The Tower of Hercules dates back to the Roman period. It is believed to have been built around the late 1st or early 2nd century by the architect Gaius Sevius Lupus during the time of the Emperor Trajano. An inscription which was found on its base reads MARTI AVG. SACR G. SEVIVS LVPVS ARCHITECTVS AEMINIENSIS LVSITANVS. EX. VO. The Tower was known by FARUM BRIGANTIUM till it changed to TOWER OF HERCULES. Farum Brigantium was derived from the Greek world (Pharos) meaning the lighthouse of Alexandria which became such a model for other countries to imitate it. But in the 20th century, it was Tower of Hercules after a Greek mythological legend created in Spain.
The area where the lighthouse was built was part of a kingdom of Brigantia that existed before the Roman invasion and extended over the Artabrian Gulf and county Bergantiños. It is believed that its capital city was Brigantia which at that time was a busy trading port with the British Isles. It is likely there were several small watchtowers in the estuary to alert the city in case of danger. One of them (the most strategic of them all) could have been replaced by the Farum Brigantium lighthouse.
The earliest representation of the lighthouse is found in the Burgo de Osma Codex from 1086 AD which shows it in Gallaecia, next to the shrine of Santiago and facing the island of Britain and Ireland.
The largest medieval map of the world (Hereford Mappamundi, made in England about 1300 AD) also shows the Brigantium Tower prominently located on the coast near Santiagode Compostela, with a fire burning at the top of the lighthouse in order to guide the ships in the Atlantic.
The history of the Tower of Hercules involves a combination of myths and facts. Many legends surround its history from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. They try to explain in mythical and popular terms the Tower´s origins and its construction, regardless of many historical and archaeological understanding.
A Castilian legend, written by Alfonso X in the 13th century, said that the Greek hero Hercules fought with a Trojan giant known as "Geryon". At the end of his battle, Hercules buried the giant´s head and decreed that a town had to be built on that spot and so the Roman city of "Brigantia" (A Coruña) came to be.
The Leabhar Gabha´la Eireann or Book of Invasions of Ireland is an ancient book of Irish history and folklore written in Ireland circa 1050 AD. It tells that Breoghain, a king of the city of Brigantium, built a watchtower called Tor Breoghain or Tower of Breoghain from where he could see a new unexplored land. His descendants, Ith and Mil, gathered an army and left to conquer the new island, which they called Ireland. The Irish legend was known on the Gallician side as well because there were ancient trade relations between Galicia and the British Isles.
A Galician legend recounts how a monk called Trezenzonius climbed up the Tower of Brigantia, saw a wonderful island very far at sea, and went to explore the island in the same way that Ith and Mil did in the Irish legend. When he returned to Galicia, he found the tower in a semi-ruinous condition and the city inhabited.
Today, the visitors can climb its 242 steps for magnificient views of the coastline and enjoy the Tower since it is the only lighthouse of Greco-Roman antiquity to have retained a measure of structural integrity and functional continuity.
