XVI. 8. The Column of Hercules called Calpe near the Iron Gates.

The Tyrians, Strabo tells us, had been the first people to look for the Columns of Hercules in order to found there a new commercial colony.

It is certain that the famous metropolis of Phoenicia could mostly be thankful for its opulence and prosperity, to the lively commerce with the region of the Columns of Hercules, rich in gold and other metals, rich in flocks, magnificent herds, grains and wine.

The two columns of the famous Pelasgian hero were represented inside the great temple of Hercules at Tyre.

According to Herodotus, one of these columns was made of emerald (or another material, with a beautiful, diaphanous colour, green or blue). It therefore represented the commercial navigation on the great waterways, in particular on the divine Oceanos potamos, the father of all waters. The second column from the metropolis of Tyre was of gold (lib. II. c. 44). It represented the other Column of Hercules located near the old Oceanos, where, as Herodotus tells us, all the Phoenician goods were paid for in gold (lib. IV. c. 196).

At the same time, the two Columns of Hercules formed the political and commercial emblem of the Tyrians. On a coin dating from the Roman epoch, the two Columns of Hercules figure as the crest of the metropolis of Tyre. On this coin, one of the Columns of Hercules is shown near an urn containing an inflammable substance, or near a lighthouse (pharos), which indicates to us that the first Column of Hercules was situated on the shore of a navigable river, near Oceanos potamos. This was the column which the Tyrians reproduced in emerald, or in an azure colour.

According to the ancient geographers, one of the Columns of Hercules and particularly the one situated on the northern shore of the strait, had the name Kalpe, Calpe (Strabo, Geogr. Lib. II. 1. 8; Pliny, lib. III. Proem.; Avienus, v. 478; Priscianus, v. 335; Charax Pergamenus, fragm 16 in Frag. Hist. graec. III. p. 649). In the old Greek language the word chalpe and chalpis meant ewer and urn, and similarly, on the coin of Tyre the Column Calpe is indicated near an urn. Kalpis, according to the epic poem attributed to Orpheus, was one of the heights of the strait of the Rhipaei mountains, the ancient name of the Carpathians, near which the river Oceanos flew (Argonautica, v. 1123-1124; Justinius, lib. II. c. 2; Avienus, Descr. Orbis. v. 455-456; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. v. 603-604).

According to the ancient geographical descriptions, this Column called Calpe was situated on the ridge of a mountain, downstream of Erythia island (Cerne or Rusava), near the strip of crags which crossed the old Oceanos, and near a promontory, which in a time of deep antiquity had been consecrated to Saturn (Orpheus, Argonautica, v. 1167; Scylax, Periplus, 112; Dionysius, Orbis Descriptio, v. 451; Avienus, Descriptio orbis, v. 111, 739-740; Priscianus, Periegesis, v. 334. 462; Strabo, III. 5. 3).

It was therefore situated close to the cataracts of the Danube, in other words near the Iron Gates. In this place exists to this day a Romanian village with the name of Verciorova; during the Middle Ages there was here an important strategic fortress, the ruins of which can still be seen today, situated on top of a mountain of a pyramidal shape, very difficult to access, which dominates the valley of the Danube. It is called by locals Cetatea Oreva (Spineanu, Dict. Geogr.) and it was called in the documents of Hungary “Vrchov” = “Urciow” (Fejer, Coc. Dipl. V. 3. 157. 1283, X. 2. 444. 1396), names which present a form very closely related to the original meaning of ewer or urn of the Greek word chalpe and chalpis, urceus in Latin and urceor in Romanian (Avienus, Ora maritima, 348).

Finally, on the left bank of the Danube rises a beautiful promontory, the top of which is called by Christians the “Cross of St. Peter”. On it can still be distinguished the shape of a chair cut in stone (it is “the chair of Geryon”, as Pausanias calls it in Descriptio Graeciae, lib. I. 35. 5), and at the same place exists even today the archaic simulacrum of Saturn (Zalmoxis) cut in live rock. This is the holy promontory (ieron achroterion) mentioned by Scylax in the “Periple of the Seas” and by Orpheus in the poem of the Argonauts.

One of the divinities who watched over the navigation on the Istru appears to have been especially Hercules.

According to the writings of Trog Pompeius, Philip II, the king of Macedonia, sent a delegation to Atheas, the king of the Scythians, at north of the lower Danube, through which he let him know that, while he was busy to occupy Greece, he had decided, by casting votes, to erect a copper statue of Hercules at the mouths of the Istru, probably to ensure the success of the transport of goods from the Danube. But Atheas, fearing that under this religious pretext king Philip could hide some hostile plans, asked him to send over the statue, promising that he will not only ensure that the monument will be set in place, but that he will even see to it that it will not be violated in the future (Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum, lib. IX. c. 2).

And the Greek historian Arrianus from Nicodemia tells us the following: Alexander the Great, when crossing the lower Istru after he had beaten the Getae and had destroyed their big city in the area, made a sacrifice on the bank of the Istru to Jove Soter (the redeemer), to Hercules and even to Istru “because it had been favourable during this crossing” (De expeditione Alexandri, lib. I. c. 4).

Finally, when the emperor Trajan went with war against the Dacians, the Arvali Brothers made on the day of 25 of March 101 a.d. a solemn pledge of sacrifices to Hercules Victor, so that the emperor should return in good health, happy and victorious from the lands and provinces where he was going by land and sea (Henzen, Acta fratrum arvalium. p. CXLII).

The position of the Columns of Hercules in the region of the Danube cataracts, or the Iron Gates, is confirmed also by an old popular tradition.

According to Pliny (H. N. III. Proem), the locals from near the Columns of Hercules told that once upon a time, the mountains in this place were joined together on both sides, forming an uninterrupted chain, and that Hercules, by cutting an opening into these heights, had let the ocean, or the inland sea, to flow out, and in this way he had changed the appearance of the landscape (Mela, lib. I. 5, Cf. Diodorus Siculus, lib. IV. 18. 4).

The Pannonian plain, as we know, was covered by a fresh water sea until late in the Neolithic epoch. It stretched from the Eastern Alps to the Transylvanian Carpathians and its level was a lot higher than that of the Black Sea. The Carpathians and the Balkans were in those times directly connected and they barred the fresh water sea from the Black Sea.

The Romanian inhabitants from around the Iron Gates tell even today the same story, that a long time ago the mountains from the north and south sides of the strait formed an uninterrupted orographic line, and that in those times the Danube flew through Serbia at Milanovatz and returned in its present bed on the valley of Timoc, in Bulgaria.

Another tradition from Banat tells us that the emperor Hadrian (or Troian, according to another version), cut the mountains at Rusava, and let the water which covered the plains of Banat, to flow into the Black Sea [1]

[1. It is to be mentioned here that in the popular legends of the southern Slavs and of the Romanians, Hercules figures often under the name of Troian. And a Hercules with the epithet ‘Idaios (from the Ida mountain, or Troy) was also known to the antique world (Pausanias, V. 8. 1; Homer, Iliad, XIV. 250)]

In truth, even today the strait of the Danube called “Clisura Dunarii” presents in various places the aspect, not of a natural erosion, but of a cutting of mountains, a grandiose achievement of the prehistoric man [2].

[2. Romanian folk traditions, especially those from Oltenia, mention also various mountain breaking, made by the prehistoric Jidovi (often meaning the Giants), in order to deviate rivers and drain the bigger lakes. Traces of this type of works are found in Mehedinti district, above the village Isvernea, for the deviation of Cerna river on the Cosustea valley, as it is told; at the village Valea-Boereasca, for the joining of the rivers Topolnita and Cosustea; in Gorj district, on the Plesa mountain at Petra-scobita (TN – the Holed up Rock), for bringing the river Jiu down from Transilvania; at the village Timisani for the deviation of the river Tismana into the Danube. Another tradition from the village Vertop, Dolj district, tells us that the same Jidovi had tried to cut a mountain to deviate the river Olt and flood the Romanian inhabitants, in order to destroy them].

Under no circumstance though, the ancient tradition about the cutting of mountains near the Columns of Hercules can be applied to the Gibraltar strait, between Europe and Africa. Here the width of the channel is 13km at its narrowest point, so this big waterway between Europe and Africa can’t be considered the result of a demolition work achieved by human genius and handiwork.

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