European dragon resembling a windsock. Several personifications of evil or allusions to dragon in the Old Testament are translated as forms of "draco" in Jerome's Vulgate. e.g Deuteronomy (32:33), Job (30:29), Psalms (73:13, 90:13 & 43:20), Isaiah (13:21, 27:1, 34:13 & 43:20), Jeremiah (9:11), Micah (1:8) and Malachi (1:3). Dragons in Greek mythology often guard treasure such as Ladon, a hundred headed dragon which guarded the tree of Herdias until he was slain by Heracles. Likewise Python guarded the oracle of Delphi until he was likewise slain by Apollo out of revenge for Python tormenting his mother. The Lerneaen Hydra, a multiple
Greek mythology libretti for many of Handel's and Mozart's operas. By the end of the 18th century, Romanticism initiated a surge of enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In Britain, new translations of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired contemporary poets (such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Keats, Byron and Shelley) and painters (such as Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema). Christoph Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many others set Greek mythological themes to music. American authors of the 19th century, such as Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne, held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of