SEVILLE
THE beginning of the history of Seville is buried, with the date of its foundation, in oblivion. It has its place in mythology as the creation of Hercules; its origin being more reasonably credited to the Phœnicians, who colonised the mineral-yielding region of Andalusia, which is watered by the Guadalquivir, and called it Tartessii. Strabo states that they built the town of Tartessus; and some authorities favour the conclusion that Seville stands on the site of that Phœnician stronghold. In 237 B.C. Hamilcar Barca conquered Andalusia, and his son-in-law founded Carthagena, which was seized by Publius Cornelius Scipio, or Scipio Africanus, during the second Punic War. Scipio founded Italica, which was to serve as a sanatorium for his invalided soldiers, and for awhile its importance eclipsed that of the neighbouring city of Seville. Honoured by the gifts of three Roman emperors born within its walls, and adorned with the splendid edifices raised by Trajan, Adrian, and Theodosius, Italica was advanced to the first rank among the Roman cities of the Peninsula. Julius Cæsar restored the balance of power to Seville in 45 B.C., when he made it his capital, and changed its name to Julia Romula. The city was fortified and protected by walls, which have been variously described as from five to ten miles in length. To-day the remains of the great aqueduct, the two high granite columns in the Alameda de Hercules, and the beautiful fragments of capitals and statues in the Museo Arqælogico, are the only existing relics of the Roman sway in Seville, while on the opposite bank of the Guadalquivir a ruined, grass-grown amphitheatre is all that is left of the once mighty town of Italica. In 584 Leovigild repaired the walls of Italica when he was beseiging Seville, and less than two centuries later those walls were greatly injured by the Moors, who further fortified and enlarged Seville with the stones brought from Italica.
In 711 Tarik captured Cordova, and in the following year Musa, the Governor of Africa, appeared before Seville with an army of 18,000 warriors. In a few weeks the city had fallen, and for 536 years the “Pearl of Andalusia” remained in the possession of the Moors. The conquerors abandoned Italica to its fate, or, rather, they used the remains of the city as a quarry, while some of the sculpture of the deserted capital, which appealed to the Arabs by its surpassing beauty, was removed to Seville. Despite the injunctions contained in the Koran, the sculptures were not destroyed, and a statue of Venus was long preserved in one of the public baths of the city. El-Makkari, writing in the sixteenth century, and quoting from an early Moorish manuscript, records that “there was once found a marble statue of a woman with a boy, so admirably executed that both looked as if they were alive; such perfection human eyes never beheld. Indeed, some Sevillians were so much struck with its beauty as to become deeply enamoured of it.” An anonymous poet, a native of Seville, made a set of verses about it, which have been translated by Don Pascual de Gayangos as follows:
“Look at that marble statue, beautiful in its proportions,
surpassing everything in transparency and smoothness.
“She has with her a son, it is true, but who her husband
was I cannot tell, neither was she ever in labour.
“Thou knowest her to be but a stone, but yet thou canst
not look at her, for there is in her eyes something that
fascinates and confounds the beholder.”
It has been said that the Sevillians pretend to regard Hercules as the builder of the city, and the Puerta de la Carne is inscribed with the following distich:
“Condidit Alcides—renovavit Julius urbem,
Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius heros.”
This has been paraphrased in an inscription over the Puerta de Xerex: