Phœnician, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Goth, and Moor--the city has known them all and outlived them all. There seems to have been a settlement of the Turdetani here, before the first Phœnicians came. The name at all events was bestowed by the Tyrian traders, if it is really derived from "sephela," a plain. Then came the Carthaginians, whom the Spaniards accuse of having corrupted the pure and simple-minded natives. The city became known to the little world of civilization, and was spoken of by Grecian geographers as "Ispola" and "Hispalis." The terrible Hamilcar reduced the greater part of Spain to the Punic yoke. He and his successor Hasdrubal filled Andalusia with their massive ungainly fortresses. Salambo, the Semitic Venus, was worshipped on the banks of the Guadalquivir. From time to time, we doubt not, human sacrifices stained the altars of Baal. One wonders if the descendants of the Carthaginians became identified with the other great Semitic people, and passed as Jews. Certainly it is otherwise a little difficult to account for the presence in Spain of the Israelites in such numbers at a very early period. The Carthaginians fought hard for the province of Bætica, but Punic force and fraud were alike powerless before the sword of Scipio. The dominion of the province of Iberia passed to Rome. When the conquering hero turned his face homewards to claim his triumph, he was mindful of his warworn veterans. For them the journey back to Italy was too long and wearisome; they were content to die in the land they had conquered. Outside Hispalis a place of rest and refreshment was found for them in the village of Sancios. Scipio laid there the foundation of a colony, bestowed it on his veterans, and named it Italica, in memory of their fatherland. And thus was founded the first Latin-speaking settlement outside Italy. It lies--all that remains of it--on the slopes of the hills that bound the prospect westwards. Hispalis, not overshadowed by its new neighbour, flourished under the Roman sway. Julius Cæsar besieged the city, which was garrisoned by Pompey's partisans, and inscribed the date of its capture in the calendar of the Republic (August 9, B.C. 45). His fleet, they say, lay in the river between the Torre del Oro and the Palace of San Telmo. The townsfolk were devoted to him, and he renamed the place Julia Romula. As a Roman colony the town had a senate and consuls, ediles and censors. The wall Cæsar built endured intact until the time of Juan II., so that monarch wrote in his Chronicle. While its Punic physiognomy was hard to efface, Seville soon became in spirit a Latin town. All Andalusia was in course of time thoroughly Romanized. Seneca, Lucan, the Ælii, as most of us remember, were Spaniards--if Spaniards could be said, as yet, to have existed.