Säulen des Herakles
The Rock was revered by the Greeks and Romans as one of the two Pillars of Hercules, created by the demigod during his when he smashed through a mountain separating the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. According to a Phocaean Greek traveller who visited in the sixth century BC, there were temples and altars to Hercules on the Rock where passing travellers made sacrifices. The Spanish later symbolised the importance of the Pillars of Hercules with consisting of a pair of columns with a scroll wrapped around them – a symbol that became the $ sign and the related Portuguese "cifrão" ().