For centuries, analysts and scholars have claimed that Seville was founded by Hercules, the youngest son of Zeus (whose Roman equivalent was Jupiter) and mortal women in Greece. According to tradition, he marked the place where Julius Caesar would found the city with six stone pillars. The great Roman general named the town Iulia Romula Hispalis - Iulia after himself, Romula after Rome, and Hispalis due to it being built on posts dug into the ground. Our establishment, the Hotel Sacristía de Santa Ana, located on the famous avenue named after the legendary hero, La Alameda de Hércules, has recreated situations, landscapes, episodes and characters, related with his famous twelve labours in each of its twenty-five bedrooms. Hercules was the name in Roman mythology of the Greek hero Heracles, which is a metathesis (where sounds change place within a word, attracted or repelled by each other) of the original. He was the son of the mortal Alcmena (the power of the moon), daughter of Electryon, and thanks to an unrepeatable list of feats he became a god. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works without any major changes, but added some details of their own, some of which related the hero to the geography of the western Mediterranean. The details of his cult were also adapted to Rome. The twelve labours of Hercules or Heracles are a series of archaic stories that are interrelated by a subsequent continuous narrative, of the penance done by the hero. Struggles with ferocious animals and beasts give the story an epic aspect. The establishment of a fixed cycle of twelve labours was attributed by the Greeks to an epic poem (lost today) written by Peisandros of Rhodes, perhaps 600 before Christ. As they are passed down to us, the labours of Hercules are not narrated in a single place, but are instead taken from many sources. There is no single way of interpreting the labours, but six were certainly located in the Peloponnese culminating with the rededication of Olympia, and the other six, part of the same sequence, took the hero much further away. In each case, the pattern was the same - Heracles or Hercules was sent to kill or conquer, or search for a magic plant or animal for Hera's representative: Eurystheus. All selected places where previously Goddess Hera’s Bastions and Entrances to the Other World.
In his labours, Heracles was often accompanied by his friend (an eromenos). According to some this was Licymnius, and to others his nephew Iolaus. Although he was only supposed to perform ten labours, this assistance led to him having to undertake two more. Eurystheus did not count slaying the Hydra, because Iolaus helped him, or cleaning the Augean stables, as he received payment for his work or - in other versions - because rivers did the work), and ordered him to complete two more, making a total of twelve. As a result, a stay at the Hotel Sacristía de Santa Ana is an immersion in the legendary depths of fantastic Greek and Roman mythology…

•ROOM 208 - NEMEA: Nemea is famous in Greek mythology as its forests were the home of the famous lion killed by Heracles in the first of his famous twelve labours.

•ROOM 209 - LERNA: A region of springs and near the east coast of the Peloponnese, south of Argos, known mainly as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the many-headed water snake, which Heracles killed as the second of his labours.

•ROOM 210 – EMIRANTO: This is the ancient name for what is today mount Olonos, in Arcadia. According to Greek mythology, it was the home of a monstrous boar which Hercules was ordered to capture as his fourth labour by his cousin Eurystheus.

•ROOM 301 – CERINEO: On the mountain of Ceryneus lived a hind with golden antlers and bronze hooves. For his third labour, Hercules had to capture the Ceryneian Hind and take it to Mycenae alive.

•ROOM 302 – AUGIAS: King of Elis. For his fifth labour, Hercules was ordered to clean his stables in just one day.

•ROOM 303 – CRETA: This is the place where Hercules performed his seventh task, when he captured the bull that had taken the princess Europa. It went around Crete breathing fire through its nose and destroying everything in its way. After a hard struggle, Heracles captured it and took it back alive to Mycenae.

•ROOM 304 - DIÓMEDES: The king of Thrace and the son of Ares, who owned mares that he had trained to feed on the flesh of his guests. In his eighth labour, Hercules took the mares from him, and killed Diomedes.

•ROOM 305 – HIPÓLITA: the Queen of the Amazons, warrior women who lived in Asia Minor. She owned a magic girdle given to her by her father, Ares, the god of war. The ninth labour of Hercules was to obtain the girdle at the request of Admete, Eurystheus' daughter.

•ROOM 306 - PERSEO: Perseus is a demigod of Greek mythology, the son of Danae and Zeus.

•ROOM 307 - MEGARA: Megara or Mégara, was Hercules' first wife, with whom he had several children. Hercules killed them all, which was the reason why he had to cleanse himself of his guilt and perform his famous twelve labours.

•ROOM 308 - CERION: A three-bodied giant who lived on Erytheia. For his tenth labour, Hercules was ordered to fight him, take his cows and bring them back to Greece. On this journey, Hercules placed some columns that would subsequently be called the columns of Hercules, in memory of his journey around the outermost parts of Europe and Africa.

•ROOM 309 - ESPÉRIDES: Daughters of the sunset who looked after and watched over the sacred Garden of the Hesperides where golden apples grew. For his eleventh labour, Eurystheus sent Hercules to bring these apples.

•ROOM 310 - ANTEO: A giant, who was son of the Earth. He challenged Hercules who knocked him down three times, but in vain, as the Earth, his mother, revived his strength. Hercules realised this and lifted him up into the air, and by preventing him from receiving sustenance from his mother, suffocated him.

•ROOM 401 - HESIONE: A nymph, the daughter of Iapetus and Clymene.

•ROOM 402 - TESEO: Theseus was the son of Aethra and Aegeus, king of Athens. He was the strongest of Hercules' friends, and wished to emulate him.

•ROOM 403 - SILVANO: In Roman mythology Sylvan was the spirit of fields and forests, the god of fields and farmers, and was also thought to be the protector of hedgerows.

•ROOM 404 - BOARIO: An area of ancient Rome located on the left bank of the river Tiber, between the Capitoline and the Aventine hills. A square in the same area where the animal market took place also had the same name.

•ROOM 405 - PALATINO: The Palatine hill is part of what was known as Roma Quadrata. Located between the Forum and the Campus Martius, this is one of the famous seven hills of Rome. According to classical mythology, it was also the home of Luperca, the wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus.

•ROOM 407 - HERACLES: The name of Hercules in Greek mythology.

•ROOM 408 - HÉRCULES: The son of Zeus, the greatest hero of classical mythology.

•ROOM 410 - ABENTINO: One of the mythical kings of Alba Longa, who according to tradition was buried on the mountain that was later named after him (the Aventine Hill). He is said to have succeeded Romulus Silvius. He reigned for thirty-seven years, and was succeeded by Procas, the father of Amulius and Numitor.

•ROOM 501 - HERA: The wife of Zeus, queen of Olympia and enemy of Hercules throughout his life.

•ROOM 502 – HIMERA: The birthplace of the poet Stesichorus who described the legend of Hercules and Geryon in a poem called Geryoneïs, and located the myth near Cádiz.

Latin verses inscribed on the arch of the Puerta de Jerez, when translated, summarise the history of Seville as follows:
Hercules founded me,
Julius Caesar surrounded me
with walls and high towers,
the Holy King won me
with Garci Pérez de Vargas.