Pontevedra too has her ancient history: she claims, on the authority of Strabo, to have been founded by the Greeks, who came over with Teucer, and to have been called _Los Helenos_ in consequence. Strabo got this information from Asclepeades Merleanus (the Grammarian of Andalusia).[248] It is not known when the name was changed, but there seems no doubt that it must have been about the time of the advent of the Romans, and that Pontevedra is derived from _Pons vetus_. Roman milestones discovered during the last hundred and fifty years prove by their inscriptions that at least one of the Roman military roads passed this way.[249] During the Middle Ages Pontevedra was a town of considerable maritime importance; Molina calls it “the largest town in Galicia,” with a fishing trade of seldom less than eighty thousand ducats annually, and says, “it trades with Valencia, Andalusia, Sicily, and places even more distant; more than a hundred vessels laden with sardines leave its port every year.” All the activity and all the wealth of this town was connected with the sea; its merchant fishermen formed among themselves a sort of fishing guild, and, like the Hanseatic League, kept all the maritime commerce in their own hands, including that of all the towns on the Ria de Arosa, as well as Marin and Vigo. Pontevedra was the only port for loading and unloading vessels all along the coast from Bayona to Los Trangueiros; she also, along with Noya, had a monopoly of the preparation of fish oil, conceded to them by Fernando in 1238. On one occasion, when twelve or thirteen Pontevedrans had been carried off by Turkish pirates, the Archbishop of Santiago, Don Gaspar Avalos, granted these merchants a very curious privilege, namely, that they might fish on Sundays, provided that they would spend the money so made in ransoming the captives.