For the same reason, because he was the sacred animal of Apollo, the gryphon served this purpose. Thus in the medallion which decorates the stucco vault of a tomb on the Latin Way this winged monster carries on his strong back a veiled figure, covered with a long garment, who can be no other than the shade of the dead man wrapped in the shroud.[382] Throughout antiquity, however, the departed travelled most frequently in a chariot, which had in the Roman period become the chariot of the Sun-god.[383] The idea that the divine charioteer drives a team across the heavenly field existed in very early times in Babylon and Syria, as well as in Persia and in Greece. “The horses of fire and the chariot of fire” which carried up the prophet Elijah in a whirlwind[384] are very probably the horses and the chariot of the Sun. In the same way when Mithras’ mission on earth was fulfilled, he was conveyed in the chariot of Helios to the celestial spheres over the ocean, as we see on the reliefs found in his temples, and the happy lot which the hero had won for himself he granted also to his followers. The emperors in particular were commonly reputed to become companions of the Sun-god after death, as they had been under his protection in life, and to drive with him up to the summit of the eternal vaults. According to a papyrus recently found in Egypt,[385] Phoebus, when informing the people of the death of Trajan and the accession of Hadrian, stated in set terms, “I have just risen with Trajan on a car drawn by white horses, and I come to you, O people, to announce that a new prince, Hadrian, has made all things subject to him, by his virtue and by the fortune of his divine father.” The writers and the figured monuments show us other deified rulers winning to heaven in a similar way. At the very end of paganism an oracle, addressing Julian the Apostate, predicted that he would be “conducted to Olympus in a flaming chariot shaken by stormy whirlwinds, and would reach the paternal palace of ethereal light.”[386] It was not only princes who were privileged to be drawn by the swift team of the royal star. The chariot appears on tombs of very humble persons to suggest their lot in after life.[387]