Send Gift Baskets to Cadiz, Spain

Cadiz was founded around 1104 BC by Phoenicians from Tyre as Gadir or Agadir. It is often considered to be the most ancient city in Western Europe. It was during the 7th century B.C. that the Phoenicians established a port. There was the beginning of the expeditions of Himilco and Hanno around Western Africa and Spain. Tartessos, a city-state near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River whose exact location is unknown, traded with the Phoenician settlement.

On the south end of its island, the city had a temple dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart, who was conflated with Hercules by the Greeks and Romans as Tyrian Hercules and Hercules Gaditanus. It was renowned for its wealth and had an oracle. After slaying Geryon, a monster with three heads and torsos joined to a single pair of legs, Hercules was sometimes credited with founding Gadeira. In the 1st century, the “Heracleum” (i.e., Melqart’s temple) was still standing near Gadeira (a tumulus associated with Geryon’s final resting place.) Based on this source, some historians believe that the columns of this temple were the origin of the “pillars of Hercules” myth.

Following the First Punic War, Hamilcar Barca’s Iberian campaign brought the city under Carthage’s sway. Cadiz served as a depot for Hannibal’s conquest of southern Iberia, and he sacrificed to Hercules/Melqart there before crossing the Alps to invade Italy in 218 BC. 206 BC marked the end of the city’s Roman occupation under Scipio Africanus. Known as Gades, the town flourished as a port and naval base during the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar saw a statue of Alexander the Great in Gades when he was a quaestor (junior senator) and was saddened to think that he, though the same age, had achieved nothing noteworthy.