Show arabs first to respect the value of gibraltar even in the days when military science was in its infancy the rock of gibraltar rising sheer 1400 1 feet appealed to the imagination of the ancients who called it together with its companion gebel musa on the african coast the pillars of hercules in all other respects they left the solitary giant alone to his meditations according to a writer in the los angeles times the arabs were the first to rec cognize the rock s strategic value As moors they crossed the strait 1 in n christening it gebel el tank or the mountain of tank their leader s name they constructed a castle and eventually conquered the whole peninsula nine hundred years later the last moor was expelled from spain spam and he left it where the original one had landed in the bay of gibraltar on the decline of the spanish em ern pire the rock passed into british hands napoleon tried to take it when he was building his empire but failed thus was created the phrase as strong as the rock of gibraltar |