Circle 1: Canto 4

Question 1

Circle 1

Answer 1

Limbo

Question 2

‘that without hope…

Answer 2

‘that without hope we live in desire’

Question 3

‘so that I was…

Answer 3

‘so that i was sixth among such intellect’

Question 4

‘I saw the master…

Answer 4

‘I saw the master of those who know’

Question 5

Circle 1: Limbo

Answer 5

Limbo is set apart from the rest of Hell by its tranquil, pleasant atmosphere. It is the eternal abode of spirits from the pre-Christian world who led honorable lives, as well as other worthy non-Christian adults and the souls of the unbaptized.

Question 6

Classical poets encountered:

Answer 6

Homer (8th or 9th century BCE), Horace (65 - 8 BCE), Ovid (43 BCE - 17 CE), Lucan (39 - 65 CE), and Virgil (70 - 19 BCE)

Question 7

Virtuous pre- and non-pre Christians

Answer 7

Electra, Hector, Aeneas, Caesar, Camilla, Penthesilea, King Latinus, Lavinia, Brutus, Lucrece, Julia, Marcia, Cornelia, and sultan Saladin.

Question 8

‘And then - my brow raised higher still - I saw, among his family of philosophers, the master of all those who think and know:’

Answer 8

Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, who claims the world is chance, Diogenes and Tales, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus and Zeno.

Question 9

‘Then one i saw who gathered healing herbs -‘

Answer 9

I mean good Dioscorides. Orpheus i saw, and Seneca the moralist, Linus, Tully, Euclid (geometer) and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna and Galen, Averroes, too, who made ‘the great commentary.’

Question 10

Julias Caesar

Answer 10

Dante considered him to have become the first Roman emperor after he crossed the Rubicon, defeated Pompey, and consolidated power.

Question 11

Camilla

Answer 11

a virgin warrior-queen who fought valiantly against the Trojans on Italian soil.

Question 12

Penthesilea

Answer 12

an Amazon queen who fought on the side of Troy against the Greeks in the earlier Trojan war.

Question 13

King Latinus

Answer 13

Head of the native forces on the Italian peninsula that fought the Trojans. He gave his daughter Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas, the victorious Trojan leader.

Question 14

Lucius Junius Brutus

Answer 14

avenged the rape of Lucretia (who subsequently committed suicide), the virtuous wife of Collatinus, by leading a revolt against the perpetrator (son of the Tarquin king) and his family line, became the first consul in the new Roman Republic.

Question 15

Julia

Answer 15

Daughter of Julias Caesar and wife of Pompey.

Question 16

Marcia and Cornelia

Answer 16

Marcia (Second wife of Cato of Utica), and Cornelia (daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder and mother of the tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus) were Roman women praised for their strength of character.

Question 17

Saladin

Answer 17

distinguished muslim military leader and Egyptian sultan who fought successfully against crusading armies int the Holy Land (capturing Jerusalem in 1187) and was admired even by his enemies for his chivalry and magnanimity =.

Question 18

Democritus

Answer 18

(460 - 370 BCE) for whom the world was subject to chance, believed the physical universe consisted of an infinite space filled with indivisible eternal atoms functioning as a mechanical system based not on any intelligent design or purpose but on necessary laws.

Question 19

Dipgenes

Answer 19

(dies ca 320 BCE) was a leading member of the Cynics, a philosophical sect promoting virtuous living through self-control and the rejection of worldly comforts; when asked why he was carrying a lantern in broad daylight through the streets of Athens, he was reported to have said ‘I am seeking an honest man.’

Question 20

Anaxagoras

Answer 20

(ca. 500 - ca. 428 BCE) believed the universe was formed by nous (‘mind’ or ‘reason’) from the mixing of an infinite number of elements and the subsequent development of living beings, and was also known for his cosmological theories, which included an explanation for the origin of the Milky Way.

Question 21

Thales

Answer 21

(flourished sixth century BCE) a philosopher statesman, mathematician, and astronomer renowned for seeking causes in the natural world (rather than in anthropomorphic gods), considered water the original and sustaining element of the created universe.

Question 22

Empedocles

Answer 22

(ca. 490 - ca. 430 BCE) believed that the four elements (fire, air, earth, water) - the building blocks of all matter - are separated by the force of strife and brought together by the force of love (with the created universe at a point of equilibrium between these two forces).

Question 23

Heraclitus

Answer 23

(ca. 540 - ca. 480 BCE) emphasized the interrelations and balance of opposites (such as good and evil), considered fire the principal element uniting all things in the universe.

Question 24

Zeno

Answer 24

Zeno of Citium (ca. 335 - ca. 263 BCE) founded the Stoic school of philosophy; Dante praises him as one of the many philosophers devoted to wisdom but rejects his view that the ultimate goal of living is to pursue truth and justice with no display of emotions.

Question 25

Dioscordes

Answer 25

(40 - ca. 90 CE) was a Greek physician who gathered material for his major work, on the medicinal properties of plants, during his travels with armies of the Roman emperor Nero; this work was widely consulted in translation (De materia medica) in the Middle Ages and beyond.

Question 26

Orpheus

Answer 26

a mythical Greek poet and musician (from Thrace) whose song captivated the spirits and monsters of the underworld when he journeyed there to bring his wife Eurydice back to life (only to lose her again when he looked back), a story well known to Dante from moving accounts by Virgil and Ovid; distraught over this loss, Orpheus withdrew from civilization, charming trees and rocks as well as wild creatures with his music, until - savagely killed by a horde of frenzied women enraged by his rejection of their love - he was able to reunite with his beloved in the afterlife.

Question 27

Tully

Answer 27

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 - 43 BCE) was a distinguished Roman orator, statesman, and philosopher; Dante frequently cites Cicero’s treatises - particularly On Friendship, On Duty, On Moral Ends, and On Old Age.

Question 28

Linus

Answer 28

Virgil pairs Linus, a mythical Greek poet-musician, with Orpheus and praises him as a shepherd of ‘divine song’ while Augustine classifies both Linus and Orpheus as theological poets in City of God.

Question 29

Seneca

Answer 29

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (ca. 4 BCE - 65 CE) was a powerful Roman statesman and prolific writer, was a tutor and advisor to the emperor Nero and the author of scientific and philosophical treatises promoting the Stoic life, as well as tragedies and moral epistles; Dante praises Seneca for his love of wisdom, his demonstration of the dangers and inadequacies of wealth, and his status as an illustrious teacher.

Question 30

Euclid

Answer 30

(flourished ca. 300 BCE) a Greek mathematician whose ‘Elements’ served as the authoritative source for geometric knowledge in Dante’s day

Question 31

Ptolemy

Answer 31

Claudius Ptolemy (ca 100 - ca. 170 CE) an Egyptian of Greek descent, enjoyed an authoritative reputation in the filed of astronomy. His ‘Almagest’ presented a geocentric model of the universe (commonly known as the Ptolemaic system), which held sway until it was superseded by Copernicus’s heliocentric model in the sixth century.

Question 32

Hippocrates and Galen

Answer 32

Hippocrates (ca 460 - ca. 377 BCE) and Galen (129 - ca. 216 CE). Hippocrates was celebrated as the founder of Western medicine; the ‘Hippocratic oath,’ which sets out the physician’s obligations. Galen served the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was renowned for contributions, particularly in anatomy and physiology, that stood until the late Renaissance.

Question 33

Avicenna

Answer 33

a brilliant Muslim scholar best known in the West for his ‘Canon of Medicine’ and parts of his ‘Book of Healing,’ though he authored nearly two hundred treatises on a wide range of topics.

Question 34

Averroes

Answer 34

Author of the ‘great commentary’ on Aristotle, was a Spanish Arab who, in opposition to the fundamentalists of his day integrated islamic and ancient Greek traditions to promote the philosophical sturdy of religion; his argument for the immortality of the soul was deemed controversial (if not heretical) by Christian theologians, who believed his concept of an eternal active intellect implies immortality of the human species but not the individual.

Question 35

Aristotle

Answer 35

‘the Philosopher’