Hercules me edifico, Julio Cesar me cerco, de meno y torres altes y el rey santo me ganó, Con Garci Perez de Vargas. "Hercules built me, Julius Cæsar surrounded me with walls and high towers, the Holy King conquered me by Garcia Perez de Vargas." Statues of the founder and protector still stand in various parts of the city. In the second century B. C., the shipping of Seville made it one of the most important trade centres of the Mediterranean. Phœnicians and Greeks stopped here to barter. In 45 B. C., Rome stretched forth her greedy hand, and Cæsar entered the town at the head of his victorious legion. Eighty-two years later the Romans formed the whole of southern Spain into the "Provincia Bætica." With its formation into a Roman colony, Seville's historical background begins to stand out clearly and its riches are sung by the ancients. "Fair art thou, Bætis," says Martial, "with thine olive crown and thy limpid waters, with the fleece stains of a brilliant gold." The whole province contained what later became Sevilla, Huelva, Cadiz, Cordova, Jaen, Granada and Almeria. Seville, or Hispalis, became the capital and was accordingly fortified with walls and towers, garrisoned and supplied with water from aqueducts and adorned with Roman works of art. After the spread of Christianity during the later Emperors, Seville was important enough to be made the seat of a bishop. With the fall of Rome, Hispalis was overrun by hordes of Goths and Vandals. They held possession of the country until they were conquered in 711 by the Moors, who, after crossing the strait between Africa and Europe, gradually spread northward through the Iberian peninsula. The Goths made Hispalis out of the Roman Hispalia, and the Arabians in their turn, unable to pronounce the p, formed the name into Ixbella, of which the Castilians made Seville. To the Moors, Andalusia was the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. What was lacking, their genius and husbandry soon supplied. The land which they found uncultivated soon became a garden filled with exotic flowers and rich fruits, while they adorned its cities with the noblest monuments of their taste and intelligence. They divided their territory (el Andalus) into the four kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, which still exist as territorial divisions. To-day the three latter contain only the ruins of a great past. Seville alone remains in many respects a perfectly Moorish city. Her courts, her squares, the streets and houses, the great palace and the tower are essentially Arabian and bear witness to the magnificence of her ancient masters. [Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL