368 
PLIKT'S NATrEAL HlgTOET. ' [Eook IT. 
of Baetica, and twenty-five miles from the mouth of the 
Straits of Grades, is the island of Gladis, twelve miles long 
and three broad, as Polybius states in his writings. At its 
nearest part, it is less than 700 feet^ distant from the main- 
land, while in the remaining portion it is distant more than 
seven miles. Its circuit is fifteen miles, and it has on it a 
city which enjoys the rights of Eoman citizens^, and whose 
people are called the Angus tani of the city of Julia 
Graditana. On the side which looks towards Spain, at about 
100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, 
on which the original city of Grades stood. By Ephorus and 
Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timseus and Silenus Aphro- 
disias^, and by the natives the Isle of Juno. Timseus says, 
that the larger island used to be called Cotinusa^, from its 
portion of tlie article on this subject in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of 
Ancient Greography." " ' Fortnnatse Insnlge' is one of those geographical 
names whose origin is lost in mythic darkness, but which afterwards 
came to have a specific apphcation, so closely resembling the old mythical 
notion, as to make it almost impossible to doubt that that notion was 
based, in part at least, on some vague knowledge of the regions afterwards 
' discovered. The earliest Grreek poetry places the abode of the happy 
departed spirits far beyond the entrance of the Mediterranean, at the 
extremity of the earth, and upon the shores of the river Oceanus, or in 
islands in its midst ; and Homer's poetical description of the place may 
be applied almost word for word to those islands in the Atlantic, off the 
west coast of Airica, to wliich the name was given in the historical 
period. (Od. iv. 1. 563, seq.) ' There the hfe of mortals is most easy ; 
there is no snow, nor winter, nor much rain, but Ocean is ever sending 
up the shrill breathing breezes of Zephyr us to refresh men.' Their de- 
licious climate, and their supposed identity of situation, marked out the 
Canary Islands, the Madeira group, and the Azores, as worthy to re- 
present the Islands of the Blest. In the more specific sense, however, 
the name was apphed to the two former groups ; while, in its widest 
apphcation, it may have even included the Cape de Yerde Islands, its 
extension being in fact adapted to that of maritime discovery." Phny 
gives a further description of them in B. vi. c. 37. 
1 The strait between the island and the mainland is now called the 
River of Saint Peter. The circuit of the island, as stated by Phny, 
varies in the MSS. from fifteen to twenty-five miles, and this last is pro- 
bably correct. 
2 JuHus Csesar, on his visit to the city of Grades, during the Civil War 
in Spain, B.C. 49, conferred the citizenship of Rome on aU the citizens of 
Gades. Under Augustus it became a municipium, with the title of 
• Augusta urbs Juha Gladitana.' ThetfQodern city of Cadiz is built upon 
its site. ^ Or the Island of Yenus. 
Prom the Grreek word kotivos, " an ohve-tree." 
