Geography

​Concerning the founding of Gadeira, the Gadeirans mention a certain oracle in their accounts, which they say was delivered to the Tyrians, commanding them to send a colony to the Pillars of Heracles. Those sent for the sake of exploration, when they reached the strait near Calpe, thought that the capes forming the strait were the boundaries of the inhabited world and of Heracles’ expedition, and believing that the oracle called these very capes the ‘Pillars’, they put in at a certain place inside the narrows, where now stands the city of the Exitanians. Having offered sacrifice there, since the victims did not yield favorable omens, they returned back. Sometime later, those sent went out beyond the strait about fifteen hundred stadia to a sacred island of Heracles situated opposite the city of Onoba in Iberia, and thinking that the pillars were here, they sacrificed to the god; but as the victims again did not yield favorable omens, they returned home. On the third expedition, those who arrived founded Gadeira, and established the temple on the eastern parts of the island, and the city on the western parts. For this reason, some think that the capes of the strait are the pillars, others Gadeira, and others that they lie projected even further outside Gadeira. Some assumed the pillars to be Calpe and Abilyx, the opposing mountain in Libya, which Eratosthenes says is situated in the territory of the Metagonion, a nomadic tribe; others assumed the small islands near each of them, of which they call one the Island of Hera. Artemidorus mentions the Island of Hera and her temple, but says there is another island, and that there is neither an Abilyx mountain nor a Metagonion tribe. Some also transfer the Planctae and the Symplegades here, believing them to be the pillars, which Pindar calls the Gadeiran Gates, saying that Heracles reached these last of all. Dicaearchus, Eratosthenes, Polybius, and most of the Greeks locate the pillars near the strait. But the Iberians and Libyans say they are in Gadeira, for they say the things around the strait in no way resemble pillars. Others say that the bronze pillars of eight cubits in the temple of Heracles in Gadeira, on which the cost of the construction of the temple is inscribed, are those spoken of; and those who had completed their voyage, coming to these and sacrificing to Heracles, caused it to be widely rumored that this was the end of both land and sea. Posidonius also deems this account the most plausible, and the oracle and the many expeditions a Phoenician falsehood. Now, concerning the expeditions, what could one assert either for refutation or belief, since neither view is unreasonable? Yet, on the one hand, to deny that the islands or the mountains resemble pillars, and on the other hand, to seek the boundaries of the inhabited world or of Heracles’ expedition at the pillars properly so called, does have some reason. For it was an ancient custom to set up such boundaries, just as the Rhegians set up the little pillar situated on the strait, a sort of tower, and the so-called tower of Pelorus stands opposite this little pillar; and the so-called Altars of the Philaeni are situated somewhere about the middle of the land between the Syrtes; and on the Isthmus of Corinth, a certain pillar is mentioned as having been set up formerly, which the Ions, who had occupied Attica along with Megaris after being expelled from the Peloponnese, and those who occupied the Peloponnese, erected in common, inscribing on the side facing Megaris: ‘This is not Peloponnese, but Ionia,’ and on the other side: ’This is Peloponnese, not Ionia.’ And Alexander, as the limits of his Indian campaign, set up altars in the places he reached last among the Indians towards the east, imitating Heracles and Dionysus. Indeed, this custom existed.