Pholus

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Pholus is one of the centaurs who, according to Dante's account, separates from the group together with Nessus and Chiron to act as a scouting party ahead of the others, recalling the military practice of sending an advance patrol. The character is introduced in Canto XII of the Inferno, when Virgil points him out to Dante as the one «che fu sì pien d'ira» ("who was so full of wrath"). The notes to the canto specify that Ovid and Statius tell of Pholus, recalling his participation in the wedding of Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, where, in a furious drunken rage, he attempted to abduct the bride and other women present. His quality as an irascible centaur is consistent with Dante's description, which characterizes him precisely as «pien d'ira» ("full of wrath"). In the passage the poet numbers him among the armed guardians of the Phlegethon, whose task is to keep the souls of the violent immersed in the boiling river in line according to the gravity of their sin.