Assyrians

Profile

In Purgatorio XII, the souls of the second terrace pause before a marble relief illustrating examples of punished pride. At verse 59 the poet recalls the Assyrians after the death of Holofernes, an episode drawn from the Book of Judith, presented as a model of struck-down pride. The notes to the canto link the mention to the story of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who waged war on Hezekiah king of Judah and mocked the trust he placed in the God of Israel; in the night an angel annihilated the Assyrian army and Sennacherib, returned defeated to Nineveh, was killed by his sons while praying in the temple. Dante also mentions the sons who, after the parricide, fled. The Assyrians thus appear as a defeated people in an exemplum of pride and ruin, part of the gallery of stories that the proud contemplate to humble themselves.