"Sub Rosa."

Sub Rosa means, literally, "under the rose." The phrase dates from 477 B. C., when Pausanias, the commander of the confederate fleet of the Spartans and Athenians, was engaged in an intrigue with Xerxes to betray Greece to the Persian rule, and to obtain the hand of the monarch's daughter in marriage. Their negotiations were carried on in a building attached to the temple of Minerva, called the Brazen House, the roof of which was covered with roses. The schemes (planned with the utmost secrecy) were matured literally "under the rose." Pausanias, however, was betrayed by one of his emissaries, who, by a preconcerted plan, enabled the ephori (the five overseers and counsellors of state) to hear Pausanias criminate himself. To escape arrest, Pausanias then fled to the temple of Minerva, and the sanctity of the place forbidding intrusion for violence of any kind, the people walled up the edifice with stones and left the fugitive to die of starvation; his own mother laid the first stone. It afterwards became a custom among the Athenians to wear a rose when they had a confidential communication to make, the flower implying strict confidence. There is also a mythological significance to "sub rosa." Cupid gave Harpocrates (the god of silence) a rose, to bribe him not to betray the amours of Venus. Hence, that flower became the emblem of silence. It was for this reason sculptured on the ceilings of banquet halls, to remind the guests that what was spoken sub vino was not to be uttered sub divo. These phrases have been translated: "What we say when drinking high, utter not beneath the sky." It was customary among the ancient Germans, on occasions of festivity, to suspend a rose from the ceiling, above the table, as a token that whatever was said during the feast by those present should afterwards be forgotten, or at least kept secret among themselves. In 1526 a rose was placed over confessionals in Roman Catholic churches.