Marcia

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Dante mentions Marzia in Limbo, where he places her among the women of the republican era celebrated for their virtue, alongside Lucretia, Julia, and Cornelia (Inf. IV 128). The figure reappears at the beginning of Purgatory, when Virgil reminds Cato that it is Marzia herself who prays her husband, in her bearing and countenance, to take her back with him, echoing the prayer already addressed to him by Marzia in Lucan (Purg. I 79). The notes to the canto specify that Marzia's supplication, to be called "yours" once more in the life that remains to her, is drawn from the Pharsalia and was the very request that bent Cato's resolve. Cato had died in 46 B.C. and, like Marzia and Virgil, dwelt in Limbo before the descent of Christ to free the pre-Christian just.