the bottom of the sea.

This was the story according to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, whose fourth-century-B.C. dialogues Timaeus and Critias unleashed this fantastic vision onto the world. After a series of marathon discussions about the nature of justice, a wealthy old man named Critias was reminded of the story of Atlantis, which he had heard as a child. His grandfather, also named Critias, had heard it from his father, who in turn had gotten it from the distinguished Athenian Solon. This politician-poet had allegedly come across the old tradition on his journey to Egypt in about 600 B.C., when he met some priests who lived in the town of Sais on the Nile delta.

“O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children,” one of the elder priests dismissed the traveler, marveling at how little the Athenians remembered the past. The Egyptian records, by contrast, he was told, preserved the bewildering tale, fully developed in hieroglyphics carved on stone pillars in the temple. When Solon returned to his native Athens, he hoped to give the island of Atlantis its own full-length epic poem, one that he thought would surpass the masterpieces of Homer.

Having heard the tale as a ten-year-old boy, Critias did not think a single detail had escaped him over the years. The image of Atlantis, he said, had been “stamped firmly on my mind like the encaustic designs of an indelible painting.” With this assertion, Critias proceeded to tell the remarkable story of the world’s greatest lost civilization: its rise to power, its immense glory, and then its violent destruction, which left only a “barrier of impassable mud”—a formidable obstacle that still blocked access to this golden age, supposedly vanished since 9400 B.C.

Plato certainly knew how to capture the imagination. But could it really have happened? Could there have been such an idyllic civilization that was once destroyed by an earthquake and swallowed by the sea?

It is easy to dismiss the whole narrative as the product of an active imagination, and indeed you would be in good company. For just as the story of Atlantis is at least as old as Plato, debate about its existence has been lively since his own student, Aristotle, openly voiced his doubts. After all, with Aristotle’s mastery of ancient knowledge, which prompted the Roman natural philosopher Pliny to label him “a man of supreme eminence in every branch of science,” it is striking that he had not even heard of Atlantis before Plato outlined it in his famous dialogues.

Surely such a tale would not have escaped the attention of every previous chronicler. Not even the colorful historian Herodotus mentioned Atlantis. Like Solon, he had also visited Egypt, had spoken at length with the priests, and had a flair for the sensational and the mysterious. For Aristotle and the many critics who followed after him, Atlantis had of course never existed. Plato had conjured the whole thing out of his head, and then, as if to cover up for an embarrassing lack of corroborating evidence, conveniently made it all disappear.

Yet Plato repeatedly assures us that, however strange it may sound, the story of Atlantis is absolutely true. None of his other portraits of idealized societies, including the utopian community outlined in The Republic, shares the same pretensions to factual accuracy.

Plato’s plan, according to the first-century biographer Plutarch, was to create nothing less than a grand and stirring masterpiece. Solon had been unable to complete his epic poem, preoccupied perhaps by renewed tensions of Athenian political life, or, as Plutarch suggested, restrained by a fear of failure in the ambitious enterprise of trying to surpass Homer. As if claiming his family inheritance, Plato sought to build on this “fine but undeveloped site.” He marshaled his creative talents and then released them on lost Atlantis. It was to be constructed with a magnificence “such as no story or myth or poetic creation had ever received before.”

Unfortunately, however, Plato died before he could fully realize these aims, or perhaps abandoned the project when he struggled to find the fitting climax—and this leaves the oldest known account of Atlantis to end literally in the middle of a sentence.

Sure enough, over the last two thousand years, scientists, adventurers, visionaries, mystics, eccentrics, and lunatics have raced to fill in the missing details of this unfinished dialogue. Redrawn maps place the supposedly submerged civilization almost everywhere, and many come complete with elaborate theories painstakingly or at least passionately argued. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, few places have not been named as possible locations for the legendary island of Atlantis.

But few, it seems, were as unlikely a candidate and few would inspire as much enthusiasm, for a time, as the theory put forward by Uppsala’s professor of medicine, Olof Rudbeck.

“BY GOD’S GRACE, I have recently found such antiquities for our country and its great praise in the oldest Greek and Latin texts that it is unbelievable,” Rudbeck wrote to Chancellor de la Gardie at the end of December 1674, promising, though, to save the full details until he saw De la Gardie in person.

It must have been quite a conversation when Rudbeck told the count about his latest discovery. For that matter, it must have been quite an experience when the idea first struck him. The lost world of Atlantis, Rudbeck was growing convinced, had actually been in Sweden! Its capital was in fact just outside the university, in a place called Old Uppsala.

All learned Swedes knew this town as one of the earliest inhabited sites in the country. Popular belief, medieval sources, and Rudbeck’s own archaeological investigations had all confirmed its great age. Now, reading Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias closely, Rudbeck must have felt a strange sense of déjà vu. Here in the philosopher’s tale was a place beyond the Pillars of Hercules, that is, at the ends of the world, with a reputed center of culture, just as he had envisioned in the land of the Hyperboreans. And upon inspection it sounded increasingly like what he knew about Old Uppsala.

Blessed with many attractions, this town would indeed have been a most appropriate place for the kingdom builders. Just as Plato regarded it as the “fairest of all plains,” Old Uppsala was well known as a fertile, rich region, and at one time it had been the most populated area in Sweden. Its pleasant meadows and adjacent farmlands also enhanced the appeal of this ancient center.

According to Plato, this plain stretched some 3,000 stadia in length (about 550 kilometers) and 2,000 stadia in width (365 kilometers) reaching from the capital city to the “great sea.” Each of these points, Rudbeck ventured with typical boldness, could be found in Sweden. Although he concluded that Atlantis was in fact 5,000 stadia in length, the first measurement (3,000 stades) approximated the size of the kingdom, calculated from the capital at Old Uppsala to Torne in the Arctic north (the other 2,000 stadia ran south from Old Uppsala to Skåne). The width of 2,000 stadia estimated the distance across the center of the realm and did in fact end at a great sea, the North Sea in the west. The rocky, mountainous terrain encircling Atlantis also fit well, Rudbeck proposed, pointing to the Scanderna chain in the west and north, from which came the name Scandinavia. Enclosing the region of Old Uppsala, too, were many famous burial mounds—could these be the “sacred hills” of Atlantis?

When Rudbeck went out to the proposed capital city for the first time to investigate, he was amazed to find more than coincidental correspondences. Accompanying him that initial day, most likely in the summer of 1674, were four sons of the powerful nobleman Gustaf Kurck, who also marked out and measured the dimensions of the old capital. Eight other Uppsala students, who came along on the expedition, confirmed the length, breadth, and width of the capital, the dimensions laid out almost precisely as Plato had written two thousand years before. They had measured, remeasured, and, to his astonishment, found that the dimensions corresponded “not only with stadia but also with feet and steps.” The team concluded with another round of measurements using Rudbeck’s “mathematical instruments.” “Because neither I nor they,” he added, “could ever before believe this to be true.”

Leaving aside for the moment the many difficulties Rudbeck would face (and soon for the most part confront), there was actually good reason for his bursting enthusiasm. He had combed the pages of Plato’s dialogues, especially the more detailed Critias, looking for precise information about the physical location of the city: “At a distance of about fifty stades, there stood a mountain that was low on all sides.”

In addition, the philosopher noted other distinguishing features at the heart of the capital: the royal palace, the great temple, and a cluster of amenities, including gardens and exercise grounds. Nearby were also the three main harbors, and two rivers for transporting timber to the capital.

Beginning with the landmark least likely to change, Plato’s low mountain was immediately located. “This hill is none other than the one you see in Old Uppsala,” Rudbeck said, pointing out the distance, meticulously marked out and reproduced in a map of Atlantis he drew with the help of his students, who were somewhat overwhelmed at the easy genius of their unpredictable teacher. “Make a circle,” Rudbeck said, and trace its lines through the markers n and p; inside this circumference were to be found all the sites of the lost capital city.

To the north, just as Plato said, were the two rivers for shipping timber and grain. Known to any local peasant were Junkils aan, which still carried wood and grain from outlying regions, and Tensta aan, now limited only to smaller craft. So, if this latter stream did at times widen and narrow, causing occasional divergences from Plato’s specified width, Rudbeck was not overly worried. This was because, since the time when Atlantis had flourished, other streams, the Ekeby and Edshammar, had encroached on its waterways, and made it less passable for ships (as did the construction of an old mill). Besides that, Rudbeck was sure that the water levels had once been much higher.

They certainly had! As geologists later discovered, impenetrably thick glaciers had once covered the land around Old Uppsala and central Sweden, as they had most of northern Europe. When the glaciers began to thaw at the end of the last ice age, the water rose significantly, leaving the great plain still underwater as late as 4000 B.C. Rudbeck could not have known about this phenomenon, for glacial recession was as unfamiliar to scholars of his day as woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, or heavy-jawed Neanderthals. But evidence of high water was spotted, Rudbeck was convinced, deep in the layers of the humus, and the story of a drowning Atlantis did seem consistent with observable facts. Figure B on his map shows where the level of water in 1670s Old Uppsala fitted Plato’s descriptions more closely. The gently flowing streams were, in his view, the last remnants of the commercial rivers that had been so important to the economy of Atlantis.

Over the course of the 1670s, Rudbeck would make the four-kilometer carriage ride out to Old Uppsala many times to explore the terrain of Atlantis and search for any surviving remains. Sometimes he would bring along fellow professors of Uppsala, and at other times his gifted mathematical and engineering students, who were assisting with the land surveying. Much to his surprise, he found that Plato had captured the Swedish landscape rather well. “Not a single point,” Rudbeck said, “seems to be missing.”

Indeed, another readily identifiable landmark turned up, and this was certainly one of the rarest and most difficult finds for Atlantis hunters over the centuries: the track where the Atlanteans staged races and held equestrian contests.

When Plato put it at the center of the capital, Rudbeck knew a likely spot to start looking. He had heard that there had once been a course at Old Uppsala that had in fact still been used as late as the sixteenth century. Races had stopped at this old track only when King Charles IX, the father of Gustavus Adolphus, built a new, more modern one near the royal palace in Uppsala.

Although Rudbeck had looked over the proposed site on many occasions and his investigations had not yet unearthed any evidence, he knew some elderly gentlemen who did remember races being held there. One ninety-eight-year-old retired commander, who had served five Swedish kings at Uppsala Castle, confirmed the accuracy of the location, as did Gostaf Larsson, a grandfather of Rudbeck’s wife, Vendela. A closer look at the dimensions also showed a striking resemblance to the track of Atlantis, right down to the width, which ran to one stadium, or some six hundred feet, and into the edge of the swampy area that stabled the horses.

Map of Old Uppsala, the ancient site that Rudbeck identified as the capital of Atlantis. Plato’s mountain, rivers, sacred grove, racetrack, and royal burial mounds were quickly found, as were many other things over the next thirty years of Rudbeck’s quest.

This was indeed a stunning coincidence, and Rudbeck made plans to pursue this promising lead. But, even more fantastic, Rudbeck announced another discovery: he had found the old pagan temple of Atlantis.

According to Plato’s fable, the temple was an imposing open structure dedicated to the god Poseidon and his Atlantean lover Cleito. Located near the sacred grove and the sacred springs, this temple was “encircled with a wall of gold.” Inside stood golden statues, including the sea god riding a chariot with six winged chargers, “his own figure so tall as to touch the ridge of the roof, and round about him a hundred Nereids [sea nymphs] on dolphins.” Outside were many gold images of Atlantis’s extensive royal family.

Set against this lavish scenery, the kingdom of Atlantis hosted a monumental ceremony every five or six years. Each of the ten provinces that made up the federated power of Atlantis came together at this temple to evaluate their laws, “the precepts of Poseidon” that had long ago been inscribed upon a pillar of orchicalcum, a controversial mysterious metal that “sparkled like fire.” The festival began with a ritual bull hunt using only “staves and nooses”:

And whatsoever bull they captured they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of the pillar, raining down blood on the inscription. And inscribed upon the pillar, besides the laws, was an oath which invoked mighty curses upon them that disobeyed.

After consecrating the limbs, the Atlanteans then took one gout of the blood and mixed it with wine. As the rest of the pure blood was poured over the sacrificial fire, the leaders “swore to give judgment according to the laws upon the pillar and to punish whosoever had committed any previous transgression,” adding the further promise not to “transgress any of the writings willingly, nor govern nor submit to any governor’s edict save in accordance with their father’s laws.” The wine-and-blood mixture was then drunk, with the cup offered as a gift to the temple.

Such clues were critical, since there was clearly no pagan temple of Atlantis standing in the middle of Old Uppsala. So imagine Rudbeck’s pleasure to read a fascinating description of Old Uppsala during the late eleventh century. The observer was a medieval monk, Adam of Bremen, who had come to Sweden while preparing his church history of the north. In his chronicle was an account of a “well-known temple” at Old Uppsala that could only catch Rudbeck’s attention:

It is situated on level ground, surrounded by mountains. A large tree with spreading branches stands near the temple. There is also a spring nearby where the heathens make human sacrifices. A golden chain completely surrounds the temple, and its roof, too, is covered with gold.

Statues of three gods, Adam continued, stood inside the temple. On one side was Wotan, brandishing armor and weapons befitting this god of war; on the other side, Frey, a fertility god with a giant phallus. In between the two stood the god Thor, holding a scepter for his control over the primal elements, governing “the air with its thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and fair weather.” A glance at this temple and the many offerings, the monk also noted, showed how eagerly the Swedes tended to worship their ancient heroes.

“Every nine years a great ceremony is held at Uppsala. People bring sacrifices from all the Swedish provinces.” “Animals and humans,” Adam of Bremen continued, “are sacrificed, and their bodies are hung in the trees of a sacred grove that is adjacent to the temple.” Held in the highest honor, this grove was made “sacred through the death and putrefaction of the many victims that have hung there.” The sacrifices, the monk said, had been personally witnessed by a seventy-two-year-old man he had met. “The heathens chant many different prayers and incantations during these rituals, but they are so vile that I will say nothing further about them.”

There were others Rudbeck found, however, who would gladly expound on all the “impurities and abominations” that had once been practiced in Old Uppsala. One of the most vivid accounts came from the sixteenth-century Swedish humanist Olaus Magnus, who was Sweden’s last Catholic archbishop (though never consecrated). Looking back from the vantage point of the Swedish Reformation, Magnus used his historical background and his wonderful imagination to paint a gruesome portrait of the last days when the pagan religion flourished at Rudbeck’s selected site:

Now the man whom chance had presented for immolation would be plunged alive into the spring of water which gushed out by the sacrificial precinct. If he quickly breathed his last, the priests proclaimed that the votive offering had been auspicious, soon carried him off from there into a nearby grove, which they believed sacred, and hung him up, asserting that he had been transported into the assembly of the gods… .

For such an event, the “whole mass of the people would attend” and “wish [the victim] utmost joy.” This was after all “considered to be an offering most favorable for the kingdom,” taking place within the “rich magnificence” of the old temple, so sumptuously decorated that it was impossible to see any “inner walls, paneled ceilings, or pillars that did not glitter with gold.”

For Rudbeck, the monk and the bishop had preserved descriptions of an age-old rite that had survived in Sweden since the early days of the Atlantean empire. Clearly, though, there were many differences between the accounts of the temple of Atlantis and the pagan temple of Old Uppsala: Plato had said that the Atlanteans met every five or six years, and Adam of Bremen said the worshipers met every nine years; Plato noted that the Atlanteans worshipped Poseidon, and Adam of Bremen said that Norse gods were the objects of veneration; Plato specified the sacrifice of bulls, and the others mentioned “humans and animals.” But none of these or other differences seriously troubled Olof Rudbeck.

Such contradictions and disagreements were not so much obstacles to a hunter of the truth as they were guides of potentially great significance. He illustrated the point using a story from everyday experience.

Suppose a group of people take a trip. Would each individual in the party, Rudbeck asked, describe the same circumstances with the same words? His answer was a confident “no way.” Yet instead of simply concluding that the journey had never taken place, the differences in the various accounts could, if properly used, point the way to a greater knowledge and understanding of the event. If the example of the travelers failed to make an impression, Rudbeck had a more memorable one: the Four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all wrote the truth, though they were nevertheless not always in agreement “in all words and all circumstances.”

The same thing, he thought, was the case with Atlantis. Small differences in detail, such as Plato’s saying that the assembly was held every five or six years and Adam’s saying that it was held every nine years, did not irreparably harm the case. The fact that such differences existed, occurring over such a span of time, could potentially increase the value of the testimonies and add more credibility to the events they described. Taking the idea even further, Rudbeck believed such contradictions were preferable to the alternative. Had Plato and Adam of Bremen agreed in every single detail, then historians would have had to approach their accounts with more caution, for such an overwhelming agreement does not often occur naturally. Far more often, one account has been borrowed, copied, stolen, or just plain derived from—or influenced by—another.

Navigating through the chaos and uncertainty, in other words, was the surest way to find certainty. The historian’s task was to follow the trail wherever it might lead, uncovering the underlying kernels of truth among the diversity of conflicting evidence.

So, in the case of the temple, Rudbeck started trying to sort through the claims for the essential factual core. Plato had described the temple as lying near a mountain with an ornate wall of gold, and Adam of Bremen also mentioned the nearby mountain and the overlapping “golden chain.” Both noted the nearby springs, the sacred grove, and the rich offerings brought to the temple from the provinces. Sacrifices were performed in both accounts, and the victims were kept in the groves and springs. As for the particular differences, it was not inconceivable that those aspects could change over time, depending on the desires, needs, and priorities in each age.

Examination of the manuscripts of the Norse sagas did in fact turn up a closer resemblance between the sacrifices held in Atlantis and at Old Uppsala than Adam of Bremen could have known. In addition to the gruesome human sacrifices, the practice of offering bulls to the gods had also been carried out on Rudbeck’s chosen site, with the tradition “surviving” well into the Middle Ages. Snorri Sturlusons’s Heimskringla, or History of the Northern Kings, put it very clearly: “There was a custom in Sweden to rear a bull which would be sacrificed to Odin.”

The Viking sagas also helped clarify the reasons why the Atlanteans tied the bulls in the sacred grove, a situation that Plato never explained. The binding of the bulls, Rudbeck concluded, was carried out to make them “half-crazy” and ensure more of a challenge in the ritual hunt.

And the fact that no such golden chain or wall now existed in this location did not mean that none had existed there before. Many sources had reported the elaborate golden decorations, and it was a well-known fact that this temple had been plundered of its riches in the Middle Ages, after the introduction of Christianity and the gradual demise of the pagan religion. Yet, centuries after this disappearance, Rudbeck was making the shocking revelation that some remains of the great temple of Atlantis had actually survived. Astonishingly, according to Rudbeck, they were visible in plain sight.

Standing in the middle of the plain near the sacred grove and sacred spring was a very old structure, one of the first Christian churches in Sweden and the seat of the first archbishopric in the kingdom. Built over the course of many years in the middle of the twelfth century, Old Uppsala Church still stands today as one of Sweden’s oldest sites. And Rudbeck believed not only that this church was built on the grounds of the demolished pagan temple, but that its construction had incorporated many of the temple’s materials. Bits and pieces of Atlantis were, in other words, to be found in the walls of the old church.

Many times over the next few years, Rudbeck and some fellow enthusiasts would come to Old Uppsala and chip away at the old walls, “so loose in places that [chunks of Atlantis] could be taken out with the fingers.” On one outing with a classics professor, Anders Norcopensis, and the vice-librarian, Professor Wallerius, the scholarly ensemble searched “every nook and cranny.” They found much evidence in the walls of gold, silver, and copper having been combined with the limestone, presumably by talented Atlantean goldsmiths. Next time, when Rudbeck was back with one of his students, the engraver Petrus Törnewall, they found a large, crooked, rusty nail containing scattered specks of pure gold.

This may not sound like a lot, but the traces of gold in the rusty old nails would be more than enough to keep Rudbeck pressing on at Old Uppsala. And when he started looking near the sacred grove, he found an “unspeakable amount of jawbones, teeth, and feet of horses, pigs, oxen, and dogs burned and unburned.” This finding, Rudbeck said, “gave us good reason to search further.”

WHILE RUDBECK HAPPILY wrote in December 1674 that he planned to begin printing his book in less than two months, he would soon learn that the celebrations were a bit premature. For in the meantime, his loyal printer Henrik Curio had been sacked.

The process of removing this alleged slacker had begun at the end of 1674, with the official inquiries and inventories turning into a full-fledged trial. Some of Uppsala’s most distinguished theologians, Rudbeck’s old adversary Lars Stigzelius among others, were leading the prosecution. They were joined by prominent members of the College of Antiquities, Johan Schefferus and Johan Hadorph, who were quite upset by the slow progress and the poor results at the press. Representing the defense was a young man named Ingo Rudbeck, Olof’s cousin and at that time a student training to become a lawyer.

Finally aware and genuinely concerned that the situation had moved beyond mere warnings and rumors of dismissal, Rudbeck wrote a long letter to De la Gardie pleading on behalf of his printer and friend. Curio had managed to publish many excellent works from Uppsala’s scholars. Johan Schefferus, Johan Loccenius, and Olaus Verelius had all seen their works produced with success by the printer, despite the slim financial resources and rather unenviable working conditions.

When Curio had arrived at the Uppsala press, for instance, he had found that the previous book printer, Johannes Pauli, had illegally sold the equipment. The journeymen apprentices were “ready to kill each other,” with one stealing the movable block letters and floating them on the black market. Curio encountered a host of other unexpected obstacles, including Professor Johan Hadorph, who was keeping his cows in a nearby university building. So if the books were now deemed of poor quality, an embarrassment, then the university should share much of the blame for not providing better facilities. Then Rudbeck admitted his own responsibility for the state of affairs.

Not only was he the one who had persuaded Curio to come to Uppsala, but he had also promised an attractive salary and a workable printing budget, neither of which the university actually saw fit to grant. In fact, the issue of the unpaid salary would blow up in its own right into a nasty side quarrel between Rudbeck and some Uppsala professors on the university council who simply denied that he had the right to make such an offer. The salary never materialized, and now Curio was unceremoniously turned out with few prospects in the current economic conditions.

Rudbeck’s concern seems so strong that, at times, one can only wonder if he rushed up the plans to publish his book as part of an immediate and desperate attempt to save his friend. He knew how much De la Gardie had come to value his quest. Should anything threaten its well-being, such as the trouble with Curio, then perhaps the chancellor would intervene and protect the future of the historic search for Atlantis.

At any rate, Rudbeck’s letters were to no avail, and neither were the efforts of his cousin Ingo. The defense was inexperienced, but even so, the merits of the case seemed decidedly in the favor of the prosecution. By the conclusion of the trial, speedily ended in January 1675, Curio had been officially dismissed from his duties, and ordered to return the entire press to the university in the same way that he had received it, in addition to paying a three-hundred-riksdaler fine. In a related case, brought on by the antiquarian Hadorph and one prominent theologian, Curio was sentenced to fourteen days in prison (for falsely accusing the prosecution of tampering with its key evidence).

“They wanted his throat,” Verelius said of Curio’s accusers. The printer had lost easily, and the prospects of a successful appeal were small. Given the strength of the prosecution, it is not hard to imagine the Swedish supreme court simply affirming this verdict. What Rudbeck decided to do next was, to say the least, surprising.

In an age when legal rights depended largely on one’s position in society, Rudbeck first removed himself from the protection of university law. By virtue of his shipping company, he signed himself instead under the less privileged jurisdiction of the town law. Then Rudbeck persuaded Curio to sue him personally, that is, for failing to keep the terms of their agreement. And Rudbeck, now under Uppsala town law, would in turn sue the university for breaking its contractual obligations.

It was a very clever move that seemed to solve many problems at once, stealing the thunder from the prosecution and shifting the thrust of the debate onto an issue in which Rudbeck’s and Curio’s chances of victory were at least not hopeless. Most important, Rudbeck’s juggling of jurisdictions would buy some valuable time, and allow Curio to remain at his post as long as the court cases were pending. By then, Rudbeck’s discovery of Atlantis would almost certainly be printed, and Curio would perhaps even enjoy a happy retirement.

Postponing an inevitable defeat, Rudbeck had found a brilliant solution to their predicament. But, typically, it showed an outrageous disregard for his fellow professors who wanted a more conscientious printer, and, unfortunately for Rudbeck, stirred a hornet’s nest of resentment.

The university had not faced such a brazen challenge to its authority in recent memory, and it had certainly never been sued by one of its own professors. Even Count de la Gardie, Rudbeck’s most trusted supporter, was furious. As chancellor of the university, the count sent a letter full of uncommon passion and anger, denouncing Rudbeck’s complete lack of judgment, and threatening, ominously, that he would not tolerate such unabashed disrespect. The count’s words were so strong that Rudbeck’s many enemies reveled, and the effects on Rudbeck were unmistakable:

All my troubles, worries, sicknesses and sorrows that I have had since my childhood up to this day, and all the ill will my enemies wish me, have never moved my heart to hate, or caused sickness, or tears to break out, [because] by virtue of God’s Grace I have been able to consider all that vanity, and meet it with the heart’s patience and a glad face; but the letter I received from Your Excellency’s graceful and always comforting hands now from Läckö was more difficult for me than all that… .

Rudbeck tried to apologize, claiming that he had been completely oblivious of the uproar he had created. He had no idea how serious his offense was, or how passionately the university would react. He was only, he said, trying to support his friend, and do what he thought was right.

He affirmed again how he felt partly responsible for Curio’s misfortunes, and could not pay the fines himself—not, that is, “without bringing my wife and children into ruin.” This letter also shows one of the first signs of Rudbeck’s changing disposition, from the strong, self-confident, and enthusiastic achiever to what some historians have called a tendency to hypochondria and paranoia—a tendency that had perhaps been there all along, only concealed underneath his cheery and vivacious personality.

“Now that I am in my last days, and have so sickly a constitution,” Rudbeck cried out, “I fear that God the Highest will not wait much longer before He takes me away from here.” This was no mere melodramatic pose or appeal to pity, both of which he had certainly mastered. He really seemed to feel that he was falling into worse health, and, often during times of crisis, that he was on the verge of death.

Further, he would see enemies everywhere, gossiping, spreading malicious rumors, and plotting to bring him down, just as they had done before in front of the university, and seemed to be doing again with their attack on his friend Henrik Curio. They must also, he surmised, be behind De la Gardie’s unexpected anger. Rudbeck’s feelings of persecution and fear of imminent death were easily magnified by his inventive mind. All these anxieties only added to the pressing sense of hurry that was driving his lifelong quest for the lost civilization.