It is mentioned in 354 B.C. as a trading port, and became important as a naval harbour during the Punic Wars.
The Poetelian law (326 B.C.) restricted the creditor's lien (by virtue of a nexum) to the goods of his debtor, and enacted that for the future no debtor should be put in chains; but we hear of debtors addicti to their creditors by the tribunals long after - even in the time of the Punic Wars.
During the Punic Wars it was still a naval port, but in the latter part of the 2nd century B.C. it became the greatest commercial harbour of Italy and we find Lucilius about 125 B.C. placing it next in importance to Delos, then the greatest harbour of the ancient world.
The Punic wars transferred the supreme power from Carthage to Rome, and Latin civilization was established firmly when, in 27 B.C., Andalusia became the Roman province of Baetica - so called after its great waterway, the Baetis (Guadalquivir).
In the Punic Wars it sided with the Carthaginians and suffered much from the Roman arms. In its immediate neighbourhood Hanno was defeated by Scipio in 216 B.C., and it afterwards became famous as the scene of Caesar's arduous struggle with Pompey's generals Afranius and Petreius in the first year of the civil war (49 B.C.).
