He was depicted as an old man covered with moss, and was said to live underground. […] The first month of the old Roman year [our March] was sacred to Mars. […] He is generally represented as a fat, drunken old man, riding on an ass, and crowned with flowers. […] The consequence was that Tithonus grew old and decrepit, while Aurora remained as fresh as the morning. The gods, however, changed him into a grasshopper, which is supposed to moult as it gets old, and grows young again.