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

14

ON NOTHING

How much more rabidly, too, will he believe in his cause when he sees you and people like you not only coming in crowds but with smiles of congratulation on your faces?

—CICERO, WRITING IN A LETTER TO HIS FRIEND ATTICUS ABOUT JULIUS CAESAR, 49 B.C.

ON A SNOWY DAY in late March 1679, the first bound copy of Rudbeck’s work rolled off Curio’s press. Emblazoned triumphantly on the title page was the word Atlantica, the Latin name for the central discovery of the text. The Swedish title elaborated somewhat, adding another twenty-seven of the most prominent findings Rudbeck had made in the course of his investigations. The full title filled almost the entire first page:

Olof Rudbeck’s Atland or Manheim, from which come the descendants of Japhet, the most prominent imperial and royal families governing the whole world, and from which also poured out the following peoples, namely the Scythians, Barbarians, Aesir, Giants, Goths, Phrygians, Trojans, Amazons, Thracians, Libyans Mauer, Tussar, Gauls, Cimbrians, Cimmerians, Saxons, Germans, Swedes, Longobards, Vandals, Heruli, Gepar, Angles, Picts, Danes, and Sea Peoples, and many others which shall be proven in the work.

As soon as the inclement weather lifted, Rudbeck sent over the almost nine-hundred-page volume to his patron, Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, in the count’s castle outside Stockholm. The young man chosen to transport this bulky package was Anders Goeding, a “diligent and learned student” who had spent the last seven years at university reading philosophy and theology. He was a close friend, a promising logician, and also the future husband of Rudbeck’s daughter Johanna Kristina.

In the eyes of Rudbeck, approaching his fiftieth birthday, the publication of Atlantica marked the highlight of his career. Not even his discovery of the lymphatic glands, the observation of comets, or the design of many buildings could compare with the fantastic succession of breakthroughs he had made about the ancient world.

To Rudbeck’s delight, many contemporaries agreed. Two German visitors, for example, came across Rudbeck’s Atlantica in Stockholm that spring, and each bought a copy. Deciding to make a journey out to Old Uppsala to see the sights of Atlantis themselves, they were so impressed that, Rudbeck joked, he believed one of them was probably “still there and kissing the old walls and big mounds.”

This was a sign of things to come. After a slow beginning, with only a few letters of appreciation trickling in over the summer, the pace picked up in the autumn. Rudbeck would be celebrated as the “Atlas of the northern skies,” a pioneer who blazed a heroic trail into the past. According to one enthusiastic reader, Rudbeck was a “Swedish Heracles” who had accomplished his own personal Herculean labor, and restored light where dark Cimmerian mists had formerly prevailed. To another admirer, Rudbeck had solved one of the great riddles of the past, proving how so many peoples had come out of Sweden “as if from a Trojan horse.”

His adversaries, on the other hand, were appalled at such praise. They had hoped to see Rudbeck’s work flop. Some were even haunted by envy, as if, one contemporary said, pursued by the Furies, those dark mythic creatures with “heads wreathed in swarming serpents” that hounded their victims to madness. And to the horror of these scholars, words of praise, gratitude, and encouragement would continue to reach Uppsala from many different places.

Merchants discussed the work in the busy port of Gothenburg, and vicars in magnificent Stockholm churches testified to Rudbeck’s “immeasurable labor, wonderful genius and manner of expression.” One reader, the director of the Witchcraft Commission for three northern provinces, Anders Stiernhöök, claimed that he simply could not put the book down. He was undertaking daily studies throughout the fall of 1679, and the joy of the readings, he said, scarcely left him in control of his senses.

Appreciation for the “oracle of the north” also raged outside Sweden. The famous polymath, Kiel’s own walking encyclopedia, D. G. Morhof, described his own experience with Rudbeck’s mammoth work: “I completely devoured the book in one unbroken reading.” He enclosed a poem on the merits of the “divine Atlantica,” admiring how Rudbeck made the dirt speak and the stones of the north proclaim their unrivaled antiquity. Rudbeck, he added, painted “his genius in most beautiful hues.”

Similarly, glowing testimony arrived from no less than London’s Royal Society, the famous gathering of natural philosophers and gentleman dilettantes that included Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, and Samuel Pepys. With Christopher Wren in the presidential chair, the Royal Society sent Rudbeck the following words: “We are not able to admire enough the power of genius and the abundance of learning … by which you uncover the secrets of the past.”

At least three times during the fall and winter of 1681–82, Rudbeck’s theories were discussed in the chambers of the Royal Society. Atlantica was also chosen to be reviewed in the Royal Society’s journal, Philosophical Transactions. In the issue dated January 10, 1681/82 (the double year because Britain was still refusing to adopt the Gregorian calendar and, as a result, was ten days behind most of Europe), the reviewer proclaimed, “This deservedly famous Author has here undertaken a great Work, and much to the honor of his Country, to set forth the Rise and Progress of the kingdom of Sweeden, from Japhet the first king and Possessor thereof in the times nearest the Flood, to Charles now at present Reigning… .”

The reviewer went on, praising Rudbeck’s work on the earliest civilization as flourishing first in Sweden, referring afterwards to the “expedition of the gods” from Sweden, and the establishment of colonies all over the Mediterranean. All of this was mentioned without criticism, even the Swedish conquests over “most of Europe, Asia, the Indies to Aegypt and the parts thereabout.” Such a favorable review no doubt helped disseminate the news and excitement of Rudbeck’s bold theory throughout the international Republic of Letters.

Accolades for the Swedish physician went further still. At the Royal Society’s meeting held December 14, 1681, Rudbeck was proposed as a member. It was in fact an expert on the ancient world, former Cambridge University Regius Professor of Greek Thomas Gale, who officially proposed Rudbeck to the Royal Society. In his enthusiasm, seconded by the physicist Robert Hooke, he nominated Atlantica’s deliveryman for membership as well.

DESPITE THE HONOR, Rudbeck never showed any signs of interest in joining the distinguished society, or in engaging in regular correspondence with its members. He was far too preoccupied, busying himself with his own search, as the mysteries of the past had not ceased to unfold. Many new pieces of evidence were still turning up to support his claims, and in some cases, entirely new discoveries were being made along the way.

By now, too, Rudbeck had, incredibly, launched another massive project, a botanical work called Campus Elysii, which attempted to describe all the plants of the world, complete with life-size reproductions. This work received its name from the Elysian Fields, the ancient paradise lands that Rudbeck had earlier found in Sweden. Since his sons and daughters were now old enough to help, Rudbeck’s adventure was becoming a family enterprise. Olof junior, Johanna Kristina, and young Vendela in particular helped with the project, working on many of the woodcuts of the plants. This collaboration with his children, along with the recognition he had received for his Atlantica, must have provided a powerful boost.

But the last few years had not only seen glowing tributes to Atlantica, and poetic fanfares to its wonderful, bewildering genius. There were those who had been less than impressed. Schefferus, Rudbeck’s rival in the Old Uppsala dispute, had received a copy straight from the press while he lay on his deathbed in March 1679, and had said, “God knows where he got all this he has written! I did not think Rudbeck was capable of such a work.”

When Rudbeck heard this, he took it as a compliment, a sign that the former contender had finally been brought around by the sheer force of the argument. One of Schefferus’s friends at his bedside, however, knew otherwise, because the dying scholar had added, “For there is much craziness in it, too.”

Wisdom pours out of the ancient north, and Europeans catch the overflow. Some, however, try to devour more than they can stomach.

Indeed, from the very beginning, even before the long-awaited publication of the book, all sorts of rumors about Rudbeck and his integrity were circulated by his enemies at Uppsala University. One of the worst was a savage satire of Atlantica’s author as a buffoon who “knew nothing.” Written as a pamphlet, this “censura gravissima” pretended to be a proclamation issued by the classical god Apollo high atop Mount Parnassus. Transcribed from “the protocols” by his secretary Mercury, another god of Swedish descent in Atlantica, this anonymous pamphleteer launched into a tirade against “the very celebrated Herr Olof Rudbeck.” The jack of all trades was now pronounced, in the words of Apollo, incompetent in each of his areas: “In theology as well as jurisprudence, as well as medicine, chemistry, philosophy, Herr Rudbeck knows nothing.”

Undismayed on the surface, but not known for taking criticism well, Rudbeck responded by announcing his upcoming lecture series at the university; he would teach the greatest, most profound subject, and his self-proclaimed specialty: nothing.

So imagine the surprise of students, not to mention the officials, when they read the formal lecture catalog for Uppsala University for the fall term 1679. Next to botany, anatomy, theology, and the familiar academic subjects, there was the following offering:

Olof Rudbeck is going to treat his listeners to a very useful, very intricate, and very subtle subject that is never praised enough: Nothing.

Surprise, laughter, and probably some cheers for one of Uppsala’s perennially favorite teachers. Rudbeck was once again having fun at his enemies’ expense. As the university catalog went on to describe the course, Rudbeck kept playing with his rivals’ own Aristotelian terms in a mocking fashion. “He is going to show how Nothing arose and fell, and trace its unending affections, virtues, and deficiencies as well as its multifaceted uses in theology, law, medicine, philosophy, all mechanical arts, and daily life.”

Needless to say, few of his Uppsala colleagues were amused by this prank. University officials were upset at this “tasteless gesture,” with one professor saying, “Each and every person who tastelessly cracks jokes about a serious matter knows nothing about good manners and culture; but Olof Rudbeck does this in the Uppsala professors’ lecture catalog; therefore he knows nothing about education.”

Some professors evidently worried about the effects on young people. Would this not bring the educational mission into disrepute, or perhaps give the impression that there was no such thing as knowledge? Even the archbishop, Johannes Baazius the Younger, agreed that this prank was insulting and went a little too far.

Again Rudbeck was forced to explain himself, both at the council meeting and to the university chancellor. No, he said, this lecture series “On Nothing” was not meant to insult his colleagues or deny the existence of knowledge. He had only intended to offer some reflections on the many uses of “nothing” in the sciences. From medicine to pharmacy to physics, he saw nothing, and nothing everywhere. This was, as he put it, an attempt at a “true science of nothing.”

Was Rudbeck speaking of experiments with vacuum, then in vogue among some natural philosophers? Was he hinting at a sharper mystical turn? Or was this just another attempt to get out of trouble? That is hard to say, though it was probably a little bit of each. De la Gardie, at any rate, accepted Rudbeck’s explanation. The count also acknowledged that Rudbeck had behaved somewhat inconsiderately with his announced program.

For Rudbeck, the critiques—just like the words of encouragement—acted like powerful stimulants, urging him forward, a man driven and not exactly known for his sense of moderation. When the objections moved beyond the realm of personal attacks, they could be even more beneficial. Sometimes they helped him identify unforeseen problems with his theory about Atlantis, or pinpoint areas that needed more fiddling. And Rudbeck would almost invariably proceed to solve them, at least to his own satisfaction.

Spurred on by encouragement and criticism in equal measure, not to mention his own inner drive to perfect the theory, Rudbeck made so many advances that he dreamed of publishing “a small addition” to Atlantica. The problem, however, was that he was deep in debt, and despite the many positive reviews, the sales of the book had been unexpectedly slow.

“Wish what Your Excellence said had been true,” Rudbeck wrote to De la Gardie, referring to the count’s prediction that there would soon not be enough copies to satisfy the demand. Most of the initial print run of some five hundred copies, with one hundred special, lavishly produced copies, was still available for purchase.

Frustratingly, after two weeks on the market, only sixty copies of the special presentation copies had been sold. He had set aside forty of them for the high-ranking figures at court, or leaders in the king’s government, but not a single volume was sold until the fourth of April, when the governor of the province of Geflve bought his copy.

Sales were so slow, in fact, that it is almost possible to count them as they occurred. In the first weeks, only about one dozen of the regular copies of Atlantica were sold anywhere in the kingdom. Rudbeck’s brother-in-law Professor Carl Lundius bought one of the first copies to come off the press. So did the professor of medicine Petrus Hoffvenius, his longtime friend, as well as the classical scholar Anders Norcopensis, who had translated the volume. Several noblemen and officials had also bought their own copies of Atlantica, but somewhat disappointingly they tended to opt for the cheaper volumes. Also, as Rudbeck complained, “when one person buys it, he loans it to everyone.”

None of these trends boded well for narrowing the gulf between the glowing praise and the glaring lack of sales. Over the summer of 1679, the number of copies sold was, according to his own testimony, a grand total of one. Weary from worry, Rudbeck reported a few months later that, despite all his efforts, he had not managed to sell more than 120 copies. Given the huge debts he had assumed to print the work, Rudbeck hoped and prayed that the dismal slump would come to a speedy end. At this rate he was inching closer to financial disaster.

Sadly, one of the great sources of inspiration in his life, his dear friend Olaus Verelius, had fallen gravely ill. He had shown signs of deterioration for a while now. Rudbeck noted how his colleague would come over to his house and stand there in the doorway, nearly out of breath from the walk up the flight of stairs. The day Rudbeck had long dreaded came in early January 1682, and Rudbeck took a break from his own sorrows to write his friend’s epitaph, Corona virtutis (“crown of virtue”):

… the one who knows what has happened in the oldest times

He is as aged as the times

And has a big trace of God’s image;

Whose foremost property is

An unfathomable wisdom

Such words reveal a great amount about Rudbeck and his relationship with Verelius, not to mention his appreciation of the wisdom that was to be mined from the past. And every bit of this wisdom would be needed for what awaited him.

BETWEEN THE TIME Atlantica was published and when it reached the Royal Society two years later, Rudbeck’s country had undergone some dramatic changes in the dramatic century that many historians call the “Swedish Age of Greatness.”

The young king Charles XI, so uncertain when he first sat on the throne, had matured considerably during the last four years, which he had spent almost completely on mud-soaked battlefields. In 1680, now that the war was over and Sweden had finally repulsed the Danish invaders, he was back in his royal palace in Stockholm. Coaxed by his new associates, the twenty-five-year-old king declared himself absolute ruler of Sweden.

No longer would he promise to seek the advice of the council before making decisions of consequence. The old council had in fact been disgraced by the poor showing in the war, deemed irrelevant, and, eventually, denounced as dangerously incompetent. Other traditional limitations on royal power were likewise to be swept away, at least in theory. Although the king had assumed many more powers during the humiliations and crises of the recent war, keeping real decision-making within his small circle of favorites in the camp, Charles XI was now, by law, answerable only to God in heaven.

For the vast majority of Swedes laboring under the severe strains of the state military machine, the king’s assumption of absolute power would not make all that much difference. They would continue to toil away on the farms and fields, struggling desperately with harsh winters, crushing taxes, and the ever-present threat of famine. For the small middle class, growing steadily though still much smaller than that in Britain, the Netherlands, or France, there would be more opportunities for joining the growing administration and serving the state. But the impact of the new system would be felt most by the high aristocracy, and for some the experience would be catastrophic.

With the Swedish navy annihilated and the countryside devastated, the setbacks of the last war had shown the sorry state to which the country had fallen. Sweden was, in the words of the king, like a poorly equipped ship that had just managed to survive the stormy waters to creep back into harbor. It was vastly in need of repairs, though there was no money available to make them, let alone repay all its enormous debts. There wasn’t even money to pay the crew, the loyal state employees who were keeping the creaking ship afloat.

“We know that the country is in desperate straits, and that everyone serves without wages,” one government official expressed his concern in one of the lively debates in Parliament held during the turbulent fall of 1680. Meanwhile, “a handful of persons,” he added, “own all the land in the kingdom.” At this cue, another member chimed in, “And what happens is that the poor among us have to pay up, but the rich and the powerful, who own the nation’s land, have done nothing; this is something that ought to be looked into.”

The new absolute power planned to do exactly that, and the result was radical, to say the least. The king’s men would examine every undertaking of the regency government—every single decision, expense, or gift bestowed in the last few decades would be scrutinized with the aim of discovering the “source of all the disorder.” And that source, it was added ominously, would be held accountable.

What had long been murmured was now written as the law of the realm. The members of the regency, the old elite who steered the country, were officially blamed for the “miserable condition of the finances” and the great disasters of the 1670s that nearly destroyed the kingdom. Now they would have to pay—and the price, it was decided, would be their own property.

Along with this punishment, the king decided to establish a “Chamber of Liquidation.” Far too many gifts and donations had been awarded to court favorites, seriously eroding the government’s sources of income. The king’s chamber was to make sure that all such grants were returned to the Crown. This was known as the reduction. With remarkably few exceptions, any major royal gift provided for any reason since 1632 was now judged to have been illegal and ordered to be returned immediately, with interest.

Such a sweeping plan was necessary, its proponents argued, to rescue Sweden from a state of emergency. To the high aristocracy targeted, however, reduction was just a fancy word for vengeful robbery perpetrated by the king and his advisers.

Unfortunately for Rudbeck and his hopes of continuing his search for Atlantis, one of the hardest hit was Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie. After steadily losing his influence with the king and his position of power, the count was nevertheless still unprepared for the nightmare that followed.

The king’s men finalized the scrutiny of De la Gardie’s actions as Chancellor of the Realm, and judged that he owed the state a total of some 352,159 daler silvermynt, a sum that could pay the annual salary of no fewer than eight hundred officials in the state bureaucracy.

Considering the extent of the count’s property and assets, this fine might not have been so devastating. The problem was that the vast majority of his wealth consisted of land, not cash, and many of his transferable valuables, such as jewels, had already been mortgaged in an effort to maintain his lavish lifestyle and patronage. In one case, the count had even pawned an entire castle, Makalös, which stood just across the water from the royal palace and one of the most impressive in all of Stockholm. Far worse than all this, however, was the verdict of the Liquidation Chamber.

De la Gardie would watch helplessly as castle after castle, estate after estate, and jewel after jewel disappeared from his grasp. By the time the chamber finished its work, roughly three dozen castles, two hundred estates, and one thousand farms were lost, leaving the count literally with only one single castle, Venngarn.

In this bitter turn of events, De la Gardie turned to his last source of consolation: religious faith. One of the spiritual poems he composed at this time, when he was subjected to such wild extremes of fortune, is still a part of Sweden’s Lutheran hymnal.

I from life’s stormy ocean come

Home to a friendly strand.

What though my flesh lie in the tomb?

My soul is in God’s hand.

From darkness into light I move,

From poverty to wealth of love,

From strife to rest eternal.

By the end of the reduction, many other aristocratic families had also been plundered and devastated. The Brahes, the Oxenstiernas, and the De la Gardies, who together once owned about one-twentieth of all land in Sweden, saw much of their wealth depleted. Others left the country in 1680 for good, moving to the Netherlands, Britain, the Hapsburg lands, or anywhere away from the Liquidation Chamber of Charles XI’s Sweden.

Although some families would bounce back to prominence, many would never recover from such an unprecedented transfer of castles and properties. The winners in the royal lottery would be the growing state, its new civil servants, and the emerging businessmen with money to buy the new, relatively cheap castles that temporarily flooded the market. And ultimately, it was said, the country at large would benefit. Land ownership in Sweden would never be the same; a transformation had begun that would gradually allow this Scandinavian country to have one of the most equal distributions of land ownership anywhere in the world.

At the time, though, chaos prevailed, and De la Gardie was not one of those who would live to see their families reemerge after the upheaval. From the depths of an unofficial political exile, he had fallen straight into the abyss. Very disillusioned by the cruel swings of fortune, the count was further embittered when he saw many of his former friends forget the services he had previously rendered them. Time after time, he was abandoned by those he had promoted into power.

But Rudbeck would never forget the count’s past favors. There is no change in the tone of his letters, or in the volume of pages that he sent to his friend. In fact, if anything, it seems that Rudbeck was trying to overcompensate. For De la Gardie, Atlantica’s greatest supporter and Sweden’s greatest patron of the arts in that century, was on his way to a poor, almost penniless, and, with a few exceptions, pretty much unmourned death.