Briareus

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Briareus is mentioned by Dante in Inferno XXXI, v. 98, within the confrontation with the giants chained in the pit of the traitors: the verse «che de lo smisurato Brïareo» indicates his extraordinary bulk, used as a term of comparison for Ephialtes. A note to the canto specifies that Dante imagines Briareus «as his classical sources described him» and that, for his ferocity, he is called «Briareus ferox» by Lucan (Phars. IV 596). The same giant appears again in Purgatory XII, v. 28, among the exemplary figurations of punished pride sculpted on the ground: «Vedëa Brïareo fitto dal telo», that is, pierced by the divine thunderbolt. The notes to Purgatory XII place this group of examples among the series of the proud punished, arranged in three groups of four plus one, where the scene of Lucifer, cast down from heaven like the lightning, is the first example. The classical tradition also recalled the hundred arms of Briareus, a trait that no longer appears in Dante's Inferno, since the giants are represented as men, albeit exceptional ones, and not as monsters.