This next bit of information should eliminate, once and for all, that Atlantis could have been Spain or anything other than a large island in the Atlantic.
Thie first quote comes from Atalante in the thead entitled "Atlantis=Island-Peninsula"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strabo explained the difference between continents, islands, and peninsulas.
quote from:
http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/1D*.html
"Next, after saying that there has been much discussion about the continents, and that some divide them by the rivers (the Nile and the Tanaïs), declaring them to be islands, while others divide them by the isthmuses (the isthmus between the Caspian and the Pontic Seas, and the isthmus between the Red Sea and the Ecregma), and that the latter call the continents peninsulas, Eratosthenes then says that he does not see how this investigation can end in any practical result, but that it belongs only to persons who choose to live on a diet of disputation"
At the bottom of the following link there is a map of the continents, as the Greeks understood them at that time.
http://www.livius.org/ea-eh/edges/edges.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To which our friend Chronos also added in the original version of this thread:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Incidentally, even if the translation reads "before" rather than "beyond" the Pillars of Hercules, it doesn't neccessarily disqualify the Azores as Atlantis. In fact, for Atlantis to actually be Spain, one might argue that the translation would have to read "beside" the Pillars of Hercules, rather than "before." That would be their correct geographic location.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
