Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "RODOS Ancient city SPAIN" .
RODOS (Ancient city) SPAIN
Rhoda or Rhodus (Rhode, Steph. B. s. v.; Rhoda, Mela, ii. 6; Liv. xxxiv.
8; Rhodos, Strab. xiv. p. 654; Eustath. ad Dion. Per. 504; called by Ptol. ii.
6. § 20, Rhodipolis, where we should probably read Rhode polis), a Greek emporium
on the coast of the Indigetae in Hispania Tarraconensis, founded according to
Strabo (l. c.) by the Rhodians, and subsequently taken possession of by the Massiliots.
It is the modern Rosas; but tradition says that the old town lay towards the headland
at San Pedro de Roda. (Ford, Handbook of Spain, p. 249; comp. Meurs. Rhod. i.
28; Marca, Hisp. ii. 18; Martin, Hist. des Gaules, p. 218; Florez, Med. iii. p.
114; Mionnet, i. p. 148.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Rhode or Rhodanus (Rosas) Gerona, Spain.
Greek trading establishment founded by the Rhodians in NE Spain, 18
km E of Figueras. According to an ancient tradition recorded by Scymnus (196)
and Strabo (3.4.8), it was probably founded when the Rhodian thalassocracy, the
rival of the Phoenicians, achieved its maximum expansion in the W Mediterranean
(Balearics, Catalan coasts of Iberia, Gulf of Leon) at the end of the 9th or the
beginning of the 8th c. In any event the colony was founded before the First Olympiad
(Strab. 14.2.10), or before 776 B.C. Much Rhodian material, although dating a
century later, has also been found in S France.
The original colony was on the site of the town of Rosas in the so-called
Citadel of Rosas, at the N end of the Gulf of that name. Its location appears
to indicate that originally it was a settlement of refuge and a port of call on
the Rhodian route from the Balearics to S Gaul and the N Rhone, where goods from
the Atlantic area (amber and tin) were assembled. It is undoubtedly the oldest
Greek city in the West and antedates the foundation of Cumae in Italy by Greeks
from Chalkis.
Its beginnings are obscure, documented only indirectly by the Rhodian
goods found N of the Pyrenees. With the Phokaian colonization of these coasts
and the foundation of Massalia (600 B.C.) and of Emporion, Rhode thrived; probably
its Dorian origin enabled the town to maintain its personality in the face of
the Phokaian Ionians, although it ended by falling into the commercial sphere
of influence of Massalia-Emporion and subsequently became clearly Emporitan after
the arrival of the Romans in 218 B.C. However, it always maintained its original
Rhodian character. It was the first Greek city in the West to mint silver coins
(drachmai). The wide dispersion of these coins indicates extensive commercial
influence in the interior of Gaul, whose tribes copied the coins of Rhode.
In 195 B.C. the Roman consul M. P. Cato disembarked at Rhode and began
the repression of the Iberian communities that had risen against the Roman domination,
before establishing his headquarters in Emporion.
The Republic and the Early Empire was a period of economic balance
for Rhode, which had been annexed by Emporion. However, it maintained its influence
N of the Pyrenees while Emporion's trade was with the interior and the Spanish
Levant. In the 3d c. A.D., with the destruction of Emporion by the Franks (265),
Rhode gained a marked impetus which was maintained during the 4th-5th c. It became
a large frontier town destined to play a major role under the Visigoths during
the revolt of Count Paulus against Wamba
J. Maluquer De Motes, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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