Around Cabra, there are eight smaller villages, including Gaena, Las Huertas Bajas and La Benita.

This is recorded in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (City), Pliny the Elder and Strabo referred to the many people and marvels of knowledge and wealth in Licabrum.

Cabra was the site of an aqueduct 5 miles (8.0 km) in length, which was constructed by Marco Cornelio Novano Bebio Balbo, the provincial flamen and Roman prefect of the college of engineers of Igabrum (a later name for Licabrum).

In the 600s, Sinagio, who assisted Juan, the Concilio Iliberitano, of the 3rd Reconcile of Toledo, Deodato, Bacanda, Gratino, and Constantino, lived there.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the town, named Egabro, became a centre of Visigoth power for the surrounding area.

In 889 AD, Christians in Moorish Spain, including Cabra, under Samuel (Omar ibn Hafsún) rebelled against Muslim rule.

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid), with the Castilian troops of Alfonso the VIth, fought on the side of the Sevillian king Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad against Granada.

Abdallah of Granada, together with the rulers of Seville and Badajoz, pressed for the end of the parias and requested the aid of the Almoravids.

The North Africans entered the Iberian peninsula in 1086, defeating Alfonso VI in the Battle of Sagrajas near Badajoz.

Around 1124, King Alfonso I of Aragon attacked Andalusia, crossing Alcalá la Real, Luque, Baena, Écija, Cabra and Lucena.

On 10 March 1126, in Arnisol, Alfonso I of Aragon defeated Abu Bakr, son of the Emir Ali ibn Yusuf.

Fernando III increased Cabra's area to include the majority of Andalusia which was under the control of his step-brother, Rodrigo Alfonso de León.

Alfonso XI's edict read, and gave Cabra additional franchises and liberties, among which was the granting of Cordoba jurisdiction and exemptions from the martiniega tax.

Eleanor de Guzmán's son, Enrique II of Castile, was born in Cabra, and was baptised king in the church of San Juan Bautista del Cerro.

In 1380, the title Count of Cabra was inherited by his son, Enrique de Castilla y Sousa, (Duke of Medina Sidonia).

[10] Ferdinand and Isabella allowed those who had supported them in this battle to add an image (a barracks symbol) which depicted a chained King Boabdil el Chico to their shields.

In 1522, a brotherhood of the True Cross, a formal religious order whose tradition was the practice of self-flagellation, formed in Cabra.

Don Luis Aguilar y Eslava donated property to allow the foundation of the Royal College of the Immaculate Conception of Cabra.

Over time, this school of humanities, now called IES Aguilar y Eslava, has grown in importance as a place of learning in Andalusia.