ithin Apulia1's fateful land, had mourned their blood, shed at the Trojans' hands, as well as those who fell in the long war where massive mounds of rings were battle spoils-- even as Livy write, who does not err-- and those who felt the thrust of painful blows when they fought hard against Robert Guiscard; with all the rest whose bones are still piled up at Ceperano--each Apulian was a traitor there--and, and too, at Tabliacozzo, where old Alardo conquered without weapons; and then, were one to show his limb pierced through and one his limb hacked off, that would not match the hideousness of the ninth abyss. (Lines 7-21) Dante gives historical examples of the destruction of war. This is in contrast to the heroic qualities of war which Dante's predecessors most often focus on. Dante is acting less as a poet and more as an historian. He takes the reader on a mini journey through these wars. His first stop are the Trojan wars (Line 9). These wars Dante refers to actually represent the final books of Virgil's Aeneid. Part of my experience in reading the Inferno, has been that there is a great connection between the Inferno and the Aeneid. Furthermore, Dante's guide through hell is the author of the Aeneid, Virgil. (While this topic is much too broad to address in these pages, it is important too take note of this relationship.) On the one hand it is important that Virgil is Dante's first example because it is necessary for him to leave the world of the poet (poets do not have enough talent) and move to the world of the historian, whose objectivity is supposedly more trusted in front of this horror. By this time the reader can see the irony of what Dante is doing in this opening passage. Dante the poet must give up to historical fact, but the reader knows that Dante the poet is playing this game to entice the reader into listening to him. Dante moves on to the wars at Carthage in h...
