u/lucasawilliams

I've seen discussion on whether there's evidence for the ancient definition of island being a looser than it is today, and included regions that require arrival by water due to geographic boundaries beside the water itself, such as mountains or desert.

There were no dictionaries that ascribed strict definitions in words until recent times and words have always been used it whichever way people decide to use them so it's difficult to give a definitive answer for what island strictly meant. Nonetheless we can can look for examples of non-island islands.

I've recycled the map I used for underworld names to circled in yellow four places which are described as islands but which we wouldn't define as islands today.

The standard view is that all *places that don't exist or have clear records for are made-up and instead I ascribe to the view that all mythological places are old accounts of real places and none have ever been* made-up but either way we can observe the descriptions to see which place would best match each and then decide.

There are geographic descriptions for all of these four islands which aren't really islands:

Scheria Island - land of the Phaeacians, has a double harbour, maritime, fertile.

- This sounds like a description of early Carthage with it's cothon in Tunisia.

Erytheia Island - far to the west, beyond or near the Pillars of Hercules in the stream of Oceanus, red land, red cattle, near Gades (Cadiz).

- Beside but not Gades sounds like Africa. African cattle breeds are more commonly red compared to European breeds, and Africa land is redder than Europe's.

Elysium Island - beside or within Oceanus, extreme western edge of the world, associated with the Isles of the Blessed.

- The isles are likely the Hesperides and the closest, most westerly landmass is Iberia.

Jazirat al-Maghrib - this one's known to be referring to the Maghreb and comes from later Arab terminology

- Magreb

If we're to believe the three names from myth are names of real places they best match to locations that wouldn't be classified as islands today. If so, this would indicate that the term island had a looser definition.

I've created these translations using ChatGPT, translating three stanzas as a time requesting close accuracy over readability.

aedra.co.uk/timaeus

aedra.co.uk/critias

I expect a bit of push back on the reliability of an AI translation so I'm going to pre-emptively address this and then demonstrate an example of the accuracy below:

As opposed to general high level evaluative tasks or highly complex logical reasoning tasks where AI would be unreliable, AI excels at creating direct translations which involve clear word, syntax, paragraph context and grammatical rule matching games and when translating three stanza at a time, AI is able to apply these translational and grammatical rules with word-to-word reliability.

To demonstrate why these translations are far more precise and reliable than even the best current human translations I've included extracts below of the first relevant stanza from Critias,108e (completing the sentence which leads into 109a).

The first extract is from Benjemin Jowett, one of the most widely read versions. Then, there is a translation extract of the same passage from John Cooper, widely attested to be the most accurate current translation. Lastly, the translation extract from this ChatGPT version.

Below I highlight the errors and inaccuracies in the human versions in comparison to this AI version.

[108e]

πάντων δὴ πρῶτον μνησθῶμεν ὅτι τὸ κεφάλαιον ἦν ἐνακισχίλια ἔτη, ἀφ’ οὗ γεγονὼς ἐμηνύθη πόλεμος τοῖς θ’ ὑπὲρ Ἡρακλείας στήλας ἔξω κατοικοῦσιν καὶ τοῖς ἐντὸς πᾶσιν: ὃν δεῖ νῦν διαπεραίνειν. τῶν μὲν οὖν ἥδε ἡ πόλις ἄρξασα καὶ πάντα τὸν πόλεμον διαπολεμήσασα ἐλέγετο, τῶν δ’ οἱ τῆς Ἀτλαντίδος νήσου βασιλῆς, ἣν δὴ Λιβύης καὶ ̓Ασίας μείζω νῆσον οὖσαν ἔφαμεν εἶναί ποτε, νῦν δὲ ὑπὸ σεισμῶν δῦσαν ἄπορον πηλὸν τοῖς ἐνθένδε ἐκπλέουσιν ἐπὶ τὸ πᾶν πέλαγος, ὥστε μηκέτι πορεύεσθαι, κωλυτὴν παρασχεῖν.

Benjemin Jowett (most read version)

Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean.

John Cooper (attested to be most accurate)

We should recall at the very beginning that, in very rough terms, it was some nine thousand years since the time when a war is recorded as having broken out between the peoples dwelling outside the pillars of Heracles^(3) and all those dwelling within. This war I must now describe. Now they said that this city of Athens was the ruler of the [Mediterranean] peoples and fought for the duration of the entire war. They said, too, that the kings of the island of Atlantis were the rulers of the other peoples. This island, as we were saying,**^(4) was at one time greater than both Libya and Asia combined.**^(5) But now because of earthquakes it has subsided into the great Ocean and has produced a vast sea of mud that blocks the passage of mariners who would sail into the great Ocean from Greek waters and for this reason it is no longer navigable.

ChatGPT

First of all, then, let us recall that the total sum was nine thousand years, since the war that arose was reported between those dwelling outside beyond the Pillars of Heracles and all those within: which it is now necessary to set forth.

Of the one side, this city was said to have taken the lead and to have carried through the whole war; of the other, the kings of the island of Atlantis—an island which, as we said, was once larger than Libya and Asia, but now, having sunk by earthquakes, is an impassable mass of mud for those sailing out from here into the pelagos, so that passage is no longer possible, but it provides an obstacle.

--

The well attested Cooper version introduces more inaccuracies than the Jowett version.

Errors in Jowett:

σεισμῶν is translated into the singular, "earthquake" whereas the word is plural.

Errors in Cooper:

Adds unstated doubt with words such as "very rough terms"

Introduces unstated terms like "Greek waters" and "sea of mud"

Inaccurately translates ἄρξασα from took the lead to "ruled"

Both:

Translate pelagos to ocean, whereas I've purposefully kept the original Greek terms for water bodies in the ChatGPT version given their nuanced meanings. Pelagos more accurately translates to a region of sea stretching out from a coastal region than "ocean".

Convert "this city" to "Athens" which unduly strengthens place emphasis.