Hippolytus

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Hippolytus, son of Theseus king of Athens, is recalled by Cacciaguida in Paradiso XVII as a mythical example of an innocent man forced into exile: falsely accused by his stepmother Phaedra, whom he had rejected, of having attempted to seduce her, he was banished from the city (cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses XV 493 ff.). The authorized notes to the canto explain that the comparison serves to illuminate the fate of Dante, who, equally innocent, will be driven to leave Florence by the cruelty of she who ought to have been a mother to him. Dante's mention is therefore limited to the remembrance of Hippolytus's Athenian exile, used as a prophetic simile; the poet does not encounter his figure in the otherworldly journey, nor does he place him in any specific circle, cornice, or heaven.