PART
3 – Ch.XVI.7
(‘ERAKLEOS STELAI - The
Columns of Hercules)
XVI.
7. The Columns of Hercules called Pylai
Gadeirides (Gherdapuri)
The
poet Pindar calls the Columns of
Hercules Pylai Gadeirides (Frag. 155 in Strabo, lib. III. 5. 5-6), in other words “The Gates Gadira”.
Since
the most remote times, the famous strait through which the
In Homer’s Iliad
(VIII, v. 15; II. v. 783; Hesiod,
Theog. v. 820 seqq), this renowned gate of
From this point onwards, the communication on the old
Oceanos potamos or Istru appears to have been extremely difficult for the
commercial vessels coming from the southern regions.
The ancients told that near the Columns of Hercules there
was a long and wide strip of snaggy rocks, some visible, others hidden under
the surface of the water, which stretched across the bed of the old Oceanos
from one bank to the other (Scylax,
Periplus, 112).
These rocks, so dangerous for navigation until the present
day, which Ovid calls fera saxa (Pont. II. 6. 10), from near
the Ceraunia mountains (or the
mountains of Cerna), were also called in antiquity Katarrachtai. Suidas describes them on the base of an
unknown author, as follows: “the Cataracts
are rocks (petrai) in Istru
river, which rise like a mountain under the surface of the water. Here the
Istru, precipitating itself with great speed onto these rocks, is hit back with
an enormous noise, then the waves, passing over them with a deafening sound,
form fast whirlpools, tides, high and low, so much so that the river in these
places does not differ much from the Sicily strait”.
Near this frightening barrier of crags, which formed the
most perilous place on the river Istru, there was on the northern bank the
Which was though the origin of the name Pylai Gadeirides?
As per Romanian language usage, the natural obstacles formed
by rocks and bigger stones which stretch across the bed of a river from one
bank to the other, where the water in its flow, hitting them, formes a line of
waves, have the name of gard (TN –
fence).
The old geographers have interpreted in the same way the
name of the place Gadir, or Gadeira,
from near the Columns of Hercules.
According to Roman authors, Gadir meant in the Punic language sepes, in other words gard,
according to the Roman authors Pliny (H.
N. lib. IV. 36) and Avienus (Descriptio
orbis, v. 614-615). This name though,
which appears under the name Gadeira with the Greek authors (Eratosthenes, “ta Gadeira”; Stephanos Byzantinos, “a Gadeira”), did not belong to the
Phoenician idiom from
The word Gadir,
judging from its form and meaning of “sepes” which the Latin texts attribute to
it, is only a distorted reproduction of the popular Pelasgian word of gard, garduri (pl). From this derives the Greek name (in plural form) of ta
Gadeira, from here the name Pylai Gadeirides, or the Gate from
near the rocky fence which cut across the bed of the old Oceanos.
The same interpretation of the name Gadeira, but under a
different form, is found with the ancient Greek authors.
The
Cataracts of the Danube, downstream
from Rusava (Orsova), near the Iron
Gates,
between
Gura-Vaii and Verciorova.
(Drawing from a photograph published by Reclus in Nouvelle Geographie universelle, III. p. 319).
Hercules, Suidas tells
us, citing from an unknown author, threw enormous rocks at the mouth of the
Ocean, to prevent the entry of beasts or monsters. So, according to legends, he
had made a fence of stones across the bed of the river Oceanos. And Apollodorus writes that the goddess
Juno, when sending a gadfly against the herds taken from Geryon, they scattered
far and wide through the mountains of
The name Gadeirides Pylai used by the Greek
merchants and navigators, had once become very popular in the region of the
Iron Gates. The inhabitants on both sides of the