Capaneus

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Capaneus is one of the seven kings who attacked Thebes, a figure drawn from Greek myth and taken up in the Thebaid of Statius, an author particularly favored by Dante. In the ancient myth he is the arrogant blasphemer of the gods, described as «superum contemptor», who challenges Jove straight from the walls of the city until he is struck down by the thunderbolt. Dante places him in the Inferno among the violent against God, in the seventh circle, third round, where the damned lie on the vast sandbank beneath a ceaseless rain of fire. In this scene Capaneus appears with a greatness both physical and moral, «dispettoso e torto», indifferent to the place in which he is set, and preserves in damnation the same pride he had in life. His declaration that he was never conquered, even if Jove were to anger against him all the smiths of Etna, is presented as an impotent fury, contradicted by the reality of his punishment. Dante proposed him as an «exemplum» of the rebellion of the human soul against God, placing him alongside figures from the chronicle of his own time such as Vanni Fucci.