Allusions in Canto IV of Dante’s Inferno

Adam was the first man, whose creation, fall and history are told in the opening chapters of Genesis.

Abel, in Hebrew Hebel (breath, vapor), the second son of Adam, murdered by his brother Cain. He was considered by God to be a man of faith

Noah was spared for his piety when God, angered at the corruption of the world, destroyed it with a flood lasting 40 days and 40 nights. Noah had been warned to build the ark, and to take on board with him his wife, his three sons and their wives and two mated specimens of every species of animal on earth.

Moses was a Hebrew prophet, lawgiver and founder of Israel, and the Jewish people. With Gods blessing he helped save the Jewish people from Egypt.

Abraham is a biblical patriarch, according to the Book of Genesis (see 11:27-25:10), progenitor of the Hebrews, who probably lived in the period between 2000 and 1500 BC.

David (king) (? -961 BC) was the king (1000-961 BC) of Judah and Israel, founder of the Judean dynasty.

Rachel (biblical figure), in the Old Testament, was the daughter of Laban, favorite wife of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin.

Homer has nothing recorded about him as an individual but is credited for writing the Iliad and the odyssey.

Horace (65-8 BC), was a Roman lyric poet and satirist, whose works are masterpieces of Latin literature of the Golden Age.

Ovid (43 BC-AD 17?), was a Roman poet, whose narrative skill and unmatched linguistic and metrical virtuosity have made him the most popular of the Roman poets.

Lucan, full name Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39-65), a Roman poet, was born in Córdoba, Spain, and educated in Rome.

Virgil (70-19 BC), Roman poet, author of the masterpiece the Aeneid, the most influential work of literature produced in ancient Rome.

Electra, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and Queen Clytemnestra.

Hector (mythology), in Greek mythology, the eldest son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, and husband of Andromache. In Homer's Iliad, Hector is the greatest of the Trojan warriors.

Aeneas in Roman mythology was the son of Anchises, a Trojan prince, and Venus, goddess of love.

Caesar, Gaius Julius (100-44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman, who laid the foundations of the Roman imperial system.

Camilla, Volscian woman and warrior, enemy of Aeneas and ally of Turnus in the Aeneid

Hippolyte, in Greek mythology, queen of the Amazons and daughter of Ares, god of war.

Tarquinius Superbus, Lucius, also called Tarquin the Proud (?-495 BC), and according to tradition the seventh and last king of Rome (reigned 534-510 BC), who was said to be the son of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of the sixth Roman king, Servius Tullius.

Brutus overthrew Tarquin

Tarquin in Roman tradition was an Etruscan family that ruled Rome.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scientist, who shares with Plato and Socrates the distinction of being the most famous of ancient philosophers.

Socrates (469-399BC) was a Greek philosopher, who profoundly affected Western philosophy through his influence on Plato.

Plato (circa 428-c. 347 BC) was a Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential thinkers in Western philosophy.

Democritus (460? -370? BC) was a Greek philosopher, who developed the atomic theory of the universe, which had been originated by his mentor, the philosopher Leucippus.

Diogenes of Sinope (412? -323 BC), Greek philosopher, generally considered the founder of Cynicism, an ancient school of philosophy

Thales (625? -546?BC) was a Greek philosopher, born in Miletus, Asia Minor. He was the founder of Greek philosophy, and was considered one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.

Anaxagoras (500? -428BC), Greek philosopher who introduced the notion of nous (Greek, "mind" or "reason") into the philosophy of origins; previous philosophers had studied the elements (earth, air, fire, water) as ultimate reality.

Zeno (426? -491) was an emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (474-491), born in Isauria, Asia Minor.

Heraclitus (540? -475? BC), Greek philosopher, who believed that fire is the primordial source of matter and that the entire world is in a constant state of change.

Empedocles (490? -430 BC) was a Greek philosopher, statesman, and poet, born in Agrigentum, Sicily. He was a disciple of the Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Parmenides.

Dioscorides, Pedanius (circa 40-c. 90), Greek physician, born in Anazarbus, in Cilicia.

Orpheus, in Greek mythology, was a poet and musician, the son of the muse Calliope and Apollo, god of music, or Oeagrus, king of Thrace.

Linus, in ancient Greek mythology, was a beautiful youth, who was perhaps a nature god.

Seneca (4?BC-AD65) was a Roman philosopher, a dramatist, and statesman, who was one of the most eminent writers of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

Euclid, (lived circa 300 BC), Greek mathematician, whose chief work, Elements, is a comprehensive treatise on mathematics in 13 volumes on such subjects as plane geometry, proportion in general, the properties of numbers, incommensurable magnitudes, and solid geometry.

Ptolemy (AD100? -170?), astronomer and mathematician, whose astronomical theories and explanations dominated scientific thought until the 16th century

Hippocrates (460? -377?BC) was the greatest physician of antiquity, regarded as the father of medicine.

Galen (129-199?) was the most outstanding physician of antiquity after Hippocrates.

Avicenna (Arabic, Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina) (980-1037) was an Iranian Islamic philosopher and physician, born near Bukhoro.

Averroës, in Arabic, Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd (1126-98), was a Spanish-Arab Islamic philosopher, jurist, and physician, born in Córdoba, Spain.

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