Gadir 2.

GADIR 2.

Names

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The place Càdiz has in antiquity various names. It should be observed that the classical authors usually imitate each other and / or to invent more and more.

Gadir / Gadeira / Gades.

The Phoenicians were to name the city with the letters GDR, which in their judgment may be spoken as Gadir. As you know we are devoid of vowels at the Phoenician script. The word Gadir can have several meanings. It can stand for 'Wall', or 'enclosed space'. The letters 'GDR’ indicate the ‘wall’ or 'serving as a warehouse’ or ‘space with a fence around it”. The latter meaning is also found in the Berber 'Agadir’. Gadir can also mean "castle / fortress' to a Greek interpretation, or "boundary wall / walls' to a Roman explanation. The Greeks named it Gadeira and the Romans thus distorted it in the Latin language to Gadeis and Gades. Incidentally, Herakles according to a Greek legend, on his journey to the Hesperides and Gerynomeus, came to Gadeira (Diodorus IV 18.2 + 56.3). Among the Hesperides understood the Greeks the three mouths of the Baetis-river and the Baetis is the current Guadalquivir.