The temple of Hercules was erected during the dictatorship of Sulla, between 89 BC and 80 BC on the top of the hill on which the city of Cora had risen, at an altitude of 398 metres, at the behest of two local magistrates, whose names are engraved on the lintel of the door. The temple owes its state of preservation to its transformation into a church: the church of St Peter, destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944, was in fact built inside the cella.