Polymnestor

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In the verse of Purgatorio XX Polymnestor is cited as an extreme example of avarice, placed alongside Marcus Licinius Crassus in the circle of the avaricious. The critical note specifies that Polymnestor, king of Thrace and son-in-law of Priam, treacherously killed, in order to seize his riches, the young Polydorus, his brother-in-law and last son of the Trojan king. The father had sent Polydorus to him with a large sum of money to save him from the Trojan War. The episode to which the verse alludes dates back to the Trojan myth narrated by Virgil in the Aeneid and by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.