Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/546

 528 CARTEIA. party in the citj, b. c 45. (Strab. in. p. 141 ; Hirt. B. U, 32—37 ; Appian, B. C. ii. 105 ; Dion Cass, xliii. 40, who also mentions a previous naval engage- ment off KpamlfL, where CarteTa is evidently the place meant, c. 31 ; comp. Flor. iv. 2. § 75.) These events are alluded to in a letter of Cicero's {ad AU. xii. 44. § 4), and in a sabsequent letter he refers to the reception of Sextos Pompeios at Carteta, after the murder of Caesar (ad Alt. xv. 20. § 3). A very interestin/; discussion has been long since raised by the different names under which this city appears to be mentioned by the ancient writers. In the first place, we have the slightly varied form Kap- Beua. (Appian, B. C, ii. 105; Artemidor. ap.Stepk. B. 8, V.) Strabo mentions a city of the name of Caipe, in a position exactly corresponding with Car- teTa (iii. p. 140). Adjacent, he savs, to the moun- tain of Calpe, at the distance of 40 stadia (4 geog. miles or 5 M. P.), is the important and ancient city of Calpe, which was formerly a naval station of the Iberians; and s(»ne, too, say that it was founded by Heracles, among whom is Timoathenes, who states that it was anciently named HerAcleia('HpaicA«iai'), and that the great circuit of its walls, and its docks (vfANTodcovs) are shown." Here the distance from M. Calpe corresponds exactly to that given by Mar- cian (see above), and to the site of the ruins at El Rocadillo; the connection of the city with the wor- ship of Heracles is a fiict already established in the case of CarteXa, and we know that CarteYa was a great seaport In fact, so striking are the points of identity, that Casaubon altered the reading from Ki£A.r}7 to KapTT)^; and this emendation is supported by the argument that, in each of the subsequent passages in which Strabo mentions CarteTa, ho refers to it incidentally as he would to a place he had al- ready mentioned (ppu 141, 145, 151), while he never again speaks of Calpe as a city. That the emenda- tion should not be too hastily admitted, will appear presently ; but meanwhile most of the commentators Lave overlooked an important difficulty in the way of identifying Calpe and CarteTa. When Strabo de- scribes the ancient city and port, on the authority of an old writer, would he omit to mention its identity with CarteTa, a place so well known, as we have seen, in the events of his own times? The most reasonable answer seems to be that Strabo fell, by the necessary fate of comjulers, even the most care- ful, into the mbtake of not seeing the identity of an object through the disguise of the different names applied to it by different authorities; and that thus, Timosthenes having mentioned the place by what seems to have been its usual Greek name, Strabo quotes his description, without perceiving the identity of the place with the well-known Roman colony of CarteTa. Why he omits to mention the latter here, remains an unsolved difficulty. Groskurd, who, with some other sc^holars, maintains a distinction between the cities of Calpe and CarteTa, contends that Strabo also mentions the former in the following passages: — iii. pp. 51, 141, 142; but it seems far more natural to understand each of them as referring to the mountauu An inference of some importance seems fairly dedu- cible from the passage (iii. p. 140), compared with those in which Strabo mentions CarteTa, namely, that Calpe was the prevailing form of the name of the city among the Greeks^ when Timosthenes wrote, about 100 years before its colonization by the Romans, and that CarteTa was the form commonly used by the Romans. The Antonine Itinerary, as we have seen, uses both names in conjunction, Calpe CakteLim, CARTEIA. where all the MSS. but one have Carpe^ and the great majority have Carceiam (one has Cartegamj a form also found in the Geogr. Rav.). Nicolaus Da- mascenus (p. 482, Vales., p. 103, Orelli) and Tzetzes (ChiL viii. 217) have the form KoAr/o. Stephanos names the harbour of KoAin), and adds that some call the people KapnnitaMot (Kofmiiavoln &s KaXirci- Po6s% and the city Kapwiita <»* Kc^eia. (Steph. B. a.w. KdKwai and KapiHiJaJ) Pausanios calls the city Carpia (vi. 19. § 3 : Koffwlta^ 'leiifwr ir6i¥). Thus, ihOi, we have, chiefly in the Gredc writers, the various forms, Calpe^ Calpia^ Carpia, Carpaa, all connected with one another, and the last with Carteia, by the easiest and simplest laws of etymo- logical change, f = r, p = I. (In Ptol. ii. 4. § 6, the Palatine Codex reads K^mi for Kc£Xin}, the name of the mountain.) Besides this, a medal is cited by Spanheim and others, bearing the inscription c. i. CALPE (Colonia Julia Calpe), but the legend is con- fessedly very indistinct, and the fact of its being a medal of Philip the Younger is regarded by Eckhel as decisive against its belonging to Calpe in Spain. (Spanheim, de Uttu et Praett. Numitm. vol. ii. p. 600 ; Eckhel, vol. i. p. 16.) But there is a still more interesting identification of the city with the renowned Tartessus Strabo, while adopting the theory which placed Tartcssus at the mouth of the Baetis, tells us that some iden- tified it with CarteTa (iii. p. 151 : frtoi 8i Taprrna^ ahv r^tf yvy Kaprmilay Tpoa-eeyope^va-i), and Pan- sanias (L c.) makes the same statement respecting his city Carpia (ttal d* ot Kofnelay 'I€^p«y t6Kiv KoXtiadm yo/jd^owri r& ipx***^^P^ Te^m|<r6v). Strabo elsewhere quotes the statement of Eratosthe- nes, that the country adjacent to Calpe was called Tartessis (p. 148). Mela says : " CarteTa, ut quidam putant, aliquando Tartessns (ii. 6. § 8, where some of the MSS. read Cartheia and Tartheia for Car^ teia, and Tarthesstu for TarteMiu}. Pliny: "Car- teTa, Tartesfls a Graecis dicU" (iii. 1. s. 3: VHJL CarthetOy Cartefjia^ Cartesus, Carthesos, Carche- sot). Pherecydes (Fr. S3, ed. Didot) and A^iollo- dorus (ii. 5. § 10) seem clearly to place Tartcssus on the Straits and close to the Pillars of HcrciUes (Calpe and Abila). Lastly, Appian (Iber. 3) giv(» it as his opinion tliat the Tartessus of ancient legends was that city on the sea* coast which, in his time, was called Carpessus (Kafifini<rcr6tf an etymological mean between Tarteuut and CarpeTa or CarteTa). He adds that the temple of Hercules, at the Columns (rh 4tf o"n$Aai5), appeared to him to have been founded by the Phoenicians; that the worship was still conducted in the Phoenician manner; and that the people regarded their Hercules as the Tyrian deity, not the Theban. It is in this worship ctf* Hercules (already noticed from other sources) that Bochart seeks the original root of the name of the city, in all its various forms, that original root being the name of the Phoenician deity, whom the Greeks and Romans identified with Hercules Mel-CAivrn. (Bochart, Canaan, i. 34, p. 615.) Be tliis etymo- logy sound or not, it is clear that one and the aame root is the ba.<ds of all the forms of the name, which is thereby identified with the name by which the S. part of the peninsula was originally known to the Phoenicians, Hebrews {Tarshigh'), and Greeks; and hence that thid city was a great seaport from the earliest period of history. (Comp. Tartkssusl) The extension of the name in the interior of the pe- ninsula is noticed under Cakpetani; and we might perhaps find another indicatioD of it in the Cartela