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Draco (lawgiver)

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Draco (the dragon) is a northern constellation. It is one of the 88 modern constellations, and was also one of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy.

It contains the star Thuban, which was once the northern pole star.

Draco was the first lawgiver of ancient Athens. His laws were particularly harsh, as the death penalty was the punishment for even minor offenses. Hence phraseology such as "draconian punishment" or "draconian laws".

Draco's code of laws was superseded by that of Solon in the early 6th century BC.

Draco was also a shareware programming language for CP/M and the Amiga, created by Chris Gray in the early 1980s, and discontinued sometime around 1990. Draco was a strongly typed language most notable for its ability to produce small, optimized executables, and for the compiler's ability to work in very limited memory spaces. Gray himself used Draco for the Amiga to create a port of Peter Langston's Empire game, called Amiga Empire.

Draco is a genus of small tropical agamas (about 20 cm including the tail), capable of gliding by using a gliding skin that is bound to their long ribs.

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