Names: Fenix, Fire Bird, Royal Bird

Habitat: Mediterranean

Size: 8 foot wingspan

Diet: insectivorous

Reproduction: self-replicating

Society: solitary

Lifespan: 1,400 years

A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men,

but a stag's life is four time a crow's,

and a raven's life makes three stags old,

while the phoenix outlives nine ravens,

but we, the rich-haired Nymphs

daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder,

outlive ten phoenixes.

-Precepts of Chiron, Hesiod

aquilae narratur magnitudine, auri fulgore circa colla, cetero purpureus, caeruleam roseis caudam pinnis distinguentibus, cristis fauces, caputque plumeo apice honestante.

The story is that it is as large as an eagle, and has a gleam of gold round its neck and all the rest of it is purple, but the tail blue picked out with rosecoloured feathers and the throat picked out with tufts, and a feathered crest adorning its head.

-Pliny the Elder,"Naturalis historia," translated by Harris Rackham, 1940

arcanum radiant oculi iubar. igneus ora

cingit honos. rutilo cognatum vertice sidus

attollit cristatus apex tenebrasque serena

luce secat. Tyrio pinguntur…