Pillars of Hercules

The sail of the three Savior-gods is unfurled and the ship sails like a swan out of the royal harbor, past the great Pharos lighthouse, and into the Mediterranean Sea, bearing west, toward the Pillars of Hercules. You look back. From the top of Pharos, the newly kindled beacon light flashes out, promising a safe harbor to all who would know in order to serve. ... 

Urquhart, D. The pillars of Hercules or A narrative of travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848. New York Harper Bros., 1855. 

Conventionally, the Pillars are thought to be Gibraltar but Plutarch s De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet (the face that appears in the moon s circle) suggests the Pillars are northwest of Britain in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean near the Gulf Stream. Aristotle said that the Pillars of Hercules were the Pillars of Briareus. Homer s Odyssey refers to them as the Pillars of Atlas. Tacitus wrote that in 12 BCE, Tiberius brother Drusus Germanicus sailed into the northern seas to find the Pillars because rumour had it that the Pillars of Hercules still existed He turned back because of terrible weather. 

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