13.

Of these facts, notwithstanding, there are better proofs. For instance, the expeditions of Hercules and the Phœnicians to this country were evidence to him of the wealth and luxury of the people. They fell so entirely under the dominion of the Phœnicians, that at the present day almost the whole of the cities of Turdetania and the neighbouring places are inhabited by them. It also seems to me that the expedition of Ulysses hither, as it took place and was recorded, was the foundation both of his Odyssey and Iliad, which he framed upon facts collected into a poem, and embellished as usual with poetical mythology. It is not only in Italy, Sicily, and a few other places that vestiges of these [events] occur; even in Iberia a city is shown named Ulyssea,1100 also a temple of Minerva, and a myriad other traces both of the wandering of Ulysses and also of other survivors of the Trojan war, which was equally fatal to the vanquished and those who took Troy. These latter in fact gained a Cadmean victory,1101 for their homes were destroyed, and the portion of booty which fell to each was exceedingly minute. Consequently not only those who had survived the perils [of their country], but the Greeks as well, betook themselves to piracy, the former because they had been pillaged of every thing; the latter, on account of the shame which each one anticipated to himself:

“The shame

That must attend us, after absence long

Returning unsuccessful, who can bear?”1102

In the same way is related the wandering of Æneas, of Antenor, and of the Heneti; likewise of Diomedes, of Menelaus, of Ulysses,1103 and of many others. Hence the poet, knowing of similar expeditions to the extremities of Iberia, and having heard of its wealth and other excellencies, (which the Phœnicians had made known,) feigned this to be the region of the Blessed, and the Plain of Elysium, where Proteus informs Menelaus that he is to depart to:

Now the purity of the air, and the gentle breathing of the zephyr, are both applicable to this country, as well as the softness of the climate, its position in the west, and its place at the extremities of the earth, where, as we have said, he feigned that Hades was. By coupling Rhadamanthus with it, he signifies that the place was near to Minos, of whom he says,

Similar to these are the fables related by later poets; such, for instance, as the expeditions after the oxen of Geryon, and the [Pg 226]
[CAS. 150] golden apples of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed1106 they speak of, which we know are still pointed out to us not far distant from the extremities of Maurusia, and opposite to Gades.