Pallas

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In the sixth canto of Paradiso, among the luminous souls that compose the Eagle, Cacciaguida begins his discourse on the civic virtues of Rome by recalling the sacrifice of Pallas, son of King Evander, who fell in combat alongside Aeneas in the war against the Latins. His death is presented as the first act in that chain of noble virtues that would prepare the future fortune of the Italic region and that would culminate in the Eagle of Rome. Dante explicitly connects this event to the Aeneid, where the Virgilian poem recounts the death of the young hero and the mourning that accompanies his passing. Pallas thus assumes the role of the originator of those generous deaths of which the first canto of Inferno already recalls the other young men who fell for the future greatness of Italy.