Translating Plato about Atlantis

[JeffF]

In translating the actual Greek words Plato uses to describe Atlantis, what is the Greek word that moderns are translating as "continent?" Since the 7 largest land masses (or 6 if one prefers Eurasia over Europe & Asia) were not known at the time the modern concept of continents and thus any word describing them would not have been developed. Is the actual word Plato uses Greek for "island" or perhaps "land?"

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

How do we know they had no concept of the continents?

[Lyceum]

Plato uses the word ἤπειρος which originally had the semantic value of land or island especially in apposition the sea. Later it would take on the meaning on continent too, which it also retains in modern Greek. Of Atlantis itself you also get νῆσος which means island mainly but also any alluvial land.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

A very good documentary explains the high probability of Atlantis being Thera...or
todays Santorini. Island.

[Peter Raftos]

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

[JeffF]

So at the time Plato describes Atlantis he uses the Greek word for "island," a word which later evolved to mean continent?

[Peter Raftos]

Kind of but no. He uses the word ἤπειρος (epeiros) - for a continent or terra firma as opposed to the sea (thalassa) or an island (nesos) or the islands (nessoi)as I posted in the actual quote referring to Atlantis from Plato above in Kritias (Plat. Criti. 111a):

[111α]τε εἶναι καὶ τοῖς ζῴοις πᾶσιν εὔβοτον. τότε δὲ πρὸς τῷ κάλλει καὶ παμπλήθη ταῦτα ἔφερεν. πῶς οὖν δὴ τοῦτο πιστόν, καὶ κατὰ τί λείψανον τῆς τότε γῆς ὀρθῶς ἂν λέγοιτο; πᾶσα ἀπὸ τῆς ἄλλης ἠπείρου μακρὰ προτείνουσα εἰς τὸ πέλαγος οἷον ἄκρα κεῖται: τὸ δὴ τῆς θαλάττης ἀγγεῖον περὶ αὐτὴν τυγχάνει πᾶν ἀγχιβαθὲς ὄν. πολλῶν οὖν γεγονότων καὶ μεγάλων κατακλυσμῶν ἐν τοῖς ἐνακισχιλίοις ἔτεσι—τοσαῦτα γὰρ πρὸς τὸν νῦν ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνου τοῦ χρόνου.

111a] te einai kai tois zôiois pasin euboton. tote de pros tôi kallei kai pamplêthê tauta epheren. pôs oun dê touto piston, kai kata ti leipsanon tês tote gês orthôs an legoito; pasa apo tês allês êpeirou makra proteinousa eis to pelagos hoion akra keitai: to dê tês thalattês angeion peri autên tunchanei pan anchibathes on. pollôn oun gegonotôn kai megalôn kataklusmôn en tois enakischiliois etesi--tosauta gar pros ton nun ap' ekeinou tou chronou.

[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.

In the Timaeus (Plat. Tim. 24e) he says Atlantis is an island bigger than Libya and Asia implying it is a continent (probably because of its size - like Australia is referred to as an island continent today). He says it was possible to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to it. The English translation uses the word continent but it is not in the Greek.

[24ε]ἓν ὑπερέχει μεγέθει καὶ ἀρετῇ: λέγει γὰρ τὰ γεγραμμένα ὅσην ἡ πόλις ὑμῶν ἔπαυσέν ποτε δύναμιν ὕβρει πορευομένην ἅμα ἐπὶ πᾶσαν Εὐρώπην καὶ Ἀσίαν, ἔξωθεν ὁρμηθεῖσαν ἐκ τοῦ Ἀτλαντικοῦ πελάγους. τότε γὰρ πορεύσιμον ἦν τὸ ἐκεῖ πέλαγος: νῆσον γὰρ πρὸ τοῦ στόματος εἶχεν ὃ καλεῖτε, ὥς φατε, ὑμεῖς Ἡρακλέους στήλας, ἡ δὲ νῆσος ἅμα Λιβύης ἦν καὶ Ἀσίας μείζων, ἐξ ἧς ἐπιβατὸν ἐπὶ τὰς ἄλλας νήσους τοῖς τότε ἐγίγνετο πορευομένοις, ἐκ δὲ τῶν νήσων.

[24e] hen huperechei megethei kai aretêi: legei gar ta gegrammena hosên hê polis humôn epausen pote dunamin hubrei poreuomenên hama epi pasan Eurôpên kai Asian, exôthen hormêtheisan ek tou Atlantikou pelagous. tote gar poreusimon ên to ekei pelagos: nêson gar pro tou stomatos eichen ho kaleite, hôs phate, humeis Hêrakleous stêlas, hê de nêsos hama Libuês ên kai Asias meizôn, ex hês epibaton epi tas allas nêsous tois tote egigneto poreuomenois, ek de tôn nêsôn

[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, there lay an island which was larger than Libya 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.

While the pre Socratic , Pythagoreans and later philosophers (especially the neo Platonists) were fond of making lists of opposites which developed into either this or that categorisations in Greek the terms are not mutually exclusive - Atlantis is both - an island and a continent.