Cocles and Scaevola

Livy (History of Rome), and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities) acknowledge Publius Horatius and Gaius Mucius for their exceptional heroics, during the Roman Etruscan war in the 5th century B.C.

Horatius was named Cocles, ‘one-eyed’, due to losing an eye in battle (Roman Antiquities 5.23), while Mucius, after plunging his arm into the fire in defiance of the Etruscan King Lars Porsenna (who Mucius had failed to assassinate), was afterwards named Scaevola ‘left-handed’ (History of Rome 2.12).

Cocles, who single-handedly fought the Etruscans upon the Sublician bridge, received many wounds, particularly a spear wound to the buttocks above the hip-joint, rendering him lame (Roman Antiquities 5.24).

Aeneas’ entrance into the Underworld

The famous sibyl Deiphobe inhabited a cave near the temple of Apollo, where she would utter prophecies while under god’s influence, and guard the entrance to the realm of death.

She warned Aeneas of the dreadful inescapable nature of the underworld, and advised him to first obtain the golden branch, sacred to the queen of death, to safeguard his return to the land of the living.

The luminous branch was concealed within the dark grove of the moon goddess Diana, and grew — like mistletoe — upon a certain tree that, according to Virgil (from whose epic the myth comes), was actually two trees. Only the worthy were able to sever the golden branch, and when severed, another would grow back in its place.

After Aeneas obtained the golden branch, he was led by Deiphobe down to the corridors of death, with the assurance that he would return.

Carna

There is an unusual myth retold by Ovid in Fasti concerning Carna, a nymph who was, like Artemis, a perpetual virgin. When any would-be suitors made advances to wards her, she would send them into a cave, only to vanish into the forest.

Janus alone managed to outwit her. Because of his ability to see from both directions, he spotted Carna hide behind a rock and raped her. In return he made her the goddess Cardea, giving her the power over door-hinges.