Atlantis

Atlantis, known in myth as Poseidonia, was the great sea-faring city of Poseidon and the site of his greatest temple. Located near the island of Crete, it was an ancient civilization that may have existed in some form since the reign of the Titans. It was there that Kratos found his dying mother Callisto, and there that his battle with the monster Scylla and his freeing of the Titan Thera brought the entire city sinking beneath the ocean.

The domain of Poseidon#

Atlantis was the mortal domain of Poseidon and the place of his greatest temple. Though it was sometimes likened to the legendary continent of myth, this city lay near the island of Crete rather than beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It may even have predated the rule of Olympus and of Poseidon himself, for the ancient Death Gate and the Temple of Thanatos were placed within its bounds by immortals before the Age of Man. Its people were a great sea-faring civilization, and the city may have existed in some form during the reign of the Titans, when the seas were ruled by the ancient Oceanus.

The death of Callisto#

After the attack on Sparta and the taking of his brother Deimos by Ares and Athena, Kratos' mother Callisto was brought to Atlantis and confined to the Temple of Poseidon at the peak of the city. Nearing the end of her life, the former lover of Zeus called out to her son, now among the rulers of Olympus, and Kratos received her prayers and sailed for the city with a great fleet, his mentor Athena pleading with him to abandon the quest.

The protector of Atlantis, the fabled sea monster Scylla, destroyed most of the invading fleet, though she could not kill Kratos himself. Pushing into the inner city, Kratos faced Poseidon's defenders, the sea folk of Tritons and monsters such as Cyclopes and Geryons, while Poseidon, forbidden to face his fellow god directly, could not interfere in person. Kratos found the Eye of Atlantis, a powerful artifact channeling the power of the oceans, and turned it against his enemies. Reaching the Temple of Poseidon, he was reunited with his mother, who told him of his brother's true fate, but as she tried to whisper the name of his father she transformed into a hideous monstrosity, forcing Kratos to mortally wound her. In her final moments she returned to her true form and again begged him to save Deimos before her body vanished.

The sinking of the city#

Kratos' battle with Scylla devastated Atlantis and led him to the great volcano on its edge, which the Atlanteans had contained with their Archimedean Screws while keeping watch over the imprisoned Titan Thera. When Kratos freed Thera, a volcanic eruption ravaged the island, and Atlantis began to sink into the ocean. The Spartan escaped the city and afterward found the Skull of Keres, the key to the Domain of Death, in the Temple of Ares. He and his warriors later returned to the sunken city to enter Death's Domain, meeting fierce resistance from the Tritons and violent storms, with the divine lightning of Poseidon raining down and destroying their ship, casting Kratos into the watery abyss. The destruction of his city greatly enraged Poseidon, and it became one of the reasons the Sea God sought Kratos' death.