PART
3 – Ch.XVI.2
(‘ERAKLEOS STELAI - The
Columns of Hercules)
XVI. 2. The Tyrians
look for the Columns of Hercules near the straits of the
As Strabo tells
us, the Tyrians, the famous
representatives of the Phoenician commerce, had tried three times to find the
Columns of Hercules near the western straits of the
According to this
author, the inhabitants of Gades were telling how the Tyrians, wanting to set
up a new colony, had first consulted the oracle, as were the religious customs
of the ancients, and the oracle had suggested to found their colony near the Columns of Hercules. The men sent by
the Tyrians to visit those lands arrived at
That’s why, says
Strabo, some believe that the extreme parts of the straits might be the
so-called Columns of Hercules, while others, on the contrary, consider as the
Columns of Hercules, either the mountains Calpe and Abila, or some smaller
islands in the vicinity of these mountains.
Artemidor of Ephesus though, a renowned
geographical investigator, who had navigated along the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea and in part of the External Ocean, tells us that there is no
mountain named Abila at the
Mediterranean straits.
And Strabo adds that neither these islands,
nor these mountains have the appearance of columns, and that people who insist
that the so called Columns of Hercules must be found somewhere else, have good
reasons to say so (Geogr. lib. III. 5. 5).
The Romans had conquered the
southern parts of Iberia even before the destruction of Carthage (146bc), but
none of the Roman generals who had marched with the legions of Italy as far as
the Western Ocean, none of the captains of the fleet, who had passed through
the Mediterranean straits (Pliny, V. 1. 8; Flor, II. 7; Orosius VI. 21), had claimed the glory of
discovering the sacred Columns of Hercules, and of taking the eagle of the
Roman Empire beyond the extreme limits of the ancient world. On the contrary,
there was a general tradition with the Roman people, that the legendary Columns
of Hercules were situated near another ocean, and that Drus Germanicus had been the one
who had tried to win the glory of finding them and of expanding the
“We” writes Tacitus
(Germania, c. 34), “have tried to cross even the Northern Ocean, because it is told that the Columns of Hercules still exist there,
either because Hercules really went there, or because we use to attribute to
his glory all the miraculous things that are on the surface of the earth. Drus Germanicus had not lacked the
courage, but the Ocean had opposed his wish to master it and to find the
Columns of Hercules. Nobody has tried to look for these columns ever since. Anyway,
it is much more religious and respectful to believe in gods’ acts, than to know
them”.
So, the miraculous Columns of Hercules, looked for by the
Tyrians and Artemidor at the Mediterranean straits, and by Drus Germanicus in
the