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Mythology -- (Fiction)

The Pillars of Hercules, in Homer's legend, were the two pillars on which Heracles, the original Greek form of the Roman mythical Hercules, mythically, fictitiously, pressed to separate Europe from Africa, and are today accepted as being two mountains at the mouth of the Mediterranean, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean, namely one on either side of the Straits of Gibraltar. (This is perhaps a Greek repetition of the Story of Sampson in Middle Eastern mythology, who was said to have brought down the building he was in by separating and shearing two of its columns.) Another myth concerns Hercules' theft of the Golden Apples, placing the giant, Atlas, and his task of supporting the weight of the world, at the "Pillars of Hercules".

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