Sardanapalus

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Sardanapalus is presented as an Assyrian king of the 7th century B.C., whose figure had become among the ancients almost the symbol of moral depravity. The ancient sources described him as busying himself with spinning purple in women's clothing among slave girls and prostitutes, and recalled him as immersed in banquets and sensual pleasures. Dante mentions him in the Paradiso to indicate that not even such effeminate and soft lust had yet contaminated the sober Florence of his time, when Cacciaguida was weaving its praise. The citation, uttered in the Heaven of Mars during the dialogue with the ancestor, thus serves to establish a comparison with the corruption of the later, wealthier ages, opposing it to the moderation of ancient Florence. No other biographical episode or active intervention by Sardanapalus in the Poem emerges from the verses provided or from the authorized notes.