Description: History Phoenician anthropoid sarcophagi (400470BC) found in Cdiz, thought to have been imported from the Phoenician homeland aroundSidon(now in theMuseum of Cdiz) Founded asGadirorAgadirbyPhoeniciansfromTyre, Cdiz is often regarded as the most ancient city still standing in Western Europe. The Phoenicians established a port in the 7th centuryBC. Traditionally, its founding is dated toc.1100 BC,although no archaeological strata on the site can be dated earlier than the 9th century BC. One resolution for this discrepancy has been to assume that Gadir was merely a small seasonal trading post in its earliest days. The expeditions ofHimilcoaround Spain and France and ofHannoaround Western Africa began there. The Phoenician settlement traded withTartessos, a city-state whose exact location remains unknown but is thought to have been somewhere near the mouth of theGuadalquivir River. One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple on the south end of its island dedicated to the Phoenician godMelqart, who was conflated withHerculesby the Greeks and Romans under the names "Tyrian Hercules" and "Hercules Gaditanus". It had an oracle and was famed for its wealth. InGreek mythology, Hercules was sometimes credited with foundingGadeiraafter performing histenth labor, the slaying ofGeryon, a monster with three heads and torsos joined to a single pair of legs. (Atumulusnear Gadeira was associated with Geryon's final resting-place.) According to theLife 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". Votive statues of Melqart-Hercules from the Islote de Sancti Petri The city fell under the sway ofCarthageduringHamilcar Barca's Iberian campaign after theFirst Punic War. Cdiz became a depot forHannibal's conquest of southernIberia, and he sacrificed there to Hercules/Melqart before setting off on his famous journey in 218BC to cross the Alps and invade Italy. Later the city fell toRomansunderScipio Africanusin 206BC.Under theRoman RepublicandEmpire, the city flourished as a port and naval base known asGades.Suetoniusrelates how Julius Caesar, when visiting Gades as aquaestor(junior senator), saw a statue of Alexander the Great there and was saddened to think that he himself, though the same age, had still achieved nothing memorable. The Bay of Cdiz in antiquity featuring a notably different coastline. The people of Gades had an alliance with Rome andJulius CaesarbestowedRoman citizenshipon all its inhabitants in 49BC. By the time ofAugustus's census, Cdiz was home to more than five hundredequites(members of the wealthy upper class), a concentration rivaled only byPatavium(Padua) andRomeitself. It was the principal city of theRoman colonyof Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. Anaqueductprovided 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. It consisted only of the northwest corner of the present island, and most of its wealthy citizens maintained estates outside of it on thenearby islandor on the mainland. The lifestyle maintained on the estates led to the Gaditan dancing girls becoming infamous throughout the ancient world. Although it is not in fact the most westerly city in the Spanish peninsula, for the Romans Cdiz had that reputation. The poetJuvenalbegins his famous tenth satire with the words:Omnibus in terris quae sunt a Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangen('In all the lands which exist from Gades as far as Dawn and the Ganges...'). Theoverthrow of Roman powerinHispania Baeticaby theVisigothsin the 400s saw the destruction of the original city, of which there remain few remnants today. The site was later reconquered by Justinian in 551 as part of the Byzantine province ofSpania.It would remain Byzantine untilLeovigild's reconquest in 572 returned it to the Visigothic Kingdom.
Price: 175 USD
Location: Reading, Pennsylvania
End Time: 2025-01-12T20:36:55.000Z
Shipping Cost: 4 USD
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All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Historical Period: Greek (450 BC-100 AD)
Year: 200 BC
Era: Ancient
Country/Region of Manufacture: Spain
Certification: Uncertified
