04-13-2013, 08:33 PM
Agreed ἤπειρος is the word used for a continent /terra firma as opposed to the sea or islands. νῆσος is the word used for an island. Asia being the former and Britain one of the latter. Platoo uses ἤπειρος at Plat. Criti. 111a and Plat. Tim. 24e. I think these are the references you are talking about:
[111a] and at that period, in addition to their fine quality it produced these things in vast quantity. How, then, is this statement plausible, and what residue of the land then existing serves to confirm its truth? The whole of the land lies like a promontory jutting out from the rest of the continent far into the sea and all the cup of the sea; round about it is, as it happens, of a great depth. Consequently, since many great convulsions took place during the 9000 years—for such was the number of years
[24e] both for magnitude and for nobleness. For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,'1 there lay an island which was larger than Libya2 and Asia together; and it was possible for the travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent
[111a] and at that period, in addition to their fine quality it produced these things in vast quantity. How, then, is this statement plausible, and what residue of the land then existing serves to confirm its truth? The whole of the land lies like a promontory jutting out from the rest of the continent far into the sea and all the cup of the sea; round about it is, as it happens, of a great depth. Consequently, since many great convulsions took place during the 9000 years—for such was the number of years
[24e] both for magnitude and for nobleness. For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,'1 there lay an island which was larger than Libya2 and Asia together; and it was possible for the travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent
Peter Raftos
