It was founded by the Carthaginians as a trading station, and after a period of decline became under the Romans one of the more important towns in the province of Hispania Baetica. It was situated on a hill above the modern Adra.
Of its coins the most ancient bear the Phoenician inscription abdrt with the head of Heracles (Melkarth) and a tunny-fish; those of Tiberius (who seems to have made the place a colony) show the chief temple of the town with two tunny-fish erect in the form of columns.
From an old 1911 Encyclopedia