The City of Gold

Episode 37-39 - Finally, after all their travels, Esteban and company discover the first City of Gold

The Seven Cities of Cibola In 1536, at the height of Spanish exploration of the new world, Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and three others were shipwrecked on the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. For 8 years they journeyed through what would later become Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before being "found" and returned to Mexico City. During this time, they were sometimes enslaved by the native people that they met. At other times, they were able to convince these natives that they had special healing powers and were able to continue on in the journey. At some various points along the way, they heard of seven cities to the north named Cibola that were so fabulously wealthy that their streets were paved with gold.
Upon their return and the revelation of these golden cities, Spanish leaders [viceroy of New Spain Antonio de Mendoza] in Mexico City immediately sent out expeditions to locate the seven cities. The first expedition was led by a priest, Marcos de Niza, and included a black Moor slave, Esteban, who had wandered with Cabeza de Vaca. As they journeyed northward, Marcos de Niza sent Esteban ahead to search for the best route. Esteban was killed by the Indians but not before he sent word back that he had found the golden cities.
Because of Esteban's death, Marcos de Niza returned to Mexico City with the news of the golden cities. The Spaniards then sent out a great expedition of 300 Spaniards, 1000 Indians, all led by Coronado. Coronado journeyed until his supplies had run out and disease had killed most of his men. He had traveled through Arizona as far as the Zuni villages in New Mexico and still not found the Golden Cities of Cibola. He returned to Mexico City in failure.

Episode 37 - While recounting the history of the empire of Hiva, the High Priest also relates some of the history of Atlantis and the war that destroyed both civilizations.

Atlantis, in the tradition of antiquity, a large island in the Western Ocean (the ocean to the west of the known world), near the Pillars of Hercules. The first recorded accounts of Atlantis, which is said to have been engulfed by the ocean as the result of an earthquake, appear in Timaeus and Critias, two dialogues by Greek philosopher Plato. According to the account in Timaeus, the island was described to Athenian statesman Solon by an Egyptian priest, who maintained that Atlantis was larger than Asia Minor and Libya combined. The priest further revealed that a flourishing civilization had reputedly centered on Atlantis about the 10th millennium BC, and that the nation had conquered all the Mediterranean peoples except the Athenians. In Critias, Plato records the history of Atlantis and depicts the nation as a utopian commonwealth. Although Plato's descriptive material and history are probably fictional, the possibility exists that he had access to records that have not survived.
The tradition that a lost island such as Atlantis once flourished has always fascinated the popular imagination, and the tradition continues today. In the 20th century some oceanographers advanced the theory that Atlantis was once a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Some associate the legend of Atlantis with the Greek island Thíra, which, according to geologists, experienced a massive volcanic eruption about 1500 BC. Other theories have been based on archaeological discoveries. Scholars have variously identified the island with Crete, the Canary Islands, the Scandinavian Peninsula, and the Americas.

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