class="i0">“Et Carpetanos inter proverbe sub Auras
Toletum labor Alcide præclareque gentes
Metropolis in gente Tajo ses undique iactat
In qua tardi gradus conspectat parte Trionis
Haud Pater Alcides (ut dicunt) condidit urbem,
Mor ubi ter gemina victor gerione perempto,
In latium meditatus iter Dionysii quondam,
Prium dicta fuit de fundatoris honesto
Nomine; Toletum alii dixere coloni.”

This version explains the name of Toledo as Ptoliethron, signifying important race, bestowed by Hercules. Honour is also awarded to a certain Greek astrologer, Ferecio, who came to Galicia with Teucer, Ulysses and Diomedes, after the siege of Troy, and having killed one of his companions, flew from the anger of the others into the heart of the Peninsula, until the security of the high rocks on which Toledo is built, tempted him to seek shelter amid these altitudes, which he at once consecrated to Hercules. As the natives gathered round him, and the town spread, he initiated them in the mysteries of magic and astrology, arts until then unknown in Spain, and for this reason called arta Toledana.

Less wild and improbable is the last legend, that the Jews came hither when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, and created the town they called Toledoth, “city of generations.” From this period is supposed to date the synagogue Santa Maria la Blanca. The explanation of the fact that under Christian rule the Jews of Toledo were permitted to have their synagogues and worship unmolested according to their rites, is based on the tradition that the Jews of Jerusalem consulted them before condemning Christ to death. They withheld their consent, and pronounced the sentence both heedless and imprudent, but their letter arrived too late for consideration. The mere belief that this letter had been sent, however, secured them for some centuries from insult or persecution.[2]

The famous archbishop, Don Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, rejects all these theories, and goes to Rome in search of founders, which he discovers in two consuls, Tolemon and Brutus, 108 years before Cæsar’s time, when Ptolemy Evergetes was reigning. But this seems no nearer truth, since there exists no vestige of any domination anterior to the Roman Conquest, and there are no data on which to found a definite statement. The most convenient way of disposing of the question, up to the day of Livy’s emphatic description of Toledo as “parva urbs, sed loco munita,” is to say with the old-fashioned writers that its beginning is “lost in the night of ages.” For lost it most certainly is, and the ancient Spanish historians are not to be trusted. It is probable that the first start of the race was a Celtic group of shepherds, wild and rude, whose wanderings led them to the leafy and verdant banks of the Tagus, and here, finding abundance of water, and rich and fertile land between Aranjuez and Toledo, they agreed to settle. Gradually the little town, pitched high above the river upon its unattackable rocky seat, spread itself; the number of huts grew into streets and lanes, the vague and wandering groups became more dense, and attracted others within their dominating influence, until the capital of Carpetania was formed. The shepherds left their flocks to build themselves walls and strong places, and thus bring upon their little city the imperious and conquering eye of Rome. Here again we have nothing but untrustworthy generalities to guide us, and no prehistoric remains on which to base conclusions about this vanished race. Alcocer, the old historian of Toledo, asserts that the very mystery and obscurity of the city’s earliest days is proof of its antiquity and nobility, “since a race is all the more ancient by the less that is known of its origin and beginning.” In a pleasing concession to this naïve statement, we need feel no shame in allowing to Toledo all the nobility and antiquity our unenlightened ignorance permits it to claim.

The first dim figure in its history that shows out upon a vague and discutable background is that of Tago, a governor of the town in the days of Carthagenian domination. Before the second punic war, the Carthagenians sought to strengthen their forces by alliance with the Carpetanians, whom they had already partially subjugated. According to Rasis, the Moorish writer, there were then eleven governors in Carpetania, one of whom was Tago, at Toledo. Hasdrubal had succeeded Hamilcar, and reversing his mild policy, entertained his fancy with every kind of ferocious injustice and cruelty. The Carpetanians were handy, half allies, half conquered subjects, and the account of Tago’s assassination, for Hasdrubal’s mere pleasure, is one of unmitigable barbarity, one of those incidents that leave us stunned and stupefied by the revelation of an inexplicable instinct of cruelty in uncivilised man. Not content with repeatedly stabbing the unfortunate governor with his own hand, Hasdrubal ordered the body to be crucified, then drew his sword across the throat, severing the head, exposed the headless trunk, and forbade it decent burial. One of Tago’s slaves revenged his master by assassinating Hasdrubal, and the infuriated Carpetanians rose up in revolt against Carthagenian oppression. They joined neighbouring tribes, and determined to resist Hannibal. Hannibal marched against them, and met them near ancient Oresia, eight leagues from Toledo, and here a long and fierce battle was fought, equal on both sides in losses, endurance, courage and fury. Night fell before either side had obtained the slightest advantage, and when day came, the confederates had the wild joy of forcing the world’s greatest general to retreat. This obscure and miserable little people, a handful of raw Celtiberians, had no means of measuring the extent of their forgotten glory. Hannibal to them was no more than Hasdrubal, and they little suspected the kind of hero they had to do with. So they feasted and shouted and sang in their rash triumph, while Hannibal, who had folded his tent before their impetuous charge, grimly looked on, and planned to take advantage of their unbuckled hour. In the midst of their feasting and pleasuring, he bore down unexpectedly upon the victors, and all the confederates, struck at their brightest moment in the full flush of pride, were broken on the remorseless wheel of Carthagenian rule.

From this onward, light begins to gather over Toledan history, dimly, of course, and by the very necessity of its vicissitudes, intermittent and dubious. After the fall of Carthage, we find, 191 years B.C., Marcus Fulvius Nobilior directing the Roman forces against the capital of Carpetania, and as besieger occupying the opposite bank of the Tagus. The reigning king of the Celtiberians was Hilermo. Fulvius defeated him in the plain, and then laid siege to the town and took it with ease. But though now subject to Rome, the Romans never appear to have dominated this stolid and sturdy Celtic race. Under whatever sway, Toledo ever wears its unwearying face of sullen independence. Rome itself could stamp no permanent impression on such a wilful and indomitable subject. Her armies might sweep it off the field of rebellion, but could neither chain it nor secure its sympathy. It remained obstinately neutral in all the successive Roman strifes; took no notice whatever of Viriate’s imperious call from the foot of its walls to join him on the bank of the Tagus