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Spain, Gadir
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Founded as Gadir or Agadir by Phoenicians from Tyre, Cádiz is sometimes counted as the most ancient city still standing in Western Europe. The expeditions of Himilco around Spain and France and of Hanno around Western Africa began here. The Phoenician settlement traded with Tartessos, a city-state whose exact location remains unknown but is thought to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.
One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple on the south end of its island dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart, who was conflated with Hercules by the Greeks and Romans under the names "Tyrian Hercules" and "Hercules Gaditanus". It had an oracle and was famed for its wealth. In Greek mythology, Hercules was sometimes credited with founding Gadeira after performing his tenth labor, the slaying of Geryon, a monster with three heads and torsos joined to a single pair of legs. (A tumulus near Gadeira was associated with Geryon's final resting-place.) According to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the "Heracleum" (i.e., the temple of Melqart) was still standing during the 1st century. Some historians, based in part on this source, believe that the columns of this temple were the origin of the myth of the "pillars of Hercules".
The city fell under the sway of Carthage during Hamilcar's Iberian campaign after the First Punic War. Cádiz became a depot for Hannibal's conquest of southern Iberia, but the city fell to Romans under Scipio Africanus in 206 BC. The people of Cádiz welcomed the victors. Under the Roman Republic and Empire, the city flourished as a port and naval base known as Gades. Its people formed an alliance with Rome and Julius Caesar bestowed Roman citizenship on all its inhabitants in 49 BC. The Roman historian Livy did not credit its founding to Hercules but instead placed its creation c. 1104 BC, by his reckoning about 80 year after the Trojan War.[citation needed] By the time of Augustus's census, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred equites (members of the wealthy upper class), a concentration rivaled only by Patavium (Padua) and Rome itself. It was the principal city of the Roman colony of Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. An aqueduct provided fresh water to the town (the island's supply was notoriously bad), running across open sea for its last leg. However, Roman Gades was never very large; consisted only of the northwest corner of the present island; and most of its wealthy citizens maintained estates outside of it on the nearby island or on the mainland. The lifestyle maintained on the estates led to the Gaditan dancing girls becoming infamous throughout the ancient world.
IBERIA, Gadir. Late 2nd century BC. Æ Unit (26mm, 14.02 g, 6h). Head of Melqart (Herakles) left, wearing lion skin; club behind / Two tunnies to left; pellet within crescent to left; caduceus between tails. ACIP 687; CNH 57; SNG BM Spain 306-8. VF, dark brown and red patina, light roughness.
Ex Archer M. Huntington Collection (HSA 1001.1.21477).
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![Spain, Gadir
Founded as Gadir or Agadir by Phoenicians from Tyre, Cádiz is sometimes counted as the most ancient city still standing in Western Europe. The expeditions of Himilco around Spain and France and of Hanno around Western Africa began here. The Phoenician settlement traded with Tartessos, a city-state whose exact location remains unknown but is thought to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.
One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple on the south end of its island dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart, who was conflated with Hercules by the Greeks and Romans under the names "Tyrian Hercules" and "Hercules Gaditanus". It had an oracle and was famed for its wealth. In Greek mythology, Hercules was sometimes credited with founding Gadeira after performing his tenth labor, the slaying of Geryon, a monster with three heads and torsos joined to a single pair of legs. (A tumulus near Gadeira was associated with Geryon's final resting-place.) According to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the "Heracleum" (i.e., the temple of Melqart) was still standing during the 1st century. Some historians, based in part on this source, believe that the columns of this temple were the origin of the myth of the "pillars of Hercules".
The city fell under the sway of Carthage during Hamilcar's Iberian campaign after the First Punic War. Cádiz became a depot for Hannibal's conquest of southern Iberia, but the city fell to Romans under Scipio Africanus in 206 BC. The people of Cádiz welcomed the victors. Under the Roman Republic and Empire, the city flourished as a port and naval base known as Gades. Its people formed an alliance with Rome and Julius Caesar bestowed Roman citizenship on all its inhabitants in 49 BC. The Roman historian Livy did not credit its founding to Hercules but instead placed its creation c. 1104 BC, by his reckoning about 80 year after the Trojan War.[citation needed] By the time of Augustus's census, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred equites (members of the wealthy upper class), a concentration rivaled only by Patavium (Padua) and Rome itself. It was the principal city of the Roman colony of Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. An aqueduct provided fresh water to the town (the island's supply was notoriously bad), running across open sea for its last leg. However, Roman Gades was never very large; consisted only of the northwest corner of the present island; and most of its wealthy citizens maintained estates outside of it on the nearby island or on the mainland. The lifestyle maintained on the estates led to the Gaditan dancing girls becoming infamous throughout the ancient world.
IBERIA, Gadir. Late 2nd century BC. Æ Unit (26mm, 14.02 g, 6h). Head of Melqart (Herakles) left, wearing lion skin; club behind / Two tunnies to left; pellet within crescent to left; caduceus between tails. ACIP 687; CNH 57; SNG BM Spain 306-8. VF, dark brown and red patina, light roughness.
Ex Archer M. Huntington Collection (HSA 1001.1.21477).](albums/userpics/12015/image~12.jpg "Spain, Gadir
Founded as Gadir or Agadir by Phoenicians from Tyre, Cádiz is sometimes counted as the most ancient city still standing in Western Europe. The expeditions of Himilco around Spain and France and of Hanno around Western Africa began here. The Phoenician settlement traded with Tartessos, a city-state whose exact location remains unknown but is thought to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.
One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple on the south end of its island dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart, who was conflated with Hercules by the Greeks and Romans under the names \"Tyrian Hercules\" and \"Hercules Gaditanus\". It had an oracle and was famed for its wealth. In Greek mythology, Hercules was sometimes credited with founding Gadeira after performing his tenth labor, the slaying of Geryon, a monster with three heads and torsos joined to a single pair of legs. (A tumulus near Gadeira was associated with Geryon's final resting-place.) According to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the \"Heracleum\" (i.e., the temple of Melqart) was still standing during the 1st century. Some historians, based in part on this source, believe that the columns of this temple were the origin of the myth of the \"pillars of Hercules\".
The city fell under the sway of Carthage during Hamilcar's Iberian campaign after the First Punic War. Cádiz became a depot for Hannibal's conquest of southern Iberia, but the city fell to Romans under Scipio Africanus in 206 BC. The people of Cádiz welcomed the victors. Under the Roman Republic and Empire, the city flourished as a port and naval base known as Gades. Its people formed an alliance with Rome and Julius Caesar bestowed Roman citizenship on all its inhabitants in 49 BC. The Roman historian Livy did not credit its founding to Hercules but instead placed its creation c. 1104 BC, by his reckoning about 80 year after the Trojan War.[citation needed] By the time of Augustus's census, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred equites (members of the wealthy upper class), a concentration rivaled only by Patavium (Padua) and Rome itself. It was the principal city of the Roman colony of Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. An aqueduct provided fresh water to the town (the island's supply was notoriously bad), running across open sea for its last leg. However, Roman Gades was never very large; consisted only of the northwest corner of the present island; and most of its wealthy citizens maintained estates outside of it on the nearby island or on the mainland. The lifestyle maintained on the estates led to the Gaditan dancing girls becoming infamous throughout the ancient world.
IBERIA, Gadir. Late 2nd century BC. Æ Unit (26mm, 14.02 g, 6h). Head of Melqart (Herakles) left, wearing lion skin; club behind / Two tunnies to left; pellet within crescent to left; caduceus between tails. ACIP 687; CNH 57; SNG BM Spain 306-8. VF, dark brown and red patina, light roughness.
Ex Archer M. Huntington Collection (HSA 1001.1.21477).")
