Talk:Pillars of Hercules

message: The "Pillars of Hercules" are also referred to as the "columns of Hercules" in Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol 1, ch 2, p.56)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.83.101.234 (talk) 21:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation 

message: "Before Eratosthenes about 250 BC, ancient Greek writers located the Pillars of Hercules on the Strait of Sicily. This changed with Alexander the Great’s eastward expansion and the Pillars were moved by Eratosthenes to Gibraltar. This evidence has been cited in some Atlantis theories, notably in Sergio Frau's."
That is nonsense. The "Pillars of Hercules" have always been whats now called "Strait of Gibraltar". Herodot wrote that the Mediterranean Sea ends at the Pillars of Hercules and a "sea called Atlantic" beginns there (Hdt. I 202). --Bender235 20:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strait of Sicily 

message: This article is in the :Category:Atlantis. However, there is no reference to Atlantis in the article. Can someone please explain this? Badbilltucker 21:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Herodotus placed Atlantis "beyond the Pillars of Hercules".  Corvus cornix 21:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was Plato. Herodotus does not mention Atlantis. No one besides Plato does. ––Bender235 22:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, you're right, Plato.  Corvus cornix 01:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atlantis? 

message: I find it hard to believe that two pillars on a temple in Gades inspired someone to find their geographic equivalent. Surely it would be the other way around. Ifnkovhg (talk) 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, I went back and looked at Strabo. Naming a place for famous architecture is not unheard of, but the temple's lending its name to the place is a minority view. To represent it as the opinio communis in the opening paragraph is perverse. The Melqart stuff is best left under the "Phoenician" header. Ifnkovhg (talk) 05:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A direct quote of Strabo would do the trick.--Wetman (talk) 05:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cart before the horse? 

message: I believe that the Pillars of Hercules were known as the Gates of Hades, not the Gates of Gades.
24.24.245.25 (talk) 05:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Gades is the ancient designation for the city of Cádiz (Spain), maybe its a reference for the relative proximity of the city rather than Hades itself.--Escorxador (talk) 20:44, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hades, not Gades ? =

message: When Plato is talking about Atlantis, he claims that it existed 9000 years before his own time.  This would have meant he was talking about a place that existed in about 11,000 BC.  This would have been during the last Ice Age.  During the last Ice Age, the ocean levels were about 100 meters lower.  If you lower the water that much at the Strait of Gibraltar, you would suddenly have two huge towering land forms on either side of the strait, and thus, very obvious "pillars".  So, the fact that no one can figure out exactly what the "pillars" are in the "Pillars of Hercules" might just be because they are underwater now.
Has anyone ever heard of anyone else speculating about this idea?  Just curious.  
Nortonew (talk) 20:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Plato made no such claims for his  trope, "Atlantis".--Wetman (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My error about the time. Still it's a literary image, not a geographical one.--Wetman (talk) 20:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you ever read the section of Plato's Timaeus that deals with Atlantis?  He goes into quite a lot of detail regarding the history and geography of Atlantis if he is just making it up to use as a literary image.  We don't have any evidence at all that supports the idea that he meant it solely as a literary image.  Its quite possible that he really believed that there once really was such a place as Atlantis.  You can read the text of Plato's dialogue on the subject here: http://www.theoi.com/Phylos/Atlantes.html  --Nortonew (talk) 16:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That would shift the figure of Heracles back into the Stone Age?--Wetman (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it would shift the concept of there being "pillars" at the Straits of Gibraltar back to the Stone Age.  However, the Greeks had a tendency to use the name of one of their own gods in place of any similar foreign god.  So, the "pillars" may have originally been associated with some other ancient deity from some long-forgotten proto-culture from the Ice Age.  At least, that would be my guess.  Another interesting thing in Plato's description is that he claims it was impossible to sail beyond the Strait of Gibraltar because there was a huge mass of mud there after Atlantis sank.  Of course, there isn't any huge mud mass there now.  In fact, its seems unlikely that there was a huge mass of mud there during Plato's time.  However, if you lowered the seas by about 100 meters, you might end up with a mud mass there.  So, one again, Plato may have been relying on VERY outdated information on the geography of the area. -- Nortonew (talk) 16:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  If y'all have any more new speculations, would you mind taking them to :v:?  They allow original research over there. 141.152.29.215 (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  That looks like a cool site.  Thanks for suggesting it -- Nortonew (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could the name "Pillars of Hercules" be a hold-over from very ancient times? 

message: There is evidence at the beginning of Classical Greece of a deep Phoenician connection.  A Phoenician entreport was established in Rhodes, and Phoenician ships visited Miletus, the Chaldice, Corinth, the Peloponesse (Troizen) and Heraklion in Crete, and Phoenicians merchants settled in these areas.  This Phoenician connection had an impact on the development of the Greek Alphabet, upon Greek Art and upon Greek mythology.  The struggle between Zeus and Typhon mirrored that between Ba'al Hadad and Lawtan (Hebrew between El and Leviathan).  The three way division of the world, between Zeus and his thunderbolts, Poseidon and the oceans and Hades as death, was modelled upon that of Ba'al Hadad, Yam (God of the Sea), and Mot, (God of Death).  These innovations were not found in earlier Mycenaean times, but occurred at the end of the Greek Dark Age, when the extension of Phoenician trade brought new prosperity to the Aegean.
Heraklion gets its name from Herakles, or Hercules, and part of this Phoenician heritage lies in the story of Hercules, whose name means "the Glory of Hera" a form of the Mycenaean Goddess "Potnia" (mistress), worshipped at nearby Knossos.  When Hera was increasingly identified with Phoenician Astarte, so Hercules/Herakles was identified with Phoenician Melkart (Phoenician = King of the city).  Temples to Melkart in Phoenicia had 2 standing pillars at their entrance, and such a pillar cult is associated with Solomon's temple, built by Tyrians.  Small Phoenician temples have been found in Greece, associated with sites of Phoenician settlements, where the pillar cult seems to have fitted easily within earlier Mycenanean ideas where the "pillar cult" or Kapita (hence Capitol), seems to have been associated with Keftiu (Egyptian for Crete).
With the relocation of the story of Hercules from Crete Keraklion to Mycenae, the rivalry between Hera and Herakles seems to have become a dominant feature of the myth, and Alcmene replaced Hera as the heroes mother.  The 12 labours of Herakles became a dominant part of his story, taking him ever further afield.  Herakles is suupposed to have travelled to the ends of the Earth, and the Pillars of Herakles travelled with him.  Firstly away from the straits of Laconia (between the Peloponnesse and Crete, to the Straits of Messina in Magna Grecia, to the straits between Malta and Gozo, to the gap between Corsica and Sardinia, and ultimately to the Straits of Gibraltar (as a result perhaps of the association of the Phoenician Melkart temples in these locations - eg at Gades).  Thus the Pillars of Herakles measured the extension of Greek knowledge about their world.
The association of the Pillars of Hercules with the Atlantic, comes from the association of Hercules with Atlas, the Mountains of North Africa, and the Garden of the Hesperides, located on the edge of the known world.  As the Greeks came to appreciate the Mediterranean was a landlocked Ocean, so Oceanus, the world encircling ocean was displaced beyond the Mediterranean, as a result of Greek colonization of Marsailles and Spain.  The Atlantic Ocean, probably originally the Western Mediterranean along the Atlas Coast, was displaced into the Atlantic, beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, associated from Classical Times with the Pillars.John D. Croft (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Phoenician connections

message: Amongst others, the two southward pointing headlands on each side of the Gulf of Laconia were "pillars of Hercules".[4] Support for this Peloponnesian location for the pillars comes from Medinet Habu in Egypt, dating to 1,200 BCE, which describes the Sea Peoples invading from the islands of the north "from the pillars of heaven", by which the Egyptians meant the ends of the earth as they knew [5]
- 5 is from Castledon who does not provide a source himself. Even if it is true it has nothing to do with the pillars of Heracles. I can also find no source for the pillars of Heracles being the Gulf of Laconia, other than Castledon on the same page. He also provides no source. 4 is the wrong source, which someone seems to have taken from Castledon's bibliography.HydraGreek (talk) 23:41, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sheer nonsense 

message: I would like to point out that Diodorus Siculus does not say anything about the Straight of Gibraltar as mentioned in this article with the reference "Diodorus 4.18.5". He actually mentions that Heracles arrived near Gadeira (Cádiz) "where he set up two pillars one each of the two continents" (Bibliotheca historica, Book IV 18.2).
The Straight of Gibraltar is obviously never mentioned (it would be anachronistic) and the actual geographical location of the pillars is near Cádiz (which is not near Gibraltar).
This article should be updated accordingly for sake of accuracy.
ICE77 (talk) 02:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  According to Diodorus Siculus