The Raven darkness. The use of the raven—the "devil bird"—also suggests this. This devil image is emphasized by the narrator's belief that the raven is "from the Night's Plutonian shore", or a messenger from the afterlife, referring to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld (also known as Dis Pater in Roman mythology). A direct allusion to Satan also appears: "Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore..." Poe chose a raven as the central symbol in the story because he wanted a "non-reasoning" creature capable of speech. He decided on a raven, which he considered "equally capable of speech"
Tomb of Orcus belonged to the Murina family, an offshoot of the Etruscan Spurinnae. The foundation is inscribed with the following enigmatic phrase: Orcus I was built between 470 and 450 BC (perhaps by a man named Leive; see below); a separate hypogeum, Orcus II, was built c. 325 BC. At some point in antiquity the wall between the two was removed, creating a large tomb with two dromes (entrances). The tomb was excavated in 1868 by an officer of the French Army. Upon its discovery, the excavator mistook the painting of a cyclops for the Roman god Orcus (see below), hence the