Sparta was once the greatest of Greek city-states, the most powerful military force on land. The crimson clad Warriors, wielding the spear and short sword, terrified many neighboring Greeks. They were a caste of Warriors, who relied on a massive slave population to tend their fields. They defeated mighty Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars.

Yet Sparta fell.

An important aspect in the decline of Sparta was their ever-decreasing male population. Too many men were killed in battle and new births could not keep up with the mortality rate.

So Sparta could not retain its prominence or power.

Yet I now question the decline of Sparta. I now doubt that they lost too many men to battle.

I do not doubt that their male population dwindled. I simply doubt the origin of that decrease.

And Sparta may have not been the first. And they definitely were not the last. This may extend over thousands of years.

I have long been a student of the classics, a scholar of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, from Thales to Plato, from Pythagoras to Epictetus.

My delvings into the classics have made me an amateur historian as well. One cannot fully comprehend ancient philosophy without understanding its context, the society that spawned it, the culture that nurtured it.

My primary concentration has been Plato and this interest has ranged from his teacher, Socrates, to his successors at the Academy. I have always had a lesser interest in Aristotle, Plato's most famous student, as I never felt he truly continued the tradition of Plato.

Aristotle was too much an individualist.

It has always been a fascinating puzzle, trying to discern Plato's own philosophical thoughts from those of the brilliant Socrates. In some instances, they are one and the same. In others, there are some radical divergences.

It was also exciting to follow some of Plato's students, especially those who endeavored to maintain his Academy, to further Platonic teachings. Many of their names would be unfamiliar to nearly anyone today except for a classical scholar. Even then, some of the names would elude even many of them.

Sadly, most of the writings of these Platonists have been lost or found only in fragmentary pieces. Piecing together the evolution of Plato's successors is a formidable task.

The recent discovery of the Giovanni Manuscript, a hand-written manuscript from Renaissance Italy, triggered a revolution in Platonic philosophy. It was allegedly discovered in the catacombs beneath a wine cellar, during major renovations to an ancient villa in Florence.

The author of the manuscript was Matthias Giovanni, a monk who worked as a copier for hire. The manuscript was never completed and there is no indication as to the identity of the customer who commissioned the copy.

The manuscript purported to be a copy of an ancient Latin text that was in turn a copy of an original Greek text. Greek had long been considered the proper language for philosophy. Many Roman philosophers, such as Marcus Aurelius, wrote in Greek

Besides being unfinished, the manuscript also contained numerous gaps, as if the Latin text had been incomplete.

Despite extensive and thorough excavations, the source text for the Giovanni Manuscript was not found.

I am positive that many archivists and collectors would explore their libraries to discern whether they possessed the original Latin text, possibly something that had been ignored at the time. Many museums had backlogs of items they had yet to adequately catalogue.

I had never heard of the source text before though I was able to verify the existence of its original author.

The Giovanni Manuscript was a tantalizing document though it would take some time before I realized its full impact.

The original Greek author was Hagocles, a student of Plato. I possessed a few texts that mentioned a Hagocles but unfortunately those texts said almost nothing about him. They simply referred to him as having been at the Academy.

The Giovanni Manuscript stated that Hagocles had been a historian for the Academy. Hagocles compiled a list of the members of the Academy, its visitors, their accomplishments and facts about their day-to-day lives. This provided a more complete picture of the Academy, something we had long desired.

For that alone, the Manuscript was an incredible discovery.

No one seemed to doubt the authenticity of the Manuscript. All of the tests showed that the manuscript had definitely been created during the Renaissance. The internal information in the document also supported that it was based on an actual Greek text.

But there was a degree of controversy associated with the Manuscript, though not associated with its origin.

Besides information of life at the Academy, the work also included a mystery, the strange disappearance of several key members of the Academy. And those disappearances were compared to similar such matters in other cities and areas.

Hagocles clearly saw some type of conspiracy at work.

The speculations of Hagocles made many an academic chuckle. He spoke of silver chariots descending from the skies, sent from the gods to claim a chosen few.

Even I laughed, aware that this would fuel those tall tales of ancient astronauts, the wild stories of Von Daniken.

My colleagues cared only for the details of the Academy. They generally ignored the rest, the disappearances, the tales of abduction. Only a passing curiosity made me delve a bit further into the alleged disappearances.

I certainly did not believe in his fanciful tales. But something about it intrigued me. Maybe it touched some primal aspect of my being.

After some initial research, from what little evidence existed, it did appear that some of the cases of disappearance mentioned by Hagocles had actually occurred. And I was unable to disprove any of the disappearances. But as evidence was scant, that was easy to understand.

If Hagocles and the evidence were to be believed, then there were three groups that were most prevalent in the disappearances.

First, Spartan males, warriors. Second, women, primarily slaves. Third, philosophers.

Such a strange combination. What did all three of these groups have in common? Or was this but a bizarre coincidence?

What started as a passing fancy became an obsession. My historical researches began to range wider, to discover if these disappearances were real. And if they were real, what was the cause?

Over time, I slowly accumulated additional evidence. And everything that I discovered only served to support the words of Hagocles.

He had been an impeccable historian concerning the Academy so why should he not be as impeccable with the rest of his work as well? Myth and legend often contained kernels of the truth.

In classical mythology, the golden chariot is a common symbol. It is often associated with a god of the sun. Apollo was said to possess such a chariot.

A silver chariot though was extremely rare but I did find multiple, though terse, references to it. And always in myths involving abductions. Yet the references were so nondescript that one would overlook them unless you were specifically paying attention for just those references.

Why was I starting to believe this myth? Why did I feel Hagocles was not simply telling some fabulous but untrue story?

So I continued to expand my researches, seeking further references to silver chariots within the mythologies of diverse peoples and cultures, throughout history.

And I found further descriptions, though always peripherally described. They never occupied a prominent place and were often dismissed as lacking credibility. The spotty references were strangely spaced as well, ranging from the Vikings to the Mongols, the Sioux to the Inuit.

I had uncovered what might be considered an archetypal myth, one not previously catalogued. A silver ship that abducted people, ostensibly to bring them to meet the gods. This theme was not mentioned by Graves or Campbell.

Why silver? Why not the golden chariots which were far more common in the myths?

Even modern history had it stories of silver "chariots" and abductions. But we more commonly referred to them as flying saucers, often described as silver disks. And such recent abductions generally involved women.

I was now treading on the province of the X-Files, of science fiction. Did I really believe that aliens had been abducting humans for thousands of years?

Why would they do so? If it was simply for experimentation then you would have thought such matters would have long been completed. How long would such experiments need to be performed?

I began to encounter some difficulties with my colleagues, meeting some ridicule for my theories. The ancient astronaut theory had been so thoroughly discredited in the past that I was seen as pursuing a fantasy.

The university where I taught called me on the carpet, claiming that I was endangering my tenure status. A decision on my tenure was to be made next year.

Was my pursuit worth the trouble? What did I hope to uncover? Did I really feel there was some vast conspiracy spanning both time and geography?

I thought long and hard about my options.

My choice was taken away as events beyond my control interceded.

A silver chariot came for me, abducting me. I joined that lengthy list of people who had been claimed by unknown forces.

Yet I would finally learn the truth, the solution to the mystery of Hagocles.

Gor.

A tenth planet exists in our solar system, an idea first conceived by the ancient Pythagoreans. This Counter-Earth exists in the same orbit as our own world yet it hides on the other side of the Sun.

A world known to its inhabitants as Gor.

For thousands of years, the "gods" of this planet, the enigmatic Priest-Kings, have been abducting people from Earth. They seeded their planet and many of the ancestors of those abductees have lost even the knowledge of the existence of Earth.

And the abductions continue to this day though they primarily abduct women now. Women like me.

The influence of Earth is quite evident in the societal and cultural institutions of Gor. In fact, Plato seems to have been quite a significant influence, especially his ideas from "The Republic."

What a marvel it is to see city-states based on Plato's ideal city. I do not regret my abduction. I have seen so much despite my lowly status. It is a historian's dream.

I give thanks to the Priest-Kings, thanks for delivering me to this unbelievable world. Yes it has its harshness, barbarities and cruelties.

But it is the beauty of the world that surpasses everything else.