Editing Cádiz (section)

=== Under Rome's rule ===
Under the [[Roman Republic]] and [[Roman Empire|Empire]], the city flourished as a port and naval base known as ''Gades''. [[Suetonius]] relates how Julius Caesar, when visiting Gades as a [[quaestor]] (junior senator), saw a statue of Alexander the Great there and was saddened to think that he himself, though the same age, had still achieved nothing memorable.<ref>Suetonius, Divi Iuli, ''Vita Divi Iuli'' 7.</ref>
[[File:Gadeiras314.svg|thumb|right|The Bay of Cádiz in antiquity featuring a notably different coastline.]]
The people of Gades had an alliance with Rome and [[Julius Caesar]] bestowed [[Roman citizenship]] on all its inhabitants in 49&nbsp;BC.<ref name=willsmith/> By the time of [[Augustus]]'s census, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred ''[[equites]]'' (members of the wealthy upper class), a concentration rivaled only by [[Patavium]] ([[Padua]]) and [[Rome]] itself.<ref>[[Strabo]]. ''Geography''.</ref> It was the principal city of the [[Colonies in antiquity|Roman colony]] of Augusta Urbs Julia Gaditana. An [[Aqueduct (bridge)|aqueduct]] provided fresh water to the town, the island's supply being poor, running across open sea for its last leg. However, Roman Gades was never very large. It consisted only of the northwest corner of the present island, and most of its wealthy citizens maintained estates outside of it on the [[Castle of San Sebastián (Cádiz)|nearby island]] or on the mainland.<ref name=willsmith>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Smith |first1=Philip |editor1=William Smith |editor1-link=William Smith (lexicographer)|title=Gades (-ium; also Gadis, and Gaddis) |date=1854 |publisher=Little, Brown & Co. |location=Boston |pages=923–925 |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_aAkFAAAAYAAJ/page/922/mode/2up |encyclopedia =Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography |volume=1: ABACAENUM — HYTANIS |series=(In two volumes)}}</ref> The lifestyle maintained on the estates led to the [[Puellae gaditanae|Gaditan dancing girls]] (the {{lang|la|puellae gaditanae}}) becoming famous throughout the ancient world.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fear |first1=A. T. |title=The Dancing Girls of Cadiz |journal=Greece & Rome |date=1991 |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=75–79 |jstor=643110 |issn=0017-3835}}</ref>

Although it is not in fact the most westerly city in the Spanish peninsula, for the Romans Cádiz had that reputation. The poet [[Juvenal]] begins his famous tenth satire with the words: ''Omnibus in terris quae sunt a Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangen'' ('In all the lands which exist from Gades as far as Dawn and the Ganges ...').<ref>Juvenal, ''Satires'', 10.1-2.</ref>