Empire. It is not something befalling him from beyond, but something he
will make. Dante’s journey, in turn, radicalizes Aeneus’ education by inwardiz-
ing it as “a descent in humility, a death of the self,” as John Freccero has
called it (1986:4). Dante’s descent makes him into a new person, readying
him for the labor of Purgatory. At the beginning of the poem, he is damned,
unable to climb toward the light. Were Beatrice not to intervene, he would
be consigned eternally to Hell. Because of her intervention, however, he must
only go temporarilyto Hell. Unlike Odysseus or Aeneus, Dante has a salvific
conversion experience; his katabasischanges his fate by changing his soul.
This inward transformation is not, for all that, a repudiation of the worldly
effects of the Aeneid. Before entering Hell, Dante compares himself to Aeneus
and Paul, the acknowledged precedents for his descent, and questions his
presence in such illustrious company. He refers to “the high effect that was
to come” from Aeneus; “Through this journey that you [Virgil] claim for him,
he understood things that were the cause of his victory and of the papal man-
tle” (2.17–18, 25–27). He then says of Paul: “Later the chosen vessel went
there, to bring back strengthening for that faith which is the principle of the
way of salvation” (2.28–30). Aeneus’ katabasisprepared him to give birth to
Rome. Paul’s katabasisled to the transformation of Aeneus’ Roman Empire
into a Holy one. The katabasisis a sign of election, a propaedutic for playing
a world-historical role. Dante sees this and protests: “I am not Aeneus, I am
not Paul” (2.32).
Despite this display of modesty, Dante, through his descent, is actually
establishing himself as a newAeneus, a newPaul. The protest of the pilgrim
might be honest, but for the fact that the pilgrim is also the poet, who already
knows the pilgrim is strong enough to succeed, since he is writing the poem
from the perspective of the completed journey. We must conclude that Dante’s
self-effacement is insincere; the poet is writing himself into history as the
third of a glorious imperial triumvirate. Aeneus founded an empire on earth.
Paul founded an empire of the heart. Dante’s trip, he himself implies, inau-
gurates a third empire. When one reflects, as well, that Dante is the first great
poet to write in the vernacular, that he (in De Monarchia) calls for a global
political order on the basis of humanity’s oneness, and that he reveals to all
readers “the secret things” of Christianity (Inf. 3.21), one can justifiably con-
clude that the empire Dante claims to inaugurate is modernity itself.
Thus, Dante’s katabasisgives rise not only to a metamorphosis of his own
soul, but also to an immense new power. Aeneus’ generative powers were
36 • William Clare Roberts