By writing the History of Antiquity of the City of Évora (1553), André de Resende gave rise
to a historiographic tradition that considered the presence of Sertório in Évora, city where he
supposedly lived, a certainty, as well as his responsibility in the edification of the first belt of
walls of the city, and in the edification of the temple and supposed aqueduct. Although it is based
on fragile and very empirical associations of Roman architectonic traces present in the city with
the archeology and readings of Plutarch, who mentions the presence of the Roman general in
Hispania, such a tradition was cyclically revisited and revitalized until the nineteenth century,
by authors like Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos, Manuel Fialho, António Franco, Francisco da
Fonseca, and Augusto Filipes Simões. The longevity of the tradition is explained by the manner
in which the material evidence that supposedly confirm it was used to ascertain the antiquity of
Évora and the relevance of its past, which was more ancient than the Kingdom itself and whose
relevance was confused with that of the Roman Empire. We propose to address such a tradition
because it demonstrates the perennial nature of history and classical culture as a paradigm of
civilization, and also demonstrates how this paradigm was able to shape the way in which all
the successive ages interpreted Roman architecture.