Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/402

 368 plis-t's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book ly. of Eaetica, and Wenty-five miles from the moufh of the Straits of Grades, is the island of Gradis, twelve miles long and three broad, as Polybius states in his writings. At its nearest part, it is less than 700 feet^ distant from the main- land, while in the remaining portion it is distant more than seven miles. Its circuit is fifteen miles, and it has on it a city which enjoys the rights of Eoman citizens^, and whose people are called the Augustani of the city of Julia Graditana. On the side which looks towards Spain, at about 100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, on which the original city of Grades stood. By Ephorus and Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timseus and Silenus Aphro- disias^, and by the natives the Isle of Juno. Timaeus says, that the larger island used to be called Cotinusa'*, from its portion of the article on tliis subject in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of Ancient Geography." " ' Fortunatse Instilae' is one of those geograpliical names whose origm is lost in mythic darkness, but which afterwards came to have a specific apphcation, so closely resembling the old mythical notion, as to make it almost impossible to doubt that that notion was based, in part at least, on some vague knowledge of the regions afterwards discovered. The earliest Grreek poetry places the abode of the happy departed spirits far beyond the entrance of the Mediterranean, at the extremity of the earth, and upon the shores of the river Oceanus, or in islands in its midst ; and Homer's poetical description of the place may be apphed almost word for word to those islands in the Atlantic, off the west coast of Africa, to which the name was given in the historical period. (Od. iv. 1. 563, seq.) ' There the life of mortals is most easy ; there is no snow, nor whiter, nor much rain, but Ocean is ever senduig up the shrill breatliing breezes of Zephyrus to refresh men.' Their de- hcious cHmate, and their supposed identity of situation, marked out the Canary Islands, the Madeira group, and the Azores, as worthy to re- present the Islands of the Blest. In the more specific sense, however, the name was appUed to the two former groups ; wliile, in its widest apphcation, it may have even included the Cape de Verde Islands, its extension being in fact adapted to that of maritime discovery." Plhiy gives a further description of them in B. vi. c. 37. ^ The strait between the island and the mainland is now called the Hiver of Saint Peter. The circuit of the island, as stated by Pliny, varies m the MSS. from fifteen to twenty-five nules, and this last is pro- bably correct. 2 Juhus Csesar, on his visit to the city of Grades, during the CivU War in Spain, B.C. 49, conferred the citizenship of Kome on aU the citizens of Gadcs. Under Augustus it became a municipium, with the title of its site. 2 Or the Island of Venus.
 * Augusta urbs Juha Gaditana.' The modern city of Cadiz is biult upon
 * From the Greek word Konros, " an oHve-tree."