Athamas

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In the first tercet of Canto XXX of the Inferno Dante opens the scene with a double simile drawn from myth: he recalls the furies of the Theban king Athamas and those of the Trojan queen Hecuba, then assimilates them to the rabid course of two damned spirits who vent their rage on their fellow sufferers. The notes to the canto specify that the Ovidian tradition, taken up by Dante, tells the story of Athamas, king of Orchomenos, driven mad by Juno: in his madness he killed his wife and his two little children, believing he saw in her a lioness with two lion cubs. The figure is thus evoked as a mythical exemplum of furious insanity, placed in comparison with Hecuba, and does not appear as a character placed in a circle or terrace of Hell.