An ancient legend, often rehearsed by chroniclers, ascribed the founding of the city to certain descendants of Noah. It stated that Tubal settled in Spain and populated the country. There is some evidence that the province of Granada was the first district in Spain peopled by aliens. The founder of a town on the site of modern Granada is alleged to have been the mythical Iberus, who built Illiberis, which has been referred to as the original city. At any rate Illiberis existed in the Roman days, for it was a municipium under the rule of Augustus. The town was also the scene of an ecclesiastical council in the fourth century. Plundered by the Vandals, and won by the Visigoths, Illiberis was in decay at the time of the coming of the Moors to the Iberian Peninsula. With the conquest of Andalusia, the town of Granada first came into existence. At this period the Berbers overran the territory, though the Moorish authors relate that settlers from Damascus were the first Eastern colonizers of Granada. [Illustration: GRANADA--SIERRA NEVADA FROM THE ALHAMBRA GARDENS] The greatest obscurity shrouds the history of the city. It is strange that the writers of medieval times so rarely allude to Granada. About the year 860, a war raged over Andalusia between the native Moslems and their foreign rulers, the chief leader of the former being Omar Ben Hafsûn. Under his lieutenant, Nabil, an attack was made on Granada, and we read that some exultant verses written by the belligerents were attached to an arrow and propelled over the city wall. In these verses the words _Kalat-al-hamra_ ("the Red Castle") appear. This first reference to Al-Hamra suggests that an edifice for defence stood on the hill now occupied by the Alhambra. In 886 Omar Ben Hafsûn appears to have wrested Granada from the Khalifa of Cordova. A few years later Omar was conquered, and retiring to the Castle of Bobastro, he embraced the Christian faith, in which he died. Zawi Ben Ziri, a Berber, first established Granada as a kingdom in 1013. Gayangos, the Spanish historian, states that Illiberis--or Elvira, as it was called at this time--was a dwindling city and that Habus Ibn Makesen, nephew to Zawi Ben Ziri, founded a new town and capital. Habus was a builder as well as a warrior. He is the putative founder of the old Kasba, or citadel, in the Albaicin quarter, which was added to by his heir, Badis, who succeeded him in rule. The king is also said to have built the Casa del Gallo de Viento, in the same quarter, where he probably resided. Badis proved an ambitious and warlike monarch, for he enlarged his dominions widely, and even subdued the resolute hillfolk of the Alpujarras. He conquered Malaga, and made plans to besiege Seville. But his force was routed at Cabra by the famous Cid Campeador, Ruy Diaz de Bivar, the ally of the sultan of that city. To Badis is attributed a persecution of the Jews, who numbered several thousands in Elvira, and a terrible slaughter decimated their ranks.