Role Of Punishment In The Inferno

When someone commits several wrongdoings during their lives, it is very problematic to decide a specific punishment. In the novel The Inferno, Dante categorizes the sinner’s punishment by the severity of their crimes. As for Nero, the Roman Emperor, it is fairly evident that he would be placed in multiple circles of hell, due to the heinous crimes that he has committed while being in charge of Rome. Nero has been linked to several crimes including murders, homosexual acts, and even being directly linked as betraying Rome during the Great fire. Therefore, the Roman emperor is evidently placed in the seventh, eighth and ninth circles of hell, where he would ultimately subside into his rightful place in the inferno. Through Nero’s wide range

(Aligheri p.92) In The Inferno, Dante sees the wrongdoers immersed in boiling blood forever, patrolled by Centaurs. Here, because Nero murdered many romans and even his mother, his punishment is being repeatedly thrown off a cliff of doom into an abyss full of swords and knives. As the swords and knives are thrusted upon his flesh, fishing hooks grasp onto his eyelids were he is risen to the cliff again for it to start all over. Being in that Roman era, Nero was fully aware that the killing of his mother would come back to haunt him. As David Shotter once said, “This was a crime that will have caused revulsion in the Roman world, for the mother was that most sacred of icons within the Roman

“They have their heads above the ice, but cannot bend their necks.”(Aligheri pg. 261) Here, because Nero had committed treason against his country of Rome, his eternal punishment must be getting bound to a stake in a mock-like amphitheatre of Rome, in a blaze full of fire. Here, bounded by his extremities, (same way he murdered Christians) Nero’s soldiers would shoot arrows directly at his body, while lions gnaw at his dismembered carcass. He would forever live in the ultimate guilt of betraying his people, by forever being tormented in a setting where he profusely called home.
Nero has become one of the most infamous men that ever lived. Although Nero has impacted Rome positively, he has done several charges that would inevitably send him to hell. Taking part in several murders, which include the killing of his mother, partaking in homosexual acts, and even betraying his beloved country, he will endure eternal punishment in hell where he will suffer for the heinous crimes he has committed throughout his