Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/272

 STRABO. CASAUB. 172. nent, resembling columns or pillars. So too Pindar might very justly have said, " The Gaditanian Gates," if he had in mind the pillars at the mouth ; for these mouths are very similar to gates. On the other hand, Gades is not in a position to indi- cate an extremity, but is situated about the middle of a long coast forming a kind of gulf. The supposition that the pil- lars of the temple of Hercules in Gades are^intended, appears to me still less probable. It seems most likely that the name was origmalfy conferred not by merchants, but generals, its celebrity afterwards became universal, as was the ,case with the Indian pillars. Besides, the inscription recorded refutes this idea, since it contains no religious dedication, but a mere list of expenses ; whereas the pillars of Hercules should have been a record of the hero's wonderful deeds, not of Phosnician expenditure. 7. Polybius relates that there is a spring within the temple of Hercules at Gades, having a descent of a few steps to fresh water, which is affected in a manner the reverse of the sea- tides, subsiding at the flow of the tide, and springing at the ebb. He assigns as the cause of this phenomenon, that air rises from the interior to the surface of the earth ; when this surface is covered by the waves, at the rising of the sea, the air is deprived of its ordinary vents, and returns to the in- terior, slopping up the passages of the spring, and causing a want of water, but when the surface is again laid bare, the air having a direct exit liberates the channels which feed the spring, so that it gushes freely. Artemidorus rejects this explanation, and substitutes one of his own, recording at the same time the opinion of the historian Silanus ; but nei- ther one or other of their views seems to me worth relating, since both he and Silanus were ignorant in regard to these matters. Posidonius asserts that the entire account is false, and adds that there are two wells in the temple of Hercules, and a third in the city. That the smaller of the two in the temple of Hercules, if drawn from frequently, will become for a time exhausted, but that on ceasing to draw from it, it fills again : while in regard to the larger, it may be drawn from during the whole day ; that it is true it becomes lower, like all other wells, but that it fills again during the night when drawing ceases. [He adds] that the ebb tide frequently hap- pening to occur during the period of its re-filling, gave rise