Was Rhode a Rhodian Colony on the Iberian Peninsula?
The paper is devoted to the problem of the reliability of Pseudo-Scymnus data that Rhode (‘Ροδη, today’s Rosas in Spain) was founded by Rhodians more than three centuries before the arrival of Phocaeans. The data of archaeological excavations did not allow us to date the appearance of Rhodians until the 5th century BC. Moreover, the information of ancient authors is contradictory and divergent. Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC, wrote nothing about Rhodians in Spain. He claimed that the first were Phocaeans. Greeks often distorted the original place names. For example, there were a lot of rumors in ancient times that Zacynthians founded Saguntum. The discovery of lead sheets in Pech-Maho and Ampurias revealed that the city had an Iberian name, Seganthe. According to the data from the ancient Greek sources, Celtic-Iberian population and Ligurians lived in the area where Rhode was founded. Therefore, probably in the early 20th century, P. Pedrizet suggested that the place name Rhode has the Ligurian origin, but other linguists did not support his ideas. The author, on the basis of ancient sources and archaeological evidences, believes that Phocaeans changed the local Celtic name into the Greek one.