Hercules, PILLARS OF

Hercules, PILLARS OF, the name given by the ancients to two rocks flanking the entrance to the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar. According to one version of the legend, they had once been united, but Hercules tore them asunder to admit the ocean into the Mediterranean; another version represents him as causing them to unite temporarily in order to form a bridge. They seem to have been first visited by the Phoenicians about 1100 B.C. Calpe, one of them, is now identified with Gibraltar, and Abyla, the other, with Centa.