Rocinante a standalone word as well as a suffix. One meaning is "before" or "previously". Another is "in front of". As a suffix, "-ante" in Spanish is adverbial; "rocinante" refers to functioning as, or being, a "rocín". "Rocinante", then, follows Cervantes' pattern using ambiguous, multivalent words, which is common throughout the novel. Rocinante's name, then, signifies his change in status from the "old nag" of before to the "foremost" steed. As Cervantes describes Don Quixote's choice of name: "nombre a su parecer alto, sonoro y significativo de lo que había sido cuando fue rocín, antes de lo que ahora era, que
Marcus Corvinus (fictional character) Marcus Corvinus (fictional character) Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus is a fictional character in a series of historical detective novels by the Scottish author David Wishart. Corvinus (he goes by his "cognomen") is of a noble Roman family, living in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. He has turned his back on the "cursus honorum", preferring a quiet private life with his wife, Rufia Perilla, the scholarly, beautiful stepdaughter of the poet Ovid. Corvinus' main activity is solving mysteries and crimes. He met his wife when she contacted him to investigate the circumstances surrounding the exile and death of her stepfather,