The phoenix is an immortal bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. While it is part of Greek mythology, it has analogs in many cultures, such as Egyptian and Persian. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Some legends say it dies in a show of flames and combustion, while others that it simply dies and decomposes before being born again. In the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, a tool used by folklorists, the phoenix is classified as motif B32.
A depiction of a phoenix by Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1806)
According to the Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum, the "Numidian crane" represents the phoenix on the coinage of Antoninus Pius (r. 138–161)
According to Harris Rackham, Pliny the Elder's description of a phoenix in Natural History "tallies fairly closely with the golden pheasant of the Far East"
5th-century mosaic of a nimbate phoenix from Daphne, Antioch, in Roman Syria (Louvre)
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus signo Lactantius was an early Christian author who became an advisor to Roman emperor Constantine I, guiding his Christian religious policy in its initial stages of emergence, and a tutor to his son Crispus. His most important work is the Institutiones Divinae, an apologetic treatise intended to establish the reasonableness and truth of Christianity to pagan critics.
Fourth-century mural possibly depicting Lactantius
Beginning of Lactantius’ Divinae institutiones in a Renaissance manuscript written in Florence ca. 1420–1430 by Guglielmino Tanaglia
Page from the Opera, a manuscript from 1465, featuring various colours of pen-work
