Carm. i. 36.
Strabo, lib. i. seems to derive the name from situation, where he describes the Spaniards as the most western nation, “μάλιστα ἑσπέριοι.” And both he and Pliny state that Hispania was likewise called Iberia, either from a king of that name or from the river Iberus (Ebro).
Iberia, though the name by which, after Hispania, Spain was most commonly known to the Latins was, by a confusion not very complimentary to their geographical accuracy, likewise the name of a region in Asia Minor. It was a tract in Pontus separated from Colchis by the Moschic mountains, and corresponds with the modern Georgia:
Herbasque, quas Iolcos atque Iberia
Mittit venenorum ferax.
Horat. Epod. 5.
The names “Hesperia” and “Iberia” are found together in the same stanza of Camóens as applied to the Peninsula, yet with some vague attempt to confine the latter name to the Spanish portion exclusively:
“Nome em armas ditoso, em noss’ Hesperia,
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