Amphiaraus

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Amphiaraus is numbered among the seers of myth and ancient history whom Dante encounters in the Inferno. The note to Canto XX identifies him as one of the seven kings at the siege of Thebes, swallowed by a chasm that opened beneath his feet before the enemy army, and thus plunged fully armed down to Minos. The same note recalls that, having foreseen with his art of divination his own death at Thebes, he had tried to hide in order not to depart, but was betrayed by his wife Eriphyle and forced to go to war, offering an example of how knowledge of the future is of no advantage to men. The verse of Canto XX addresses him directly with the question «Anfïarao, why do you abandon the war?», posed by the Thebans in memory of his tragic end.