ERYTHEIA/GADES/CADIZ

STRABO - Book III Chapter 5




9.  Be that as it may, he says that Seleucus — the Seleucus183 from the region of the Erythraean Sea -  speaks of a certain irregularity in these phenomena, or regularity, according to the differences of the signs of the zodiac; that is, if the moon is in the equinoctial signs, the behaviour of the tides is regular, but, in the solstitial signs, irregular, in respect both to amount and to speed, while, in each of the other signs, the relation184 is in proportion to the nearness of the moon's approach.185 But although he himself spent several days in the Heracleium at Gades at the summer solstice, about the time of the full moon, as he says, he was unable to discern those annual differences in the tides; about the time of the conjunction, however, during that month, he observed at Ilipa a great variation in the back-water of the Baetis, that is, as compared with the previous variations, in the course of which the water did not wet the banks so much as half-way up, whereas at the time in question the water overflowed to such an extent that the soldiers186 got their supply of water on the spot (and Ilipa is about p155seven hundred stadia distant from the sea). And, he continues, although the plains near the sea were covered as far as thirty187 stadia inland, to such a depth that islands were enclosed by the flood-tide,188 still the altitude of the foundations, but the foundation of the temple in the Heracleïum and that of the mole which lies in front of the port of Gades, was, by his own measurement, as he says, not covered as high up as ten cubits; and further, if one should add the double of this figure for the additional increases which at times have taken place, one might thus present to the imagination the aspect which is produced in the plains by the magnitude of the flood-tide. This behaviour of the tides, then, according to his account, is general along the whole circuit of the ocean-coast, whereas the behaviour of the Iberus River is "novel, and peculiar," he says, to that river, namely: it floods the country in some places, even independently of rains or snows, when the north winds blow to excess; and the lake through which the river flows is the cause of this, since the lake-water is by the winds driven out of the lake along with the river-water.