The strongest image in the story of Julius Caesar is not in Rome, it is in Dante's hell. In the last corner of the Divine Comedy, Lucifer appears frozen up to his chest in a lake of ice, with three faces and three mouths. In each mouth, for all eternity, a traitor grinds. And the three names say everything about how the West judged Caesar's murder.
Judas, Brutus and Cassius: the three arch-traitors
Dante publishes the Divine Comedy around 1321, almost three hundred years before Shakespeare. In Canto XXXIV of Hell, at the absolute bottom of the ninth circle, he reserves Lucifer's three mouths for the worst traitors history has known. In the central mouth, head in, is Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ. In the two side mouths, hanging by their legs, are Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar.
Dante's logic is theological and political at the same time. Judas betrayed divine authority; Brutus and Cassius betrayed imperial authority, which the medieval poet saw as desired by God to order the world. Betrayal to heaven and betrayal to the empire are equivalent deep in the ice. For Dante, tyrannicide is not an act of civic courage: it is the ultimate sin.
Why ice and not fire
We usually imagine hell as flames, but the bottom of the Divine Comedy is a frozen lake. Betrayal is, for Dante, the coldest sin: the deliberate denial of the bond, trust and love that sustain every human relationship. Lucifer's own wings, beating without stopping, generate the icy wind that keeps him trapped. Evil, here, is the source of the prison itself.
The same gesture can be, at the same time, the worst sin in history and the noblest act of a Roman.
Shakespeare's Inverted Verdict
And here is the contrast that makes the story worth it. The same Brute that Dante chews at the bottom of Hell is the one that Shakespeare, in 1599, calls "the noblest Roman of them all". For the medieval poet, a traitor alongside Judas. For the Renaissance playwright, a tragic idealist who acted for the common good.
Neither of them are lying. Each looks at the same man through a different question: betrayal of sacred authority, or loyalty to an ideal larger than life itself? Dante judges by the order in which the crime breaks; Shakespeare, for the conscience of those who commit it.
The engraving by Gustave Doré
The scene gained its definitive image in 1861, when Gustave Doré, the greatest illustrator of the Divine Comedy, engraved Canto XXXIV: Lucifer on ice, the six wings open, the three mouths with the legs of Brutus and Cassius hanging out. As it is an engraving made for the book, each line is precise, almost surgical. It is the image that sums up the entire dilemma: depending on who judges and where he looks, the same man is the ultimate traitor or the noblest Roman. Do you stick with Dante, or with Shakespeare?
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See recommended readingsFrequently asked questions
Who are the three traitors chewed by Lucifer?
In Canto XXXIV of Hell, Lucifer has three mouths and in each one he crushes a traitor: in the central mouth, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ; on both sides, Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar.
Why are Brutus and Cassius at the bottom of Dante's Inferno?
For Dante, Brutus and Cassius betrayed Caesar, who he saw as the imperial authority desired by God. Alongside Judas, traitor to divine authority, they form the three arch-traitors of history. For the poet, tyrannicide is the worst sin, not courage.
What is the ninth circle of Hell?
It is the bottom of Dante's Inferno, an ice lake called Cocytus, reserved for traitors. The deepest part, the Giudecca, guards those who betrayed their benefactors. There is no fire there: betrayal is the coldest sin.
Go deeper: Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare: summary and analysis · Michelangelo and Dante's Divine Comedy · Macbeth's descent into hell and Dante
Source class (YouTube): Júlio César, de Shakespeare (NousCast)