De Zuilen van Hercules Gibraltar en Ceuta

The Pillars of Hercules ( la, Columnae Herculis, grc, Ἡράκλειαι Στῆλαι, , ar, أعمدة هرقل, Aʿmidat Hiraql, es, Columnas de Hércules) was the phrase that was applied in

Antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar, Calpe Mons, is the

Rock of Gibraltar The Rock of Gibraltar (from the Arabic name Jabel-al-Tariq) is a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British territory of Gibraltar, near the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula, and near the entrance to the Medite ...

. A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of the southern Pillar, Abila Mons, has been disputed throughout history, with the two most likely candidates being Monte Hacho in

Ceuta Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territori ...

and Jebel Musa in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

History

According to

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities o ...

adopted by the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roug ...

and Romans, when

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the ...

had to perform twelve labours, one of them (the tenth) was to fetch the Cattle of

Geryon In Greek mythology, Geryon ( or ;"Geryon"
''

Eurystheus; this marked the westward extent of his travels. A lost passage of

Pindar Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar ...

quoted by

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

was the earliest traceable reference in this context: "the pillars which Pindar calls the 'gates of Gades' when he asserts that they are the farthermost limits reached by

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptiv ...

". Since there has been a one-to-one association between Heracles and

Melqart Melqart (also Melkarth or Melicarthus) was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre and a major deity in the Phoenician and Punic pantheons. Often titled the "Lord of Tyre" (''Ba‘al Ṣūr''), he was also known as the Son of ...

since

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

, the "Pillars of Melqart" in the temple near Gades/Gádeira (modern

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

) have sometimes been considered to be the true ''Pillars of Hercules''.

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

placed the fictional island of Atlantis beyond the "Pillars of Hercules". Renaissance tradition says the pillars bore the warning ''Ne plus ultra'' (also '' Non plus ultra'', "nothing further beyond"), serving as a warning to sailors and navigators to go no further. According to some Roman sources, while on his way to the garden of the

Hesperides In Greek mythology, the Hesperides (; , ) are the nymphs of evening and golden light of sunsets, who were the "Daughters of the Evening" or "Nymphs of the West". They were also called the Atlantides () from their reputed father, the Titan At ...

on the island of Erytheia, Hercules had to cross the mountain that was once

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geogra ...

. Instead of climbing the great mountain, Hercules used his superhuman strength to smash through it. By doing so, he connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and formed the Strait of Gibraltar. One part of the split mountain is

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = "Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gibr ...

and the other is either Monte Hacho or Jebel Musa. These two mountains taken together have since then been known as the Pillars of Hercules, though other natural features have been associated with the name.

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which ...

, however, held that, instead of smashing through an isthmus to create the Straits of Gibraltar, Hercules "narrowed" an already existing strait to prevent monsters from the Atlantic Ocean from entering the Mediterranean Sea. In some versions, Heracles instead built the two to hold the sky away from the earth, liberating Atlas from his damnation.

Phoenician connection

Beyond Gades, several important

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants ...

n colonies (in modern-day

) were founded by the

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...

ns as the Phoenician merchant fleet pushed through the Pillars of Hercules and began constructing a series of bases along the Atlantic coast starting with Lixus in the north, then

Chellah The Chellah or Shalla ( ber, script=Latn, Sla or ; ar, شالة), is a medieval fortified Muslim necropolis and ancient archeological site in Rabat, Morocco, located on the south (left) side of the Bou Regreg estuary. The earliest evidence of t ...

and finally

Mogador Essaouira ( ; ar, الصويرة, aṣ-Ṣawīra; shi, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Taṣṣort, formerly ''Amegdul''), known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. It ...

. Near the eastern shore of the island of Gades/Gadeira (modern

, just beyond the strait)

describes the westernmost temple of Tyrian

, the god with whom Greeks associated the Phoenician and Punic

, by '' interpretatio graeca''. Strabo notes that the two bronze pillars within the temple, each eight

cubit The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was primarily associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites. The term ''cubit'' is found in the Bible regarding ...

s high, were widely proclaimed to be the true Pillars of Hercules by many who had visited the place and had sacrificed to Heracles there. But Strabo believes the account to be fraudulent, in part noting that the inscriptions on those pillars mentioned nothing about Heracles, speaking only of the expenses incurred by the Phoenicians in their making. The columns of the Melqart temple at Tyre were also of religious significance.

The Pillars in Syriac geography

Syriac scholars were aware of the Pillars through their efforts to translate Greek scientific works into their language as well as into Arabic. The Syriac compendium of knowledge known as ''Ktaba d'ellat koll 'ellan'' (''The Cause of All Causes'') is unusual in asserting that there were three, not two, columns.

In art

Dante's ''Inferno''

In '' Inferno'' XXVI

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...

mentions Ulysses in the pit of the Fraudulent Counsellors and his voyage past the Pillars of Hercules. Ulysses justifies endangering his sailors by the fact that his goal is to gain knowledge of the unknown. After five months of navigation in the ocean, Ulysses sights the mountain of

Purgatory Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...

but encounters a whirlwind from it that sinks his ship and all on it for their daring to approach Purgatory while alive, by their strength and wits alone.

Sir Francis Bacon's ''Novum Organum''

The Pillars appear prominently on the engraved title page of Sir Francis Bacon's ''Instauratio Magna'' ("Great Renewal"), 1620, an unfinished work of which the second part was his influential '' Novum Organum''. The motto along the base says ''Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia'' ("Many will pass through and knowledge will be the greater"). The image was based on the use of the pillars in Spanish and Habsburg propaganda.

In architecture

On the Spanish coast at Los Barrios are Torres de Hercules which are twin towers that were inspired by the ''Pillars of Hercules''. These towers were the tallest in Andalusia until Cajasol Tower was completed in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Penins ...

in 2015. In the southern wall of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Central Library, the mural ''Historical Representation of Culture'', created by the artist

Juan O'Gorman Juan O'Gorman (July 6, 1905 – January 17, 1982) was a Mexican painter and architect. Early life and family Juan O'Gorman was born on 6 July 1905 in Coyoacán, then a village to the south of Mexico City and now a borough of the Federal Distri ...

, portrays a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules as an allusion to the colonial past of Mexico and the house of Charles V.

Coat of arms of Spain

The Pillars appear as supporters of the coat of arms of Spain, originating in the impresa of Spain's sixteenth century king

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V. It was an idea of the Italian humanist Luigi Marliano. It bears the motto '' Plus Ultra'', Latin for ''further beyond'', implying that the pillars were a gateway. This was modified from the phrase ''Nec plus ultra'', ''Nothing more beyond'' after the discovery of the Americas, which laid to rest the idea of the Pillars of Hercules as the westernmost extremity of the inhabitable world which had prevailed since Antiquity. File:Pillars of Hercules.svg, The columns as depicted in the Spanish coat of arms. File:Escudo de España (mazonado).svg, Coat of arms of Spain. File:Escudo de Andalucía (oficial2).svg, Emblem of Andalusia. File:Escudo de Extremadura.svg, Coat of arms of Extremadura. File:Coat of Arms of Melilla.svg, Coat of arms of Melilla. File:Seal of San Diego, California.png, Seal of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. File:Coat of arms of Veracruz.svg, Coat of arms of

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. File:Coat of arms of Tabasco.svg, Coat of arms of Tabasco,

. File:Coat of Arms of Trujillo of New Castille (modern design).svg, Coat of arms of

Trujillo, Peru , population_note = , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 13001 , area_code = 044 , website Municipality of Trujillo, footnotes ...

. File:Third Coat of Arms of Potosi.svg, Coat of arms of

Potosí Potosí, known as Villa Imperial de Potosí in the colonial period, is the capital city and a municipality of the Department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world at a nominal . For centuries, it was the location o ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. File:Escudo de Cádiz (oval).svg, Coat of arms of

. File:Escudo de Tumbes.svg, Coat of arms of Tumbes, Peru.

Gallery

File:PillarsHerculesPeutingeriana.jpg, Modern conjectural depiction of the lost western section of the Tabula Peutingeriana, showing a representation of the Pillars of Hercules (''Columne Ercole''). File:Columnas Plus Ultra.png, Device of Charles V in

's city hall File:Couly Nouailher - Hercules Carries the Two Columns - Walters 44265.jpg,

Limoges enamel Limoges enamel has been produced at Limoges, in south-western France, over several centuries up to the present. There are two periods when it was of European importance. From the 12th century to 1370 there was a large industry producing metal ...

depicting Hercules carrying the two columns, by Couly Nouailher, mid-16th century ( Walters Art Museum). File:Leone Leoni, The Pillars of Hercules (reverse), 1553, NGA 92018.jpg, alt=The reverse of a bronze medal from 1553 by the sculptor Leone Leoni, 4.2 centimeters from top to bottom, showing the two fluted columns connected with a banderole ribbon, in a sea of waves. Around the circumference, in capital letters, reads: PLVS.OUTRE (that is, in English, "And beyond], Leone Leoni. ''The Pillars of Hercules'' everse Bronze, 1553. 4.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of Lisa and Leonard Baskin.

References

External links

* {{Ceuta Atlantis Atlas (mythology) History of Gibraltar Landforms of Ceuta Landforms of Gibraltar Landforms of Morocco Headlands of Spain Locations in Greek mythology Strait of Gibraltar Mythology of Heracles Promontories