περίπλους της τῶν βάρβαρον Εὐρώπς: The Pillars of Hercules

[oudysseos]

περίπλους της τῶν βάρβαρον Εὐρώπς: The Pillars of Hercules
A περίπλους (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=2100419#post2100419) project

Any journey must have a beginning, and we begin ours in the West. To the classical world, the Straits of Gibraltar was a doorway in the wall surrounding the known world. Although the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans knew of (and in some cases had founded or taken over) important settlements on the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Iberia, in the direction of the setting sun there was nothing, only the empty Ocean. Yet to us, coming as it were across the waves from unknown lands, the narrow passage between Europe and Africa is the beginning of the world, and if we are lucky enough to approach Calpe (the Rock of Gibraltar) and Abyla (Monte Hacho) as the sun is rising, they will be the very Gates of Morning.

But probably not the Pillars of Heracles. For these, we must visit Gadir (Cadiz).

Strabo, III.5.5

Others say that it is the bronze pillars of eight cubits in the temple of Heracles [Melqart] in Gades, whereon is inscribed the expense incurred in the construction of the temple, that are called the Pillars; and those people who have ended their voyage with visiting these pillars and sacrificing to Heracles have had it noisily spread abroad that this is the end of both land and sea. Poseidonius, too, believes this to be the most plausible account of the matter…

The traditional date for the founding of Gadir (a Phoenician word meaning “walled stronghold”) is 1104 BCE, although archaeological finds can only confirm settlement back to the 9th century BCE. Either way, Cadiz is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, older than Rome, Marseille, Syracuse, and Carthage.

Older indeed than Carthage: Gadir was never a Carthaginian colony, but an original settlement of Tyre, with its own government of sophets, senate, and judges. It was founded on an island or peninsula similar to Tyre in order to exploit the silver trade with Tartessos. Further Phoenician settlements at Onoba (Huelva), Malaca (Malaga), Sexi (Almunecar), Abdera, Baria, Mastia (Cartagena), and Barkeno (Barcelona) along the Mediterranean coast of Iberia, along with stations on Ibiza (Ebusos), Sardinia and Corsica, meant that as Carthage slowly exerted dominance over her Phoenician sisters, she was able by the sixth century BCE to close the Straits of Gibraltar to all other shipping and establish a commercial monopoly in the western Mediterranean, even though Greek colonies at Akra Leuke (Alicante), Emporion (Ampurias) and Rhode had earlier been established.

A monopoly of trade, but not an empire, or even a province (both Roman words and indeed concepts). At most Iberia was a Phoenician and later a Carthaginian sphere of influence, at least until the military conquests of the Barcids, which didn’t begin until Hamilcar Barca landed in Gadir in 237 BCE. At the start of our journey, 35 years earlier, Carthaginian controlled Gadir was only the outlet for trade with the nations of Iberia, and the Carthage’s influence on both the Phoenician settlements and the native Iberians was at a very low ebb.

Physical Geography

http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/images/fig01_600.jpg

Most of Iberia's boundaries are water: coastline defines 88% of its extent, with the only land border being the Pyrenees Mountains that separate it from Gaul. The geography of the Peninsula is commonly grouped into natural regions or subregions: the dominant Meseta Central, the Cordillera Cantabrica and the northwest region, the Ibérico region, the Pyrenees, the Penibético region in the southeast, the Andalusian Plain, the Ebro Basin and the coastal plains. Of these the most significant is the Meseta Central, which is a vast plateau in the heart of Iberia, and has elevations that range from 610 to 760 m. Rimmed by mountains, the Meseta Central slopes gently to the west and to a series of rivers. The Sistema Central, described as the "dorsal spine" of the Meseta Central, divides the Meseta into northern and southern subregions, the former higher in elevation and smaller in area than the latter. The mountains of the Sistema Central, which continue westward, display some glacial features; the highest of the peaks are snow-capped for most of the year. Despite their height, however, the mountain system does not create a major barrier between the northern and the southern portions of the Meseta Central because several passes permit travel to the northwest and the northeast.

Climatic Zones

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Spain-climate-en.png

Due to both its geographical situation which exposes only its northern part to the Jet Stream's typical path and its orographic conditions, the climate in Iberia is extremely diverse. It experiences three major climatic types: Continental, Oceanic, and Mediterranean. For further detail on climate types, may I suggest wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Mediterranean_climate).
As is true of any country, in any era, the lives of the native Iberians were strongly marked by the physical geography and climate of the Iberian Peninsula. Although to many of the ancient writers Iberia was a paradise of agricultural wealth and prosperity, the truth was somewhat less ideal. Had they tempered their enthusiasm with honesty, they would not have applied to the whole of the country a perception which is only true of a small part of it. Even in modern times, with the benefits of science and technology, it is reckoned that 40 per cent of the total area of the Peninsula is covered by forest and pasturage and that over 20 percent is sterile, with only a little over a third of the country being given up to cultivation.

Rivers

If we consider the principal rivers of Spain, we notice that of the five largest rivers which are fed from the plateau;
Douro (Durius),
Tajo (Tagus),
Guadiana (Anas),
Guadalquivir (Baetis), and
Ebro (Hiberus)
only the last, flowing between the central massif and the Pyrenees, follows an eastward course. The other four are westward-flowing rivers, their courses being roughly at right angles to that of the Ebro: the Durius and the Tagus meet the inhospitable Atlantic on the west coast: the Anas, after a sharp southward turn, meets the south coast outside the Straits of Gibraltar; and the Baetis, after a similar turn, flows into the sea nearer the straits.
This predominantly western aspect of Spain's river system is of great importance: when the age of maritime communication began to link the lands of the east and west Mediterranean in a closer relationship, a great part of the peoples of central Spain, lacking an eastward-looking outlet from their plateau, remained relatively untouched by external influences.

Peoples and Nations

http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/images/fig03_350.jpg

For detailed information about the native peoples of Iberia e-Keltoi (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/index.html) cannot be improved on.
The Celts in Iberia: An Overview (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/lorrio_zapatero_6_4.html)
Oppida and Celtic society in western Spain (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_5/alvarez_sanchis_6_5.html)
The Celts of the Southwestern Iberian Peninsula (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_9/berrocal_6_9.html)
Celtic Elements in Northwestern Spain in Pre-Roman times (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_10/garcia_quintela_6_10.html)
The Celts in Portugal (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_11/gamito_6_11.html)

Before the Roman period Spain contained elements of widely different origin. Each successive movement of peoples from East to West had left its deposit in the Peninsula, where the Ocean barred the way to further progress. Thus the Iberians and the Celts had been superimposed on the Ligurians. On the other hand all the seafaring peoples—the Minoans, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and perhaps the Etruscans—had been attracted by the rich mines of the country. The dominant element was the Iberian, however, there were important local differences, according to the proportion of the various ethnic groups in each district, and these differences were accentuated by the physical geography of Iberia, which divides the country into regions varying in climate and products, and very much shut off from one another. Before the Roman occupation Spain presented the appearance of a series of compartments, each living its own life, and each at a different stage of civilization.

For our purposes, it is important to note that “Iberian” means simply ‘people living in Iberia at the time’ and does not denote a homogeneous culture, ethnicity or political entity. Depending on who’s counting, there were 4 to 6 major linguistic groups and at least 50 tribes of varying strength and influence in more than 20 groups, alliances or confederations.

The origin of the word 'Iberian' is itself unknown, although there is a lot of speculation.

The related term 'Hispania' is possibly derived from the Punic אי שפן "I-Shaphan" meaning "coast of hyraxes", in turn a misidentification on the part of Phoenician explorers of its numerous rabbits as hyraxes

The following is an ad-hoc grouping of the Iberian Tribes.


Map
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Ethnographic_Iberia_200_BCE.PNG

Tartessian

Turdetani
Bastuli
Conii

Iberian (pre-Indo-European)

Bastetani
Edetani
Contestani
Ilercavines
Cessetani
Laietani
Lacetani
Indigetes
Ausetani
Sordones

Celtic

Albiones
Arevaci
Astur
Berones
Bletonesii
Bracari
Gallaeci
Cantabri
Carpetani
Celtici
Coelerni
Equesi
Grovii
Interamici
Leuni
Limici
Luanqui
Lusones
Narbasi
Nemetati
Paesuri
Quaquerni
Seurbi
Tamagani
Tapoli
Vaccaei

Pre-Celtic Indo-European

Lusitani
Vettones

Aquitanian

Vascones (Gascons)
Aquitani
Iacetani
Vardulli
The identification of any particular tribe as 'Celtic' or 'Pre-Indo-European' is still the subject of much debate and I certainly am not claiming to settle these issues here. There are bound to be disagreements on who was what, since a lot of the evidence is based on toponyms, epigraphy and archaeology. Again, the e-Keltoi articles linked above cover these issues in great detail. Generally, the Mediterranean coast was the home of the Iberian and possibly pre-Indo-European tribes. The south around Gibraltar and Cadiz was the home of the Tartessians and their descendants. The middle, west, and north-west of the Country was heavily Celtic, but with (possibly) pre-Celtic groups like the Lusitanians holding on.

Something should be said about Celtiberians and Lusitanians.
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_11/images/fig05_600.jpgA map of Lusitanian and Celtiberian Toponyms

The former term is (I think) something of a Roman catch-all designation, as it seems to be a group of related tribes rather than the name of a specific people; the main tribe was the Arevaci, but others were the Belli, Titti, Vettones, Olcades, and maybe the Lusones. Roman historians such as Polybius and Appian seemed to think that the Lusitanians were also Celtiberians, although there is disagreement on this and the EB Lusotanann faction is not identified as purely 'Celtic'. Academic opinion is divided as to their origins: whether the name 'Celtiberian' implies Celts absorbed by a later infusion of Iberians, as Schulten supposes, or Iberians on to whom a proportion of Celts was later grafted.; as Bosch Gimpera has argued is a hair that I am not going to try and split here. The comparative isolation of this central culture from external influences kept it free from substantial change; and the Celtiberians of the third century onwards were well known to Roman soldiers and historians for their hardy and sober habits, their small clans living almost devoid of political cohesion in their strong mountain forts, their magnificent horsemanship, their indifference to all precious metals save iron (from which they forged their superb weapons), and their relative poverty.

We do have to keep in mind at all times that these kind of opinions are necessarily Romano-centric, as we do not have any descriptions from these peoples of their own way of life. Possibly they thought of themselves as rich, important, and civilized, and the Romans as greedy, dirty, ignorant Italian peasants.

As far as the Lusitanians and their possible relation to the Celts goes, Sutherland thinks that besides the fusion of Celts with earlier Iberians, the Celtic influx of the sixth century had one other result of importance. Hard pressed by the immigrants, part of the Lusones (probably a pre-Celtic and semi-Iberized tribe) who dwelt on the mountains southwest of the Ebro, seem to have moved westward, and by the third century they appear, under the name of Lusitani, widely spread over what is now Estremadura and southern Portugal, between the courses of the Anas and the Tagus. In their level of culture they were comparable to the Celtiberi. Their westward thrust was balanced by that of a smaller body of Celts who, known to the ancients as Celtici, penetrated to the middle reaches of the Anas, and subsequently intermingled with the more northern elements of the Tartessian area, known to the Romans as Turdetani or Turduli.

The complexity of the peoples of Iberia is tremendous, and a traveller in 272 BCE would need to keep his wits about him just to know whose territory he was crossing. If you're not confused by now about the kaleidoscope of Iberian cultures and ethnicities, you're a better man than I. And we haven't even started on languages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_language) yet.

This map (http://www.arkeotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm) (also available as a PDF download at the bottom of the page, and worth it as it is organized into a series of overlays that you can add or subtract in Adobe Reader) shows this complexity very well.
edit: The same map is on the main periplus thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=111234), in the Maps section of Iberia, labeled 'Tribes of Iberia'.

While this map shows just how diverse even a small part of Iberia could be:
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/images/fig05_350.jpg

Certainly, if there were no hard-coded limits to how many “factions” should be included in the game, then for the native Iberians alone the Lusitani , Cantabri, Turdetani, Vettones, Asturi, Gallaeci, Celtiberians (Arevaci, Vaccei), Vascones, Celtici, Oretani, and Carpetani would be the minimum factions, with the Illergeti, Edetani, and Bastetani having good claims as well. If you are interested in this level of detail, then you could do worse than to try out Iberia Total War Gold (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=62).

Cities

The archaeological evidence suggests that scarcely any substantial cities existed away from the coast; Numantia is the most impressive. Yet the literary sources often speak of cities and
towns, and though they certainly exaggerated (Cato cannot have captured 400 towns) one should also allow for the inadequacies of the archaeological record, which tells us little or nothing about, for example, the existence of wooden buildings or the pre-Roman remains of such still inhabited sites as Toledo or Sigiienza. However, small hill-top poblados, not large towns, were characteristic of inland Spain before 200 BCE.

Phoenician Cities

Gadir (Cadiz)
Onoba (Huelva)
Malaca (Malaga)
Sexi (Almunecar)
Abdera
Baria
Mastia (Cartagena)
Barkeno (Barcelona)

Greek Cities

Rhode
Emporion (Ampurias)
Akra Leuke (Alicante)

Iberian Cities

Arse (Saguntum)
Numantia
Sekeida (Zaragoza)
Pallantia (Palencia)
Munda
Keition (Alcacer do Sal)
Kesse or Tarchon (Tarragona)
Olissipo (Lisbon) There is archaeological evidence of Phoenician elements as well.
and many more.

Wonders and Points of Interest

The ἱερὸν ἀκρωτήριον or sacred promontory is a name given in Classical times to many prominent locations. In Iberia, both modern Cape St. Vincent and Cape Finisterre can be thought of in this way.

http://en.www.mcu.es/patrimonio/MC/PatrimonioEur/img/CaboFisterra1.jpg
Finisterre (do I need to tell you that that's Latin for 'World's End'?) is often thought to be the westernmost point of Europe (it's not really), and Monte Facho has been associated with Celtic sun worship and with the Orcabella cult. The perception of the area as the end of the world is possibly related to its proximity to the Bay of Biscay, which is notorious for its danger to sailors.

Either

http://img3.travelblog.org/Photos/33012/159855/t/1157731-View-from-Cape-St-Vincent-Cabo-de-S-o-Vicente-0.jpg
Cape St. Vincent or

http://ficus.pntic.mec.es/tgag0009/imagenes/portugal/AlgarveSagres.jpg
Sagres Point

is Strabo's Sacred Cape (III.1.4)

This cape is the most westerly point, not only of Europe, but of the whole inhabited world; for, whereas the inhabited world comes to an end in the west with the two continents (in the one hand, at the headlands of Europe, and in the other, at the extremities of Libya, of which regions the Iberians occupy the one, and the Maurusians the other), the headlands of Iberia project at the aforementioned cape about fifteen hundred stadia beyond those of Libya...it is not lawful to offer sacrifice there, nor, at night, even to set foot on the place, because the gods, the people say, occupy it at that time; but those who come to see the place spend the night in a neighbouring village, and then enter the place by day, taking water with them, for there is no water there.

While St. Vincent actually is the southwesternmost point of Europe, Sagres more closely fits Strabo's description. Either way the area has been an important sacred site since neolithic times. It was called Ophiussa (Land of Serpents) and Oestreminis (Extreme West) by Greeks and Romans and there are standing menhirs a few miles from both points.

Religion

Some Lusitanian Gods
Endovelicus: was a supreme solar healing god, thus a god of Medicine. Some suspect he was also a god who wore several faces, one of which may have been an "infernal" one, since all solar gods went down to the infernos and returned with healing power.

After receiving certain rites, if a person (or a priest) slept in his sanctuary, Endovelicus would talk to them in their dreams and even tell them about their own future or offer advice.

Endovelicus also protected the cities or region that venerated him. The epithets given to Endovelicus are deus, sanctus, prarsentissimus and preaestantissimus. These suggest that the god was effective, and always present and living on the sanctuary. Votative altars suggest that the god inspired the early Lusitanian resistance to the Romans.

Ataegina was the Goddess of rebirth (Spring), fertility, nature, and cure in the Lusitanian mythology. She is also seen as the Lusitanian goddess of the moon. The name of Ataegina comes from the Celtic Ate + Gena, meaning "reborn".

The consecrated animal of Ataegina was the goat. She had a devotio cult, in which someone would invoke the goddess to cure someone, or occasionally curse someone with little plagues or even to death.

Runesocesius was the God of javelins in Lusitanian mythology, possessing a mysterious nature and a martial character. With Ataegina and Endovelicus, he formed the supreme trinity of the Lusitanian religion.

Cariocecus was the god of war in Lusitanian mythology. He was equated with the Roman god Mars and Greek Ares.

The Lusitanians practiced human sacrifice and when a priest wounded a prisoner in the stomach they made predictions by the way the victim fell down and by the appearance of the victim's innards. Sacrifices were not limited to prisoners but also included animals, horses and goats specifically. That was confirmed by Strabo: "They offer a goat and prisoners and horses". The Lusitanians cut the right hand of prisoners and consecrated it to Cariocecus.

Trebaruna is probably from celtic trebo (home) and runa (secret, mystery) was the Goddess of the House, Battles and Death.

There were found two small altars in Portugal that were dedicated to this goddess, one in Roman-Lusitanian Egitania (current Proença-a-Velha) and another one in Lardosa. In the Tavares Proença Regional Museum in Castelo Branco there the altar found in Lardosa in a place where the people from a Castro settlement founded a Roman-Lusitanian villa. This altar, in the past, had a statue of the goddess, but it was lost, nevertheless, it still preserves inscriptions.

Ares Lusitani is the God of horses.

Bormanico was the god of hot springs.

Duberdicus was the god of fountains and water.

Nabia was the Iberian Goddess of Rivers and Water.

Tongoenabiagus was the God of Oaths and Fountains.

Bandonga was a goddess of the Lusitani Celts


Trade and Resources

In Roman times the trade of Hispania was first and foremost an export trade of raw materials and foodstuffs to Italy, though manufactured goods were imported from Italy and Gaul.

Despite the harsh climate in parts of the Peninsula, control of Iberia brought great wealth for many years: in Hannibal’s time one mine at Baebelo provided 300 pounds of silver a day; in the time of Pliny the Elder Galicia, Asturia and Lusitania together yielded twenty thousand pounds of gold a year.
Copper (most of the Roman world's supply), lead, tin and iron were also mined, and the mines of Sisapo on the borders of Baetica and Nearer Spain were the only ones known to the ancients
that produced mercury: cinnabar came from them also.
In addition to mining there were ‘industrial’ towns that produced oil, wine, esparto grass and salt fish. In Roman times agriculture was also greatly increased, so much so that Hispania exported wheat, wine and olive oil. Secondary products were exported as well; honey, wax, pitch, flax and linen.

But perhaps the most important resource sought by Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans were the sturdy fighting men of the Iberian Tribes and their sharp Spanish swords.

References

Print sources used for this article include
The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade. 2nd Edition, María Eugenia Aubet
The Romans in Spain, C.H.V. Sutherland
The World of the Phoenicians, Sabatino Moscati
The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal Scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier, Duane W. Roller
Cambridge Ancient History, articles by G. Picard, H. Scullard

[oudysseos]

The Pillars of Heracles may have in reality been two bronze pillars in the Temple of Melqart in Gadir, but in Classical times as today, most people would have understood them to be the two mountains that frame the Straits of Gibraltar, although a third belief is found in the Tabula Peutingeriana (it's on the main periplus thread and is a large image so I won't put it here too).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/De_Zuilen_van_Hercules_Gibraltar_en_Ceuta.jpg
The view from Calpe (the Rock of Gibraltar) towards the other 'Pillar'

Between the mountains and the sea, the narrow strip of the African continent that runs from the Atlantic coast of modern Morocco to Cape Bon and the site of Carthage has had many names. Arabic writers called it المغرب العربي (al-Maġrib al-ʿArabī) which we usually render as the Maghreb, and which means the Land of Sunset, or just The West. Herodotus called it all Libya (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Herodotus_world_map-en.svg), while the Romans divided it into Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis. By whatever name, it was a long, narrow territory (Iol and Volubilis are 800km apart and population in between was scant) with many unique characteristics. To the Romans it seemed an especially arid, exotic place, home to lions and full of desolate, unpopulated plains where the sun was unusually close to the earth.

Physical Geography
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Atlas-Mountains-Labeled-2.jpg
The Atlas mountains are the predominant feature of the entire region. Indeed, even though the Maghreb is separated from Europe, the mountains hang together from one to the other side of Mediterranean Sea, and are arranged in coherent systems. One bridge unites Sicily to Tunisia; another one, the Bethic bridge, does the same for Spain and Morocco. The Atlas isolates Mauretania from both the interior of Africa and the further Atlantic coast, and thus forces the territory to look toward Europe. South of the mountains is the desert, deserta ardentia, as Juba called it, a barrier to travel then as now.

The Rif mountains lie to the north of the Atlas in eastern Morocco and hug the coast, curving to the northwest toward the Strait of Gibraltar: Jebel Musa (one of Heracles' Pillars, maybe) is the northernmost point of the range, but the Rif Mountains are effectively continued in Spain by Gibraltar itself and the mountains of Andalusia, thus cutting Mauretania into two parts, each more easily in contact with Europe than with each other.

To the east is the rugged coast of modern Algeria, in Roman and earlier times centering on Iol/Caesarea and cut off from the interior plateaus by the mountains.

To the west, beyond the Rif, and accessible by land only through passes between the southernmost Rif and the Atlas, are the plains of modern Morocco, whose natural communication is north into Spain, since the Rif inhibits movement to the east.

In Roman times population was heaviest in a line extending almost due south from Tingis, at the Pillars of Heracles, to Volubilis, a strip of approximately 225km. To the southwest, the limits of the plain are marked by foothills of the Atlas that reach the coast between modern Rabat and Casablanca.

Ancient Mauretania, then, extended over 1,600km of coastline but with its populated areas never more than 150km inland, and, especially in the east, was limited to a thin coastal strip and a few small interior valleys. Moreover, because of the nature of the mountains, population was separated into two distinct regions: one on the coast near Iol/Caesarea, in modern Algeria, and the other far to the west along the Tingis-Volubilis axis, in modern Morocco. As might be expected, Iol was influenced by the Carthaginian (subsequently Roman) territories to its east, but the Tingis-Volubilis region, separated from Iol by rugged mountains, became virtually an extension of Roman Spain, and earlier had even experienced a brief invasion of Lusitanians.

The two pockets of historic population are typically Mediterranean in aspect. Iol/Caesarea is situated where the mountains are narrowest: their southern edge is less than 100km due south of the coast where the high plateaus (averaging around 1,000m in elevation) of the northern Sahara begin. The terrain is rugged at Iol: the Massif de Dahra rises to 1,415m less than 20km south of the city and there is virtually no coastal plain. It is a strange and isolated location for a major city: settlement was perhaps originally due to the presence of a small island just offshore that provided protection for ships, a rare sheltered point along this rugged coast, known today as the Corniche des Dahra.

In many ways, Iol was the western outpost of North African civilization: to the east, where the mountains consist of many parallel ranges separating fertile valleys, the traditional heartland of Numidia and Carthage, population density was high in all periods. To the west of Iol, however, the rugged coast continues with few breaks for nearly 300km until one reaches the Gulf of Arzew and the site near Bettioua traditionally identified as Portus Magnus. Even beyond this point, settlement was limited for nearly another 100km until Siga, the important regional center of the chieftain Syphax in the late third century BC. Siga, at the mouth of the Tafna, is itself isolated, but to the west, as the coast turns in a more northerly direction, the Atlas Mountains and coast diverge and Mauretania proper begins.

To the southwest, broken hills rising to over 1,000m in elevation mark the end of the populated region. The coastal plain is again in evidence beyond these hills, and continues far to the southwest, eventually to be terminated by the Atlas range itself at modern Agadir. But this region was more barren than that to the east, and was essentially outside the populated limits of Greco-Roman culture, although the coast had been explored since at least Carthaginian times. The only settlement of significance in this vast area was the purple dye works at modern Mogador or Essaouira, probably ancient Kerne, over 400km from Sala and considered in Hellenistic times to be the limit of Mauretania. Still further - nearly 500km beyond - are the Canary Islands. The closest to land, modern Fuerteventura, lies less than 100km offshore and is often visible from the mainland. These too had been vaguely known since early times but were first explored in detail and named by Juba II, his most significant contribution to geographical research. Explorers went farther, and indeed Carthaginians and Greeks circumnavigated Africa, but the Canaries remained the extremity of the Greco-Roman world: they lie closer to South America than to Asia Minor.

Climatic Zones

The portions of the Maghreb between the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, along with coastal Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in Libya, are home to Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and shrub. These ecoregions share many species of plants and animals with other portions of Mediterranean Basin.

The Mediterranean qualities of the region are less prominent along the Atlantic coast, where cooler temperatures and frequent fogs are common. This made the coast less desirable for settlement, and in Graeco-Roman times there were only two major towns along 250km of Atlantic coastline, Lixos and Sala, each at the mouth of the river of the same name.

Peoples and Nations

Substantial archaeological and genetic evidence indicate that the Berber or Imazighen people have inhabited the Mediterranean coast of northwestern Africa since at least the second millenium BCE and by the later centuries BC these people were widely scattered and had evolved distinct regional traditions and dialects. There are still over 40 surviving Berber dialects among the relic Berber populations of the Maghreb and although in antiquity writing was comparatively little used, at least four different alphabets are known from Libyan inscriptions. Up to the time of Caesar the most important ethnicities knownt to Greeks and Romans the Mauri of Mauretania, the Numidae of the Tell and the Gaetuli of the steppe and pre-desert zones.

Nonetheless there is not a great deal of detailed information about this region or its people for our period: there are no literary works written in the Libyan language and no single Roman source to compare with the Germania of Tacitus, itself to be taken with a grain of salt. Authors such as Pliny and Ptolemy contain significant geographical blunders or miscomprehensions, and material which is plainly mythical or apocryphal. Even so there is important information to be gleaned: Pliny lists 516 populi in North Africa between the river Ampsaga and Arae Philaenorum, not including the Mauretanian provinces and Cyrenaica. This figure included 53 urban populi, but the rest were predominately rural tribes of which only 25 are listed by name, which is not surprising as Pliny complained that the Libyan names of people and places were absolutely unpronounceable except by natives.

So far a specific idea of the political and social structure of the western Maghreb in 272 BCE seems impossible. At best, historical retrojection of information from a later period can show us what the situation in Tingis and Lixus might have been like. Still, things are not as bad as they appear: starting with the Second Punic War, more specific information becomes available.

Mauretanians were allied with Carthage as early as 406BC when an expedition was made to Sicily, and later during the First Punic War the Mauretanians were punished for their friendliness to M. Atilius Regulus, the Roman commander. According to Livy, a chieftain named Baga (and called by him "Rex Maurorum", the first Mauretanian mentioned by name) was wealthy enough during the Second Punic War to give Massinissa an escort of 4,000 men across Mauretania to the Numidian border, when Massinissa was in the process of successfully seizing the throne of Numidia, but this took place some fifty years after the beginning of our period.
Sallust wrote that Mauretania was known by name to the Romans long before there was direct contact, and it remained to Roman writers a vague 'end of the world' until the fall of Carthage opened up the western Mediterranean to Rome.
The first powerful ruler (that we know of) of a unified Mauretania was Bocchus, whose date of accession is not known: he was already on the throne before the death of Micipsa of Numidia in 118BCE and thus 150 years later than our period.

Tribes (Work in Progress, some of these are Numidian rather than Mauretanian)

Baquates
Bavares
Begguenses
Garamantes
Gaetuli
Macennites
Massyles
Masaesyles
Mauri
Mazax
Misciri
Musulames
Nasamones
Zengrenses

Cities

Kerne/Mogador
Chellah/Sala (Rabat)
Lixus
Tingis (Tangiers)
Volubilis
Tamuda
Rusaddir
Siga
Iol

Wonders and Points of Interest

Trade and Resources

Trade in purple dye from the murex snail, olives, salt fish, and later wild animals for Roman arenas was initially centered on Tingis in the west, although Cirta also became a major center for Italian businessmen.

References

[oudysseos]

This Thread is now substantially done, although there will be minor additions of content and a fair amount of editing until I feel that it properly balances readability with the quality and quantity if information offered.

I also intend to better reference and perhaps footnote both posts. Although this is not a formal academic work, I would like it to be a useful source for interested people to further their investigations.

If there are any errors of fact or if you disagree with any of my interpretations please let me know! I'd love to have others contribute.

[General Appo]

This is absolutely great.

[Gazius]

This is absolutely great.

Indeed, fascinating stuff for sure. I hope we'll see this kind of insight for all the lands of EB?

[oudysseos]

Yes indeedy. See the first post of the main periplus thread for the plan.

[Subedei]

Good job & interesting read! Thank you for all the work you put in there!:2thumbsup:
Makes wating [a bit] easier!

[Kalunga]

Hi Odisseus, I had to stop and make u know that every time I came to this very forum I think to myself:

"I hope Odisseus posted something"

I'm very new over this forum, but u keep EB II forums interesting and at a higher level.

Now I´m going to read the Iberian post again:beam:

How I could give u +rep points?

[oudysseos]

Kalunga, your enjoyment is all the rep I need. (Geeze that sounds mawkish)

First post updated, getting close to finished.

[keravnos]

Under "thread tools" once you click on it there is an option which says "Subscribe to thead". If there ever was a thread worthy of this, this is it.

ABSOLUTELY Great work oudysseos. (understatement of the year)

should read (so far as the Greek is concerned)
"ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ ΤΗΣ ΤΩΝ ΒΑΡΒΑΡΩΝ ΕΥΡΩΠΗΣ"

[oudysseos]

Thanks for the Greek, Keravnos. It's been 18 years since my last Greek tutorial.

I corrected the title in the body of the text but can't change the actual name of the thread to περίπλους της τῶν βάρβαρον Εὐρώπς: The Pillars of Hercules. Anyone who can do so please feel free.

And coming from you, very high praise indeed. Thank you.

[Kalunga]

Thanks Keravnos I'm a starter at online forums (few days), thread subscribed :)

keravnos
oudysseos

high level posters. Cointrabalancing things like "I want hoplites to be like hoplites" :)

may Athena bless you

[oudysseos]

The first post had been updated (I cleaned up the geography and climate section, and also put in a link to a good wikipedia page on the Iberian languages, and added a wonders section), and I have made a very small start on the second post. I'd like to add more on the natural resources and trade of Iberia but otherwise I'm gonna call that one mostly done.

Unfortunately I have run out of time for today, but I will try to finish the second Pillar of Heracles very soon. At least there's only two.

[oudysseos]

This thread is now substantially done, and although there is still a lot of editing to do (in particular for the Mauretania post, large portions of which are blatant paraphrases of The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal Scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier by Duane W. Roller) and some more content that I'd like to eventually add in, the first stage of our journey is relatively complete. Unless there is a really major addition, I won't bump the thread anymore.

So, on to Massalia and Gaul. Everybody got their bags packed?

[machinor]

Take us away!! :)

[General Appo]

Brace yourselves!

[Megas Methuselah]

I am braced!

[Cartaphilus]

Hey, ho, let's go.

[Conqueror]

Although the Graeco-Roman world had long known that it could be crossed, and that great rivers and tropical flora and fauna lay beyond, the desert remained a major obstacle, penetrated regularly only by the camel caravans that brought central African goods to the Mediterranean.

Camels had already been brought that far west?

[oudysseos]

The quote is from the Roller book and may refer to a later time period. I'll check into it.

[oudysseos]

To answer Conqueror:

According to the Cambridge History of North Africa camel caravans did not become common in Northwest Africa until the 4th century CE, so clearly retrojection of camel trade into the EB time period is not right.

There do appear to be many contemporary (for EB) wall paintings (in the Maghgreb) of horses and donkeys, although whether these are in a military or mercantile context googlebooks preview won't let me find out.

That whole section of the thread is due for some serious editing anyway so I'll have a go at some better formatting and wording. The quote about 52 days to Timbuctu is direct from Roller and was I suspect meant to be illustrative: Timbuctu did not exist until the 10th century CE or so.

The Romans did know about camels: they were in common use in the Levant, Arabia, the far East and possibly Egypt in our time period (or slightly later).

[Strategos Alexandros]

That really was a very interesting read. I look forward to any more additions you may make.

[Berg-i-dum]

I find very interesting and complete this study. But I think I could add some ideas:

About the ethnics. It is not accurate the division in Tartessian, Celtic, Indoeuropean pre-celtic and the tribes including each group. The Lusitani, and the Gallaeci have a quite similar ethnic, as the Astures and Cantabri, I would include them in a big group called Indoeuropean Ist Iron Age, they all have an arcaic indoeuropean language similar to the lusitanian with the p- suffix (in Pallantia for example) as one of his distinctions from the celtiberian - arcaic celt area.

An strange case would be the Vettones, bein a preceltic tribe they were heavily "celticed" or better "celtiberizated" in IInd Iron Age so I will include them in the next group. Then I would make a celtic group with all celtiberian tribes (Arevaci, Pelendoni, Barones, Belli, Titti, Lusones, Lobetani...) and other celtiberizated as Vacceai or probably the Celtici in SW, plus other IInd Iron Age celtic tribes but differencied from celtiberians: Autrigones, Turmogos, Caristii and Varduli.

Then I will forgive the tartessian name and make a third group called Turdetanian (for the turdetanian language) with the Turdetani and Turduli, Bastuli. The rest as Iberic area with the Edetani, Ilergetae and so. The Aquitanian-vasque group is accurate (it should be pointed that the extension of vasque tribes in area of celt tribes as the Caristii in the low lands near the Pyrinean was under roman rule).


In the Iberian cities list I would add planty indoeuropean more: Brigantia (nowadays A Coruña), Helmantiké - Salamantica (Salamanca -sieged by Hannibal), Cauca (Coca, Segovia), Ocelum Durii (Medinaceli or Zamora), Segobriga (Cuenca), Uxama Argaela, Tiermes, Toletum. I would difference also noticiable kinds of habitats: from the actual cities from the mediterranean shore, to the Oppida in the central areas-celtiberia, to the Castros - little Hillforts in all the North and West area.

About religion, I would add other important Gods from other tribes. In the list of the lusitanian Gods I should comment that Endovellico and Ataecina have a big spread in other celtic territories (in other tribes). For example I would add the Warrior God of the Gallaecians called Cossue- (it is prefix that added to a second term make the name of the god in each region, for example Cossuesegidiaeco), Candamius, Epona (horses godess in Cantabria), Lug-Lovggei-Lugus (Lugh, in a wide spread), Matres - Tutela cult (godess of protection of clans-communites and mother earth cults), Bandua, Reva, Bormanicus, ...

I would add also this interesting map of the indoeuropean-iberic marks with the langguages extension:

http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_4/images/fig06.jpg

About Wonders and points of interest, I think you refer to natural areas, isnt it?, so well I would add more places, as for example sacred Mounts (as theMons Mars Tilenvs among the Astures), Rivers as Minius (Miño, river known for his aboundace of gold in his river-bed, lately romans exploited the area where they produced most of the gold they needed -the other part came from Balkans)...

Well I guess I coul add more ideas but dont know how to continue this rough sketch. If you find something interesting in these points or you want me to add more things in any subject, let me know it.