|
|
The native Iberians knew of silver and gold ore in the hills of southern Spain, which the Phoenician merchant-sailors from Tyre taught them to utilize, giving them in exchange the products of their skill, and in course of time a great trade was carried on between distant Phoenicia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and Iberian "Tarshish" beyond its western end. Does not the prophet Ezekiel say, speaking of Phoenician Tyre, "Tarshish was thy merchant, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches?"
Tarshish, sometimes called by its Latin form, Tartessus, was the name applied, probably, to the region about the mouth of the river Guadalquivir, and perhaps to all that portion of Spain now known as Andalusia. Here the Phoenicians founded the city to-day known as Cadiz, and which they called "Gaddir," or fortress, subsequently named Gadez by the Romans. Although the Phoenician sailors had long traded here—for the founding of cities is not the first occupation of explorers or traders—yet the probable beginning of Cadiz, about