Curio

Profile

Curio is mentioned by Dante in the ninth bolgia of Hell, among the sowers of schisms and discord, whose punishment consists in being mutilated of the limbs with which they sinned: like the other damned in this group, Curio too has his tongue cut off, the instrument of his guilt. The authorized note to Canto XXVIII explains that Dante recognizes his identity on his own, even though Pier della Vigna did not pronounce his name, and that the episode was among the most famous of Roman history, narrated by Lucan and the Fatti di Cesare. Dante's judgment underscores his "boldness" in speaking, connecting it to a piece of advice that induced Caesar to go to war against his country. The verse still defines him as "he who was so bold in speaking," and the adjective is explicitly opposed to the "dismayed" that the same commentary recalls with reference to v. 100.