Cádiz
Cádiz is a city in Spain and the capital of the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated from neighbouring San Fernando by a narrow isthmus. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, Cádiz was founded by the Phoenicians as a trading post. In the 18th century, the port in the Bay of Cádiz consolidated itself as the main harbour of mainland Spain, enjoying the virtual monopoly of trade with the Americas until 1778. It is also the site of the University of Cádiz.
Situated on a narrow slice of land surrounded by the sea‚ Cádiz is, in most respects, a typical Andalusian city with well-preserved historical landmarks. The older part of Cádiz, within the remnants of the city walls, is commonly referred to as the Old Town, and represents a large area of the total size of the city. It is characterized by the antiquity of its various quarters, among them El Pópulo, La Viña, and Santa María, which present a marked contrast to the newer areas of town. While the Old City's street plan consists of narrow winding alleys connecting large plazas, newer areas of Cádiz typically have wide avenues and more modern buildings. The city is dotted with parks where exotic plants flourish, including giant trees supposedly brought to the Iberian Peninsula from the New World. This includes the historic Parque Genovés.
Names and etymology
inscriptions in the Phoenician language record that the Phoenicians knew the site as a Gadir or Agadir, meaning 'wall', 'compound', or 'stronghold'. Borrowed by the Berber languages, this became the agadir common in North African place names, such as that of the Moroccan city of Agadir. The Carthaginians continued to use this name and all subsequent names have derived from it.Attic Greek sources hellenized Gadir as tà Gádeira, which is neuter plural. Herodotus, using Ionic Greek, transcribed it a little differently, as Gḗdeira. Rarely, as in Stephanus of Byzantium's notes on the writings of Eratosthenes, is the name given in the feminine singular form as hè Gadeíra.
In Latin, the city was known as Gādēs and its Roman colony as Augusta Urbs Iulia Gaditana. In Arabic, the Latin name became Qādis, from which the Spanish Cádiz derives. The Spanish demonym for people and things from Cádiz is gaditano.
The same root also gives the modern Italian Càdice, Catalan Cadis, Portuguese Cádis, and French Cadix, the last also appearing in many English sources before the 20th century.
The name Cales, which usually refers to Calais in France, is also used for Cádiz, especially in the context of the 1596 Capture of Cádiz by the British and Dutch, as Thomas Percy notes in his introduction of the ballad "The Winning of Cales".
In English, the name Cádiz, traditionally spelt without the acute accent mark on the a, is pronounced variously. When the accent is on the second syllable, it is usually pronounced but, when the accent is on the first syllable, it may be pronounced as,,, and similar, typically in American English. In Spanish, the accent is always, as according to the spelling, on the first syllable but, while the usual pronunciation in Spain is, the local dialect says or even instead.
History
Foundation and early history under the Phoenicians
Founded as Gadir or Agadir by Phoenicians from Tyre, Cádiz is often regarded as the most ancient city still standing in Western Europe. The city was an important trading hub founded to access different metals including gold, tin, and especially silver. The Phoenicians established a port in the 7th century BC.Traditionally, Cádiz's founding is dated to 1100 BC, although no archaeological strata on the site can be dated earlier than the 9th century BC. One resolution for this discrepancy has been to assume that Gadir was merely a small seasonal trading post in its earliest days.
Ancient Gadir occupied two small islands—Erytheia, primarily a settlement, and Kotinoussa, hosting cemeteries and sanctuaries outside the urban area—situated near the mouth of River Guadalete. Presently, these islands are interconnected. While the ancient ruins of Gadir beneath modern Cádiz's historical center remain largely unexcavated, excavations have been carried out in the southern cemeteries.
By the 6th century BC, disturbances within Phoenicia itself, notably the fall of Tyre to the Babylonians, led to the end of Phoenician control over southern Iberia. This vacuum was later filled by ancient Carthage, which rose as a predominant power in the region during subsequent eras.
Part of the Carthaginian Empire
The expeditions of Himilco around Spain and France and of Hanno around Western Africa began there. The Phoenician settlement traded with Tartessos, a city-state whose exact location remains unknown but is thought to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple on the south end of its island dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart, who was conflated with Hercules by the Greeks and Romans under the names "Tyrian Hercules" and "Hercules Gaditanus". It had an oracle and was famed for its wealth. In Greek mythology, Hercules was sometimes credited with founding Gadeira after performing his tenth labor, the slaying of Geryon, a monster with three heads and torsos joined to a single pair of legs. According to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the "Heracleum" was still standing during the 1st century. Some historians, based in part on this source, believe that the columns of this temple were the origin of the myth of the "pillars of Hercules".
The city fell under the sway of Carthage during Hamilcar Barca's Iberian campaign after the First Punic War. Cádiz became a depot for Hannibal's conquest of southern Iberia, and he sacrificed there to Hercules/Melqart before setting off on his famous journey in 218 BC to cross the Alps and invade Italy. Later the city fell to Romans under Scipio Africanus in 206 BC.
Under Rome's rule
Under the Roman Republic and Empire, the city flourished as a port and naval base known as Gades. Suetonius relates how Julius Caesar, when visiting Gades as a quaestor, saw a statue of Alexander the Great there and was saddened to think that he himself, though the same age, had still achieved nothing memorable.The people of Gades had an alliance with Rome and Julius Caesar bestowed Roman citizenship on all its inhabitants in 49 BC. By the time of Augustus's census, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred equites, a concentration rivaled only by Patavium and Rome itself. It was the principal city of the Roman colony of Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. An aqueduct provided fresh water to the town, the island's supply being poor, running across open sea for its last leg. However, Roman Gades was never very large. It consisted only of the northwest corner of the present island, and most of its wealthy citizens maintained estates outside of it on the nearby island or on the mainland. The lifestyle maintained on the estates led to the Gaditan dancing girls becoming famous throughout the ancient world.
Although it is not in fact the most westerly city in the Spanish peninsula, for the Romans Cádiz had that reputation. The poet Juvenal begins his famous tenth satire with the words: Omnibus in terris quae sunt a Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangen.
Switching hands in later antiquity
The overthrow of Roman power in Hispania Baetica by the Visigoths in the AD 400s saw the destruction of the original city, of which few traces remain today. The site was later reconquered by Justinian in 551 as part of the Byzantine province of Spania. It would remain Byzantine until Leovigild's reconquest in 572 returned it to the Visigothic Kingdom.Al-Andalus
Under Moorish rule between 711 and 1262, the city was called Qādis, whence the modern Spanish name was derived. A famous Muslim legend developed concerning an "idol" over 100 cubits tall on the outskirts of Cádiz whose magic blocked the strait of Gibraltar with contrary winds and currents; its destruction by Abd-al-Mumin supposedly permitted ships to sail through the strait once more. It also appeared in the 12th-century Pseudo-Turpin's history of Charlemagne, where it was considered a statue of Muhammad and thought to warn the Muslims of Christian invasion. Classical sources are entirely silent on such a structure, but it has been conjectured that the origin of the legend was the ruins of a navigational aid constructed in late antiquity. Abd-al-Mumin found that the idol was gilded bronze rather than pure gold, but coined what there was to help fund his revolt. In 1217, according to the De itinere Frisonum the city was raided by a group of Frisian crusaders en route to the Holy Land who burned it and destroyed its congregational mosque. The Moors were ousted by Alphonso X of Castile in 1262.Historically, there was a Jewish community living in Cádiz under Muslim rule.
Post-1492
During the Age of Exploration, the city experienced a renaissance. Christopher Columbus sailed from Cádiz on his second and fourth voyages and the city later became the home port of the Spanish treasure fleet. Consequently, it became a major target of Spain's enemies. The 16th century saw a series of failed raids by Barbary corsairs; the greater part of the old town was consumed in a major fire in 1569; and in April 1587 a raid by the Englishman Francis Drake occupied the harbor for three days, captured six ships, and destroyed 31 others for the duration of the war. It was here that the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 was proclaimed. The citizens revolted in 1820 to secure a renewal of this constitution and the revolution spread successfully until Ferdinand VII was imprisoned in Cádiz. French forces secured the release of Ferdinand in the 1823 Battle of Trocadero and suppressed liberalism for a time. In 1868, Cádiz was once again the seat of a revolution, resulting in the eventual abdication and exile of Queen Isabella II. The Cortes of Cádiz decided to reinstate the monarchy under King Amadeo just two years later.In recent years, the city has undergone much reconstruction. Many monuments, cathedrals, and landmarks have been cleaned and restored.