Baetica sive Hispania Pars Australis ut in Caesare descripta de Bello Hispanico (1739)

Description

This is a copper engraved historic map showing the Southern tip of Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar as well as the Northern tip of Morocco. The map is filled with a lot of geographic details concerning place names in Latin. The title is inside a simple cartouche.

The source publication is: Geographia antique, Latinorum et Graecorum, tabulis XXXII novis & accuratis expressa, translated: Thirty-two new and accurate maps of the geography of the ancients, as contained in the Greek and Latin Classics.

It was printed and sold in 1739 in London by Thomas Bowles. Herman Moll was a Dutchman bookseller, geographer and engraver. Around 1678 he moved to London where for a while he continued as an engraver. Later, he started his own businesses a map publisher and by the turn of the century had become the most prominent map publisher in the country. He published atlases and loose maps of all parts of the world many of which were highly decorative. In 1724 he published his 'New Description of England and Wales', an atlas of the English and Welsh Counties. He had many interesting friends including Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift (for whom he provided maps for Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels), explorers William Damier and Woodes Rogers, and the scientist Robert Hooke.

Cities, towns, and rivers shown on the map are Castulo (Destroyed in 1227), Baetis F. (Guadalquivir River), Castra Posthumy, Ategua (Fortified city at the time of Caesar), Ulla, Salsum F., Corduba (Córdoba), Sorita, Ucubis, Aspaula, Singulus F., Astigi (Écija), Crematur a Caesare, Urso, Malaca (Málaga), Italica (Roman City that Dwindled in the 3rd Century), Lenius F., Cilicensis F., Carmona, Obeulo, Hispalis (Sevilla), Carruca, Mare Internum (Mediterranean Sea), Munda, Asta, Carteia (Roman town that declined in the 9th Century), Fredum Gaditanum, Gades (Cádiz), Lusitania (Portugal and parts of Spain), and Hispania Ulterior (Southern Spain).