Note 58 — Chapter V

Don Maldonado Saavedra viewed it in this light, imagining that, in the Itinerary of Antoninus from Cadiz to Cordoba, two distinct roads were referred to; one proceeding direct, by way of Seville, whence it was taken up by another road, afterwards described, to Cordoba; the other (starting again from Cadiz) traversing the Serranía de Ronda to Antequera, and proceeding thence to Cordoba by Ulía. Florez, however, disputes this hypothesis, conceiving that but one route is intended, and that from Seville onwards it was given, not as a direct road, but merely as one by which troops might be marched if occasion required. But why, if such were the case, a road should have been made that increased the distance from Seville to Antequera from 85 to 121 miles, he does not explain; and I confess, therefore, it seems to me, that Don Maldonado Saavedra’s supposition is the more probable. The distances, however, between the modern places which he has named as corresponding with those mentioned in the Itinerary do not at all agree; and he also, in laying down the road from Cadiz to Antequera, has made it unnecessarily circuitous. The following towns will be found to answer much better with those mentioned in the Roman Itinerary, and the line connecting them is one of the most practicable through the Serranía.

Iter a Gadis Corduba, milia plus minus 295 sic.

Roman miles.

Ad pontem (Puente Zuazo) m. p. m.12

Portu Gaditano (Puerto Santa Maria)14

Hasta (near La Mesa de Asta)16

Ugia (Las Cabezas de San Juan)27

Orippo (Dos Hermanos)24

Hispali (Seville)9

(returning now to the Puente Zuazo, we have to)

Basilippo (a rocky mound and ruins between Paterna and Alcalà de los Gazules)21