The Pillars of Heracles. Part One. © Nicholas Costa 2025

Herodotus is the earliest surviving source which refers to the Pillars of Heracles as being in the far west adjoining the Atlantic Ocean. He recounts how the Greeks acquired knowledge of the far west with the story of Colaeus of Samos. He was a Greek trader who c 640 BC accidentally ended up voyaging to Tartessos, a region in southwestern Spain. (Histories. 4.152). This was followed c600 BC by a group of Ionian traders from the city of Phocaea (Foca) who sailed westwards and established good relations with the local ruler (Histories, 1.163).

Although Phocaea was deemed in antiquity as an Aeolian foundation, it was subsequently colonized by Ionians who came from Teos and Erythrae. According to the Marmor Parium, Chronicle § 28 this happened C 1086/85 BC.

From c600 BC Phocaea established several colonies, primarily in the western Mediterranean, among which were Massalia (Marseille in France), Emporion (Empúries in spain), and Elea (Velia in southern Italy). Other notable colonies founded by Phocaea included Olbia in Sardinia, Alalia in Corsica as well as outposts in the Dardanelles such as Lampsacus and on the Black Sea at Amisus (Samsun).

With this expansion came the transmission of indigenous Greek culture. The new settlers would doubtless have spread their myths across the region as well as given familiar place names to new locations. It would help explain how the Heraclean mythical cycle spread westwards alongside the new settlers.

By the first century AD therefore the Pillars of Heracles had become identified in most peoples minds with the Straight of Gibraltar, and it still is. In the first century AD it was commonly stated that the Pillars of Heracles lay in the far west, and were identified with the Straight of Gibraltar. See for example Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) , Pliny, (23– 79AD) and Seneca (died 65 AD). However there is an underlying thread in the extant documents which reveals that their original location was on the Anatolian seaboard of the Aegean.

Herodotus was evidently aware of sources which spoke of the original location of the Pillars of Heracles. In § 4.8 he cites “the Hellenes who dwell about the Pontus” The Pontus is interpreted as the Black Sea. It was to this region that the Hittites engaged in a large-scale deportation of the people from Arzawa post c1327 BC following the devastating airburst, thereby relocating them to areas closer to the Hittite borderlands.

Herodotus states that “Geryones…dwelt away from the region of the Pontus, living in the island called by the Hellenes Erytheia, near Gadeira which is outside the Pillars of Heracles by the Ocean.”

Notably the name Erytheia reflects the name of the city of Erythrae from which the original Phocaean settlers came. Likewise the name linked to Gadeira (and currently interpreted as Cadiz in Portugal) can also be located in the region directly north of Ephesus. Geryon likewise can be traced back to the same region. (Geryon incidentally was represented as the three headed or three bodied giant who was killed in battle by Heracles.) This shall be detailed in a future article.

Strabo (64/63 B – c24 AD) the Greek geographer, who actually lived in Asia Minor expressed severe doubts that the Pillars of Heracles were originally located at the Strait of Gibraltar.

He noted for instance the work of the geographer Artemidorus of Ephesus (fl 100 BC): § 3.5.5 “Artemidorus speaks of Hera’s Island and her temple, and he says there is a second isle, yet he does not speak of Mount Abilyx (a low mountain in north Africa) or of a Metagonian tribe (located in Algeria). Notably the main temple dedicated to the goddess Hera could be found on nearby Samos (83.52 km/51.90 mi south of Ephesus)

He also pointed out the divergence of opinion between Greek authors and the actual people who lived in Gades: “…the Iberians and Libyans say that the Pillars are in Gades, for the regions in the neighbourhood of the strait in no respect, they say, resemble pillars”

He points out the discrepancy between Pindars’ description and the reality: “And in this way Pindar would be right in speaking of the “gates of Gades,” if the pillars were conceived of as at the mouth; for the mouths of straits are like gates. But Gades is not situated in such a geographical position as to denote an end; rather it lies at about the centre of a long coastline that forms a bay”

Likewise if they were actual pillars rather than mountains then the ones located in Gades made no reference to Heracles but did prosaicaly refer to the expenses incured by the Phoenicians who had constructed them.

Thus Strabo stated that the Strait of Gibraltar is a wide waterway (14 km wide) and not a narrow, and enclosed harbour that some early accounts described, particularly those influenced by Plato. Neither did the city of Gades (modern Cadiz), located near the Pillars mark a definitive end or boundary since it was situated in the middle of a long coastline.

In reality whilst the location had acquired the name in classical antiquity none of the surviving descriptions of the Pillars actually matched the geography of that region. They are not only vague but also inaccurate. The myths speak of pillars, yet if these are identified as mountains there are no two mountains that readily fit the description. The identification with the rock of Gibraltar on one side immediately falls flat since there is no large mountain directly opposite. Neither is the straight narrow or shallow or silted up.

Geryon

In his work Description of Greece, Pausanias mentions that Geryon had a daughter, Erytheia, who had a son called Norax:

“After Aristaeus the Iberians crossed to Sardinia, under Norax as leader of the expedition, and they founded the city of Nora. The tradition is that this was the first city in the island, and they say that Norax was a son of Erytheia, the daughter of Geryones, with Hermes for his father” (Pausanias, 10.17.5).

Notably the genealogy given implies that Nora was a Greek colony ultimately founded by settlers from Phocaea (Erythraea) who had initially settled in Spain. In truth is was a Phoenician foundation. In § 1.35.7 He cites a story that directly links Geryon to upper Lydia and the west coast of Anatolia.

Isocrates (436–338 BC) stated that after Heracles had taken Troy he set up the Pillars of Heracles (To Philip: 5 112). Other sources, as exemplified by the D Scholia to the Iliad, state that following the sack of Troy Heracles traveled south to Cos. This supports the proposal that the Pillars were initially located on the west coast of Anatolia south of Troy but north of Cos. Heracles, as with other contemporary rulers represented both a mortal ruler and a personification of major natural events that occurred during the alloted period. This shall be explained in a later article.

The event as recounted by Isocrates focuses upon a disaster that evidently affected the entire Aegean and resulted in multiple deaths. He wrote: “while they with the combined strength of Hellas found it difficult to take Troy after a siege which lasted ten years, he, on the other hand, in less than as many days, and with a small expedition, easily took the city by storm. After this, he put to death to a man all the princes of the tribes who dwelt along the shores of both continents; and these he could never have destroyed had he not first conquered their armies. When he had done these things, he set up the Pillars of Heracles, as they are called, to be a trophy of victory over the barbarians, a monument to his own valor and the perils he had surmounted, and to mark the bounds of the territory of the Hellenes.”

Suffice it to say the Heracles was credited with either smashing an opening to the sea by destryoing a mountain or conversely narrowing it (silting it up) to stop the entrance of sea monsters. In reality both versions are true.

According to some Roman sources (Seneca, Heracles Furens 235ff.; Seneca, Heracles Oetaeus 1240; Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii.4.) while on his way to the garden of the Hesperides which was on the island of Erytheia he had to cross the mountain that was once Atlas. Instead of climbing it he smashed through it. This was given as an explanation for the creation of the Strait of Gibraltar, in reality it was a garbled memory of the volcanic eruption of Nisyros. “Close to the Pillars there are two isles, one of which they call Hera’s Island; moreover, there are some who call also these isles the Pillars.” (Strabo, 3.5.3.)

Diodorus Siculus preserved the other aspect of the catastrophe. He recounts that Heracles “narrowed” an already existing strait, which was effectively the end result of the airburst, earthquake and tidal wave that engulfed Ephesus c1327 BC

“And since he wished to leave upon the ocean a monument which would be had in everlasting remembrance, he built out both the promontories, they say, to a great distance; consequently, whereas before that time a great space had stood between them, he now narrowed the passage, in order that by making it shallow and narrow he might prevent the great sea-monsters from passing out of the ocean into the inner sea, and that at the same time the fame of their builder might be held in everlasting remembrance by reason of the magnitude of the structures. Some authorities, however, say just the opposite, namely, that the two continents were originally joined and that he cult a passage between them, and that by opening the passage he brought it about that the ocean was mingled with our sea. On this question, however, it will be possible for everyman to think as he may please.” (Diodorus 4.18.5.)

William Smith points out that “From other sources we learn that the Pillars of Heracles were identified by some with those of Atlas is proved by the fact that the former are also called the Pillars of Kronos and of Briareus, deities, like Atlas, of the Titan race. ; (Aristot. ap. Aelian, Ael. VH 5.3; Hesych. sub voce Briapeo stylai; Eustath. ad Dion. Per. 561; Schol. Apollon. 1.165: the Scholiast to Pindar, Pind. N. 3.37, calls them the Pillars of Aegaeon, which is another name of Briareus; and elsewhere Briareus himself is called Hercules, Zenob. Prov. Cent. 5.48.).) (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography,1854)

As determined in my previous writings the figure of Atlas belongs firmly to the western seaboard of Anatolia and not to the Atlantic Ocean.

Ocean

Whilst the word ocean Okeanos came ultimately to refer to the Atlantic, the word in its earliest extant usage was used to describe any large body of water most notably the Mediterranean, and it is evidently in this context that Plato makes his limited use of the word. Its original meaning therefore was as a reference to any large body of water. It was only later the word was used to describe the great Outward Sea ( the Atlantic as opposed to the Inward or Mediterranean. (Liddell, Scott, Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon). Okeanos began as a mythological term in early Greek literature and was not used to specifically denote the Atlantic Ocean until the Hellenistic period, and did not gain full geographic specificity until ca. 1st century BC in Roman and later Greek literature. It is therefore fallacious to state that Plato was referring to the Atlantic Ocean in his narrative. The description in fact relates to a sea which lies beyond an estuary which became known as the Aegean but was originally known as the sea of Atlas.

Islands:

Theopompos of Chios (c. 380 BC – c. 315 BC) a contemporary of Plato uses the word island to describe landmasses. Theopomp.Hist.Fr.74: “That Europe, Asia, and Libya are islands, which Ocean surrounds in a circle.” It is therefore a mistake to consider Atlantis an island in the modern sense of the word. There are numerous other examples extant that the description could equally be applied to a peninsula, therefore it is erroneous to automatically translate Plato’s text as referring to an island in the modern sense. (See Atlantis, the Amazons, and the Birth of Athene)

The Hittite Empire

[24e] “For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean (this is a sloppy translation. Plato’s text does not say ocean it uses the word pelagos/ sea- a better translation would: from a point distant from the sea of Atlas), was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot.”

The reference to Asia is undoubtedly a reference to Asuwiya/Assuwa a region of Bronze Age Anatolia located west of the Halys River now known as the K?z?l?rmak or ‘Red’ River. Aegean, Anatolian and Egyptian inscriptions refer to it. It is best known from Hittite records which refer to a league of some 22 towns or states which rebelled against the Hittites. By the thirteenth century BC it had disappeared.

The reference to Europe and ‘your state’ concerns the proto Athenian Ionians who would eventually take over the western Anatolian seaboard centered upon Ephesus and referenced in early mythology amongst other stories by the adventures of Heracles. This will be explored in much greater detail in a future article.

Location:

In Timaeus 24e–25a the Egyptian priest tells Solon (c.?630 – c.?560 BC) about Atlantis and specifies its location. This would have been effectively before the Phocaean colonists had established themselves in the far west, hardly enough time for the myth to have relocated itself to the Atlantic. Herodotus’ Atlantic Ocean identification came a full century after Solon’s visit to Egypt.

Its is commonly translated as follows:

“For beyond the mouth/ gateway/entrance (of the straits) which you call, as you say, the Pillars of Heracles there was an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together and from it one could pass to the other islands and from those (islands) to the continent that lies across the truly real ocean for the mouth at the straits appears to be only a harbor, and what we now call a sea but in truth, it is an ocean that is the sea a large, open body of water“

Full Corrected English Translation:

“For beyond the mouth (estuary) which you Greeks call, as you say, the Pillars of Heracles (the estuary of the River Kaystros. The modern-day Küçük Menderes River. in which were located mount Koressos and mount Pion) , there lay (was) an island (meaning area of land) larger than Libya and Asia (in Hittite texts, Luwia and Assuwia were regions on the seaboard of Anatolia) combined (elsewhere he gave measurements which are almost exactly those of Anatolia). From this island (land) one could pass to other islands (lands), and from those to the opposite continent (large area of land/ Africa/ Europe) that surrounds the true ocean (the Mediterranean). For the area within the straits that we speak of is only a harbor (estuary of the Kaystros) , and the sea that we now call such (the Aegean) is only a name; but in reality, that (outer expanse) is the true ocean (the Mediterranean), and the land that encloses it may rightly be called a continent (a large land mass/ Europe/Africa).”

This interpretation that he is actually referring to the Kaystros estuary is substantiated by Critias, 113b which states:

“And for this reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.”

Likewise Critias (113c) states that “The island (Anatolia) was larger than Libya (Luwia) and Asia (Asuwiya) put together, and it was the center of the greatest empire of the known world (the Hittite Empire), with many smaller islands around it.” (The latter evidently refers to the many small islands dotted around the Anatolian peninsula.)

Next: The Pillars if Heracles, Part Two: Identifying the real locations of Geryon, Erythraea, Gades, Cerne, and Tartessos

The Pillars of Heracles. Part Three: Heracles True Identities