Augustus

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Augustus is mentioned in the Commedia in three distinct passages. In Inferno I, v. 71, Virgil indicates himself as the one who "vissi a Roma sotto 'l buono Augusto" ("lived at Rome under the good Augustus"), chronologically placing his human life under the Augustan principate. In Inferno XIII, v. 68, his name appears in the description of the suicides transformed into trees, within the seventh bolgia of the eighth circle, where the poet speaks of those who "li 'nfiammati infiammar sì Augusto." In Purgatorio XXIX, v. 116, Augustus is numbered among the great Roman triumphators, alongside Scipio Africanus, whose triumph the chariot of the Church equals and surpasses, according to the Dantesque expression that compares the splendor of the triumphal procession. The critical notes confirm the historical value of the name, identifying him as the Roman emperor under whom Virgil was born and lived, and signal his value as a chronological terminus of the life of the Mantuan poet.