After the killing of Antaeus, he went into Egypt, where he slew the tyrant Busiris, who murdered all strangers that landed there. After he had passed over the sandy deserts of Libya, he found a fertile and well watered country, in which he built an extraordinary great city, from the number of its gates called Hecatompylon11, which continued in a flourishing condition till of latter times that the Carthaginians, with a great army, (commanded by eminent captains), took it.

Hercules having passed through a great part of Africa, arrived in the ocean near Gades12, where he erected two pillars, one on each side the strait upon the continent.

Thence (with his fleet sailing along with him) he passed over into Iberia, where he found the sons of Chrysaor with three mighty armies. These at a distance he challenged to a single combat, and having at length slain the three generals, he gained Iberia, and drove away those remarkable herds of cattle.

In the mean time, as he travelled through Spain, he was magnificently entertained by a petty prince in the country, (who was a pious and just man), in return for which, he bestowed upon him some of the cattle; and he again consecrated them all to Hercules, and every year sacrificed to him one of the fairest bulls that were bred of them, some of which sacred breed remain in Iberia to this day.

And now, because we have before made mention of Hercules’s pillars, we conceive it fit in this place to say something further concerning them.

Hercules, when he arrived at the utmost coasts of both continents adjoining to the ocean, resolved to set up these pillars as lasting monuments of his expedition. That his work, therefore, might be famous to all posterity, it is said, that he much enlarged both the mountains on each side, by making great mounds for a long way into the sea; so that, whereas before they lay in the sea at a great distance one from another, he made the passage so narrow, that the great whales from that time could not pass out of the ocean through those straits into the Mediterranean; and, by the greatness of the work, the glory of the workman is preserved in everlasting remembrance.