From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordNēsos is an island, land surrounded by water.
- In StobaeusThe account challenges the conventional division between islands and continents by treating the whole known inhabited world as one island encircled by Ocean.
- In this edition“Island” preserves the comparison across scales; it does not mean that all the lands described were individually surveyed.
- A place to beginThe inhabited world is itself classified as an island.
- English renderings
- island
Meaning
Nēsos is an island, land surrounded by water. The term can be extended from familiar local islands to a much larger geographical model.
Use in the book
The account challenges the conventional division between islands and continents by treating the whole known inhabited world as one island encircled by Ocean. Other great islands are inferred across the water. Their existence is presented as likely, not as the result of voyages described in the excerpt.
Places to read
- I.40.1.12The inhabited world is itself classified as an island.
Translation in this edition
“Island” preserves the comparison across scales; it does not mean that all the lands described were individually surveyed.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 258. The word supplying likelihood is restored from the parallel On the Cosmos; the unknown lands remain explicitly unseen by the author’s community.