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Characters in the Divine Comedy

  • Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar entered the world on 12 or the 13th of July 100 BC into a family claiming ancient divine lineage. His clan traced its roots to Julus, son…
  • Thomas AquinasIn the year 1244, a young man named Thomas Aquinas sat bound in the stone tower of Monte San Giovanni Campano. He was nineteen years old and dressed in the…
  • Alexander the GreatIn the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which corresponds to the 20th of July 356 BC, a boy was born in Pella. This child would become Alexander III of…
  • PlatoPlato was born between 428 and 423 BC into an aristocratic Athenian family. His mother Perictione descended from Solon, the statesman credited with laying…
  • AristotleAristotle was born in 384 BC in the city of Stagira, located about 55 kilometers east of modern-day Thessaloniki. His father Nicomachus served as the…
  • NoahThe Hebrew Bible places Noah as the tenth and final antediluvian patriarch in Genesis chapter 5. His father Lamech lived to be 182 years old when Noah was…
  • Adam and EveThe Book of Genesis opens with two distinct narratives about the first humans. The first account in chapter one describes God creating humankind as a…
  • Dante AlighieriIn the year 1300, a man named Dante Alighieri claimed to have walked through Hell. He wrote that he was midway upon the journey of his life when this vision…
  • HoraceQuintus Horatius Flaccus arrived in the world on the 8th of December 65 BC within the town of Venusia. This settlement sat upon a trade route at the border…
  • AvicennaIn the village of Afshana near Bukhara, a child named Avicenna was born in 980. His father served as an administrator for the Samanid Empire.
  • VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro entered the world on the 15th of October in 70 BC during the consulship of Pompey and Crassus. Ancient biographers place his…
  • Saint PeterSimon bar Yonah was born in Bethsaida, a town on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee around 1 BC. He worked as a fisherman alongside his brother Andrew…
  • SatanThe Hebrew term śāţān first appears in the Book of Numbers, where an Angel of Yahweh stands on a road as a satan against Balaam.
  • AugustusOn the 23rd of September in 63 BC, a boy named Gaius Octavius drew his first breath inside a family estate on Rome's Palatine Hill.
  • AeneasAeneas is the Romanization of the hero's original Greek name Aineías. This name first appears in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite when Aphrodite gives him his…
  • Judas IscariotScholars generally accept that a man named Judas Iscariot existed in the first century AD. He was one of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus Christ.
  • HectorThe name Hector derives from the Greek verb meaning to hold or possess. This root suggests a man who holds fast during siege or one who possesses princely…
  • Frederick II, Holy Roman EmperorOn the 26th of December 1194, a child named Frederick was born in the market square of Jesi. The location itself was unusual for a royal birth and…
  • Marcus Junius BrutusMarcus Junius Brutus was born in late 85 BC into the illustrious plebeian gens Junia. His father, also named Marcus Junius Brutus, served as tribune of the…
  • Seneca the YoungerLucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger was born in Colonia Patricia Corduba, now known as Córdoba, within the Roman province of Baetica.
  • Paris (mythology)The name Paris appears in ancient texts as a figure of Luwian origin. A Hittite scribe recorded the name Parizitis, which scholars link to the Trojan prince.
  • HippocratesHistorians agree that Hippocrates was born around the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos. Soranus of Ephesus, a physician from the second century AD…
  • HomerScholars have debated the identity of Homer for centuries, yet no one knows exactly who this person was. The name Homer appears in ancient texts, but it…
  • Justinian IJustinian was born in Tauresium, Dardania, probably in 482. He came from a peasant family thought to have been of either Thraco-Roman or Illyro-Roman origin.
  • StatiusPublius Papinius Statius grew up in the Bay of Naples during the early years of the first century. His father, a native of Velia, moved to Rome and taught…
  • MuhammadMuhammad was born in the city of Mecca around 570 CE, into the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe. His father Abdullah died before Muhammad was born, and…
  • SocratesSocrates did not write a single line of text. All knowledge about him comes from the posthumous accounts of others, primarily his students Plato and…
  • Gaius Cassius LonginusGaius Cassius Longinus emerged from the gens Cassia, a family that had held prominence in Rome since the 6th century BC.
  • CerberusScholars have struggled for centuries to pin down the true origin of the name Cerberus. Linguist Daniel Ogden describes attempts to establish an…
  • TrajanMarcus Ulpius Traianus arrived in the world on the 18th of September AD53 within the Roman province of Hispania Baetica.
  • AverroesMuhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd entered the world on the 14th of April 1126 in the city of Córdoba. His family held a position of immense public…
  • Cato the YoungerMarcus Porcius Cato Uticensis was born in 95 BC, the son of a father who shared his name and Livia. His childhood ended abruptly when he and his sister…
  • AttilaScholars have debated the linguistic roots of Attila's name for centuries. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm proposed in the early 19th century that the name derives…
  • SinonA young Greek warrior named Sinon stood before the stone walls of Troy, his hands bound and his eyes fixed on the massive wooden horse looming behind him.
  • Pope Boniface VIIIBenedetto Caetani was born in Anagni, a town located some distance southeast of Rome. He entered religious life as a young man when he was sent to the…
  • Simonides of CeosSimonides of Ceos was born in Ioulis, the outermost island of the Cyclades. Ancient sources offer conflicting dates for his birth, ranging from 556 BC to 532…