A Classical Education

The first famous figure to emerge from this was Draco, who has given his name to very harsh measures in any context,

Jason and the Argonauts.

The Roman figure was a little more respectable: the Campus Martius, scene of great chariot races, was dedicated to Mars and the word martial (as in ‘martial law’) derives from his name.

Orpheus himself was killed shortly afterwards and thus reunited with his wife. His lyre was placed in the heavens as the constellation Lyra, and a nightingale is said to sing more sweetly over his grave than anywhere else. O

after a thousand years, souls down below were allowed to take on another body and go back up to earth as someone else; drinking the waters of the Lethe made them forget everything that had gone before

Virgil puts the entrance to the Underworld somewhere near Mount Vesuvius and says, in the (loosely translated) words of the Sibyl, ‘The descent to Avernus is not hard. It’s getting back that’s tricky.’

ancient prophetess called the Sibyl

sub rosa: literally ‘under the rose’, meaning ‘in secret’, from the Roman habit of hanging a rose over a council table to indicate that all present were sworn to secrecy.