Atlantis, a likely mythical island nation mentioned in Platos dialogues Timaeus and Critias, has been an object of fascination among western philosophers and historians for nearly 2,400 years. Plato (c.424328 B.C.) describes it as a powerful and advanced kingdom that sank, in a night and a day, into the ocean around 9,600 B.C. The ancient Greeks were divided as to whether Platos story was to be taken as history or mere metaphor.
Colossus: "gigantic statue," late 14c., from Latin colossus "a statue larger than life," from Greek kolossos "gigantic statue," which is of unknown origin. The Greek word was used by Herodotus of giant Egyptian statues and by Romans of the bronze Helios at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes. Figurative sense of "any thing of awesome greatness or vastness" is from 1794.