C A D I Z
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/30/Anthropoid_sarcophagus_discovered_at_Cadiz_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_15052.png/200px-Anthropoid_sarcophagus_discovered_at_Cadiz_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_15052.png Phoenician sarcophagus found in Cadiz, now in the Archaeological Museum of Cádiz. The sarcophagus is thought to have been designed and paid for by a Phoenician merchant and made in Greece with Egyptian influenceThe city was originally founded as Gadir (Phoenician גדר "walled city") by the Phoenicians, who used it in their trade with Tartessos, a city-state believed by archæologists to be somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, about thirty kilometres northwest of Cádiz. (Its exact location has never been firmly established.)
Cádiz is regarded as the most ancient city still standing in western Europe. Traditionally, its founding is dated to 1104 BCE (Veleyo Patérculo in Hist. Rom. 1:2,1-3), although, as of 2004, no archaeological discoveries date back further than the 9th century BCE. One resolution to this discrepancy has been to assume that Cádiz was merely a small seasonal trading post in its earliest days.
Later, the Greeks would know the city as Gadira or Gadeira. According to Greek legend, Gadir was founded by Hercules after performing his fabled tenth labor, the slaying of Geryon, a monstrous warrior-titan with three heads and three torsos joined to a single pair of legs. As late as the early third century BCE, a tumulus (a large earthen mound) near Cádiz was associated with Geryon's final resting-place.[1]
One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart. (Melqart was associated with Hercules by the Greeks.) According to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the temple was still standing at the beginning of the third century CE. 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.[2]
Around 500 BCE, the city fell under the sway of Carthage. Cádiz became a base of operations for Hannibal's[citation needed] conquest of southern Iberia. However, in 206 BC, the city fell to Roman forces under Scipio Africanus. The people of Cádiz welcomed the victors. Under the Romans, the city was renamed Gades and flourished as a Roman naval base. By the time of Augustus, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred equites (members of one of the two upper social classes), a concentration of notable citizens rivaled only by Padua and Rome itself. It was the principal city of a Roman colony, Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. However, with the decline of the Roman Empire, Gades's commercial importance began to fade.
The 5th century overthrow of Roman power in Spain by the Visigoths saw the destruction of the original city, of which there remain few remnants today. Under Moorish rule between 711 and 1262, the city was called Qādis (Arabic قادس), from which the modern Spanish name, Cádiz, was derived. The Moors were finally ousted by Alphonso X of Castile who, in 1262, chased the Moors.
Bombardment of Cádiz, 1634, by Francisco de Zurbarán, in the Prado Museum, MadridDuring 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, the city became a major target of Spain's enemies. The 16th century also saw a series of failed raids by Barbary corsairs. The greater part of the old town was consumed in the conflagration of 1569. A raid by the Englishman, Sir Francis Drake, was repulsed outside the city in April 1587, although he succeeded in torching a portion of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Cádiz.[1] The city suffered another raid in 1596 by the Earl of Essex and Lord Charles Howard, who sacked part of the town but were unable to hold the city and port. In the Anglo-Spanish War Admiral Robert Blake blockaded Cádiz from 1655 to 1657. In the 1702 Battle of Cadiz, the British attacked again under Sir George Rooke and James, Duke of Ormonde, but they were repelled after a costly siege.
In the 18th century, the sand bars of the river Guadalquivir forced the Spanish government to transfer the port monopolizing trade with Spanish America from upriver Seville to Cádiz on the Atlantic coast. During this time, the city experienced a golden age during which three-quarters of all Spanish trade was with the Americas. It became one of Spain's greatest and most cosmopolitan cities and home to trading communities from many countries, among whom the richest was the Irish community. Many of today's historic buildings in the Old City date from this era.
By the end of the century, however, the city suffered another series of attacks. The British blockade and siege of Cádiz between February, 1797 and April, 1798 was, by most standards, a costly failure. Nelson, returning from his defeat at Santa Cruz, bombarded the city in 1800. During Napoleon's conquest of Europe, Cádiz was one of the few cities in Spain that was able to resist the French invasion.
Members of the Irish community in eighteenth-century Cádiz prospered, particularly in the last quarter of that century. Their success was due mainly to their achievement as merchants engaged in the colonial trade. Small in number compared to other immigrant groups, they played a disproportionately prominent role in civic and ecclesiastical life, and as patrons of the arts in their adopted city. Their success stories in Cádiz contrast starkly with the lack of opportunity available to them in Ireland. Nevertheless, they did maintain vigorous mercantile and dynastic connections with their homeland. Their accomplishments were all the more remarkable in that they were achieved against a background of fierce competition in Europe's most dynamic entrepôt of the day.[3] It is a connection that continutes to this day.
Cádiz was also the seat of the liberal Cortes (parliament) that fought against Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte (also known as Joseph I of Spain) in the Peninsular War and where the Spanish Constitution of 1812 was proclaimed. The citizens again revolted in 1820 to secure a renewal of this constitution; the revolution spread across Spain, leading to the imprisonment of King Ferdinand VII in the city of Cádiz. French forces secured the release of Ferdinand in 1823 and suppressed liberalism. In 1868, Cádiz was once again the seat of a revolution, resulting in the eventual abdication and exile of Queen Isabella II. (The same Cádiz Cortes decided to reinstate the monarchy under King Amadeo I just two years later.)
In recent years, the city has undergone much reconstruction. Many monuments, cathedrals, and landmarks have been cleaned and restored, adding to the considerable charm of this ancient city.
