Amiclates

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Amiclates is presented as a Boeotian fisherman whose hut welcomed Julius Caesar during the war against Pompey, when the general asked to be ferried to Italy. The scene, taken from Lucan (Pharsalia V 515-31), is recalled by Cacciaguida in the Heaven of Mars to show that poverty, loved by Christ and then abandoned, was found again in safety beside Amiclates, whose door was a simple overturned boat. The name appears in the single verse of Paradiso XI, 68, where Cacciaguida associates it with an example of a poor and secure life, in parallel with the choice of Saint Francis.