Mercury’s Light: Souls Who Did Good for Fame

(Paradiso, Canto VI):Mercury, Justinian, Theodora and the Rome as the vessel for Christianity

The Battle of Marathon was a more crucial moment in history of England than the Battle of Hastings.

~ John Stuart Mill

Welcome to Dante Read-Along! ✨

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Welcome to Dante Book Club, where you and I descend into Hell and Purgatory to be able to ascend to Paradise. Our guide in Paradise is Beatrice, and in this sixth Canto of the Paradiso, we hear the extended speech of Justinian on the Roman Empire. You can find the main page of the read-along right here, reading schedule here, and the list of chat threads here.

In each post you can find a brief summary of the canto, philosophical exercises that you can draw from it, themes, character, and symbolism explanations.

All the wonderful illustrations are done specially for the Dante Read-Along by the one and only Luana Montebello.

This Week’s Circle ⭕️

The celestial sphere of Mercury - The speech of the Roman Emperor Justinian - The Codex Justinianus - The legacy of Roman rulers, from ancient beginnings with Aeneas through the Caesars - The fate of the Guelfs and Ghibellines - Mercury and the just rulers of the earth - Romieu de Villeneuve.

Canto VI Summary:

The extended speech that will make up the entirety of the sixth canto of Paradiso was spoken by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the celestial sphere of Mercury, the only canto narrated by a single voice in the entire Commedia. The sixth canto in each of the three books, the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and now the Paradiso, are used as political polemics.

A deeply political thinker, Dante wrote an entire treatise on the nature of government in his text de Monarchia—on the Monarchy—illustrating the relationship between temporal and earthly power.

In this speech, Dante gave the history of the Roman Empire from its beginnings, up until the time of Justinian, who ruled from the Eastern capital of Constantinople from 527-565 AD, and then forward in time until Dante's own day at the turn of the fourteenth century.

With this pretext of the greater layout of this challenging canto, let us examine this Dantean idealized Roman Empire.

Canto 6 celebrates what, in Dante’s view, was the God-given mission of the Roman Empire: to bring justice and peace to the whole of humanity throughout the world. The canto thus embodies some of the most central concerns of Dante’s political thinking…his arguments in De Monarchia are idiosyncratic, even, in the views of some, heretical. So, too, in the Paradiso there are some distinctly odd and sometimes uncomfortable emphasis, particularly concerning the relation of Church and State, where Dante’s concern with justice in the temporal world would seem to divert attention from the operations of divine love.¹

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The sixth canto in each cantica, as has often been appreciated, is devoted to an increasingly wide political focus: first to Florentine politics, then to Italian politics, and now to Dante’s theologically charged imperial politics…The three spokesmen for these three subjects are also of increasing distinction: Ciacco, Sordello, and Justinian.²

Justinian outlined his biography and officially named himself to Dante. He would trace the flight of the sacred standard of Rome, the Eagle, through the eras of Roman politics. He spoke of how the Emperor Constantine had moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome in the West to Constantinople in the East, reversing the eagles' flight.

There the capital remained for over two hundred years, near Troad, the site on which the ancient city of Troy was said to have been, and where the idea of Rome was but a seed within Aeneas before his flight. Justinian used the language of divinely ordained power in his description of his temporal power, thus sanctifying the actions of government toward a greater cause; this was Dante’s theologized history, that the lineage happened as it did to be in a perfect state which would bring about the conditions necessary for the birth and life of Jesus.

Beneath the shadow of the sacred wings,
it ruled the world, from hand to hand, until
that governing—changing—became my task.

Caesar I was and am Justinian,
who, through the will of Primal Love I feel,
removed the vain and needless from the laws.
vi.7-12

The Justinian was known for his grand undertaking of collecting all of the various laws that were in place throughout the Roman Empire and combing through them systematically, condensing and organizing the vast records into the great Codex Justinianus, creating a body of work that would sustain Roman Law for centuries to come.

He made a valiant effort to hold together the decaying fabric of the Empire, and by the help of his famous generals, Belisarius and Narses, overthrew the Vandals in Africa and the Ostrogoths in Italy. He is chiefly renowned for his great codification of Roman Law. In the establishment of Justinian’s government at Ravenna, Dante saw the divinely ordained restoration of Imperial sovereignty in Western Europe. In his own greatness Justinian symbolizes the greatness of Rome, and to him Dante accords the honour of unfolding the scroll of Rome’s history from its foundation to the time of Charlemagne.³

San Vitale (Ravenna) - Mosaic of Iustinianus I

The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust; but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was digested in the immortal works of the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes; the public reason of the Romans has been silently or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe; and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of independent nations.⁴

Dante and Beatrice in Mercury by Botticelli

Dante fit together an ordering of events that supported his narrative of the divine sanction put upon the Roman Empire. Justinian recounted his conversion through the teaching of Pope Agapetus, who brought him from believing solely in the divine nature of Christ—termed the monophysite heresy—to believing in the dual nature, which also included his humanity. Dante structured his timeline of events in a way that supported the notion that the laws of the Roman Empire were divinely inspired and codified after this conversion, while historically, they were codified before and shortly after Agapetus became pope: “Our poet simply must have a Christian compiler of the laws that were to govern Christian Europe; and so he manages to find (‘create’ might be the better word) him.”⁵

Before I grew attentive to this labor,
I held that but one nature—and no more—
was Christ’s—and in that faith, I was content;

but then the blessed Agapetus, he
who was chief shepherd, with his words turned me
to that faith which has truth and purity.
vi.13-18

Once Justinian understood the dual nature of Christ as held by the church,—in this rendition of events—he began work overseeing the compilation of Roman law and handed over military affairs to his nephew, Belisarius.

While later in life, Belisarius was embroiled in a scandal over a conspiracy toward Justinian, and by some accounts was disgraced and punished by blinding, others concur that he was proven innocent of all charges and returned to favor.

[Belisarius’] achievements were the overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa, the reconquest of Italy from the Goths, and the foundation of the exarchate of Ravenna upon the ruins of the Gothic dominions.⁶

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For here is a realm that Dante can love, its supreme leader completely dedicated to the practical intellectual concerns of governance, the law, while his ‘right hand,’ loyal and true, takes care of problems with the Vandals in Africa and the Goths in Italy. In any case, this pair of heroic figures offers Dante an emblem of the successful collaboration between representatives of the active and of the contemplative life.⁷

Thus did Justinian answer Dante’s first question: who are you? He then turned his speech to a digression on the history of the rulers of the Roman Empire, which he would trace from its very beginnings, but framing it with references contemporary with Dante, the chasm between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines in particular.

My answer to the question you first asked
ends here, and yet the nature of this answer
leads me to add a sequel, so that you

May see with how much reason they attack
the sacred standard—those who seem to act
on its behalf and those opposing it.
vi.28-33

That sacred standard—the eagle, representing the Roman Empire—is, in Dante’s time, being opposed by some—the Guelfs—and is being taken as a symbol on its behalf (a misuse of its purpose and ideals) by others—the Ghibellines.

In his younger days, Dante, a Guelph, had held that the Romans had created their Empire by violence alone. During his exile, he came to believe that it was necessary for the world to have an Emperor as the supreme temporal authority and minister of universal justice; and he developed an idealizing and theological interpretation of Roman history…Justinian’s history of the Roman eagle both confirms Dante’s doctrine that the Emperor’s authority comes directly from God (and not from the Pope) and is an attack on the two warring factions of his day for acting against God’s will.⁸

Justinian considered the valorous nature of the history of Roman rulers, beginning with Pallas, who died by Turnus’ hand in battle with the Trojans, as though the first sacrifice to the Roman cause; Pallas was the son of king Evander of the Latins, sister of Lavinia who wedded Aeneas after his victory over Turnus, as told in the final books of the Aeneid, at the very beginnings of the foundation of Rome.

13th-century manuscript of the Codex adopted by Justinian

Turnus, unhurriedly testing his razor-sharp javelin’s balance,
Launches its iron-clad tip against Pallas, and cries out a message:
‘Look, and see whether the weapon I wield cannot penetrate deeper.’
While he was speaking, his whiplashing javelin’s point had already
Drilled through the generous plating of bronze and of iron, through oxhide,
Layer upon layer, that covered the shield, struck straight through the centre,
Pierced the resistant breastplate and dug through the muscular ribcage.
Pallas gained nothing by pulling the burning shaft from his wounded
Body. His blood and his life followed fast through the channel created.
Doubling over his wound, he collapsed, as his arms clanged around him,
Biting the enemy dust with jaws gushing blood in his death-throes.
Virgil, Aeneid x.479-489

The second example was of Ascanius, son of Aeneas, who founded the town of Alba Longa, the first capital of the new Latin kingdom after Aeneas’ victory, which lasted for three hundred years until their three champions, the Curiatii, fell under the hand of the three Roman champions, the Horatii, at which time the lineage shifted to Rome.

Then he’ll transfer the centre of power from Lavinium
And, with a huge show of force, make Alba Longa his fortress.
Over the next three centuries, then, this will be the command post
Ruled by the people of Hector, until such time as a royal
Priestess named Ilia, pregnant by Mars, gives birth to her twin boys.
Romulus, happy to wear the tan hide from the she-wolf who nursed him,
Then will inherit the line. And, in Mars’ honour, he’ll found a city,
Giving its people a name he derives from his own name: the Romans.
Virgil, Aeneid i.267-277

Justinian then pointed out the more disgraceful elements surrounding the growth of the city and the actions of its rulers; he mentioned the first seven rulers of Rome as a group, which began with Romulus and ended with the Tarquins, but flanking the first and last of these was the violence of rape and kidnapping.

It is probably significant that the first period of Roman history is marked, at either end, by rape, that of the Sabine women in Romulus’s rule and that of Lucrece by her husband’s cousin, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, seventh king of Rome. That second act of sexual violence eventually had the result of ending Tarquin rule.⁹

The next rulers that he mentioned ended the rule of kings and began the Republic era; Dante quickly made mention of a number of rulers and historical episodes; Brennus was a Gaul who attempted to siege Rome, but was defeated, and Pyrrhus, King of Epirus was similarly defeated, paving the way for the victories of Torquatus and Quintius, as well as the lineages of the successful Decii and Fabii family line. This chronology through the defeat of the Carthaginians and Hannibal brought us from the past ages of Rome to 218 BC until Dante jumped in time to Pompey, in 81 BC with the decisive victories of Scipio the younger and the first triumph of Pompey, but his downfall in the civil war with Caesar was another turning point: the era of the Caesar’s began, which was covered in the next section of Justinian’s speech.

The long period of the Republic, up to the beginning of Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul, is passed over rapidly by Dante, without notice of constitutional and social struggles; but the main aspects of the outward history are dealt with by rapid and effective strokes. During this period Rome established her supremacy over the other Latin tribes, repelled invasions of Italy, both by civilised and barbarous peoples, and extended her dominion by counter invasions.¹⁰

Then, near the time when Heaven wished to bring
all of the world to Heaven’s way—serene—
Caesar, as Rome had willed, took up that standard.
vi.55-57

Dante indicated a peace that came to the Republic with the entrance of Julius Caesar, a peace that was necessary for the arrival of the birth of Christ—even with the events around the Civil War and Caesar’s assassination.

Caesar’s triumphs in Gaul were marked by the rivers encountered, six in total, from the Var to the Rhone; the accomplishments listed in that campaign Dante took from the Pharsalia, and Lucan’s rendering of the civil war.

First Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon river, the consequence of which began the civil war; he traveled to and was victorious in Spain, after which he fought with Pompey in Durazzo, which was in Illyria on the Adriatic coast east of Italy, and finally defeated him in Pharsalus. Upon his defeat, Pompey travelled to Egypt where he was betrayed and murdered. The Eagle, representing the Roman Empire, touched upon all of these places in this reminiscence.

Next the Eagle touched in Troy, the origin of Aeneas and the place where Hector lay slain, saw the rise in power of Cleopatra in Egypt, then turned to the defeat of Juba of Numidia, and finally to the victory over Pompey's heirs to the west in Spain.

Because of what that standard did, with him
who bore it next, Brutus and Cassius howl
in Hell, and grief seized Modena, Perugia.
vi73-75

Bridges Rome’s pagan past to its Christian mission in Dante’s vision (by Raphael)

Gliding over the death of Julius Caesar, he turned next to Octavian, or Augustus Caesar, who defeated Marc Antony at Modena, and then Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius. After the battle of Actium in 31 BC, both Cleopatra and Antony committed suicide, Cleopatra famously by using a venomous asp. Then, peace:

And with that very bearer, it then reached
the Red Sea shore: with him, that emblem brought
the world such peace that Janus’ shrine was shut.
vi.79-81

The temple of Janus—of which the doors were closed only in times of peace, for in time of war the god was supposed to be absent with the armies—had been locked up but twice during the whole life of the Roman Republic. But under Augustus they were closed three times; and in one of those periods when ‘Heaven willed to bring the world to its own serene mood’ it has been supposed that Christ was born; and then, ‘no war, or battle’s sound was heard the world around’.¹¹

The next Caesar that Justinian pointed to was Tiberius, the third Caesar, of whom Dante claimed that, since Christ was crucified under his rule, that the Eagle had reached its greatest height:

Dante regarded the Crucifixion as an act made legally valid under Imperial jurisdiction because carried out with the assent of the Imperial legate, Pontius Pilate. Since, in the Crucifixion, the sins of all mankind were redeemed, the Imperial authority which sanctioned it was legitimate and valid over all mankind. If it were not, then the Crucifixion did not redeem all men. This is the crux of the argument in the second book of Dante’s treatise, Monarchia.¹²

Justinian pointed next to the reign of Titus, under whom Jerusalem was sacked, and with a leap of time forward seven hundred years-from 70 to 773-moved to the victory of Charlemagne over the Lombards, which ended the threat to the Empire and to Christianity, indicating the power granted to the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne that began in ancient Rome. Again he pointed to the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, rebuking them both:

The Guelphs were supporters of the Church, as opposed to the Ghibellines, who were supporters of the Empire…The standard of the Guelph party, in Florence, bore the arms of Clement IV, over which they later placed a small scarlet lily, as is recorded by Villani.¹³

Here, Justinian ended his digression over the fate of the current parties.

Dante had asked two questions of Justinian upon first meeting him in the last canto, and now, after answering the first—who he was—and ending his long speech about the Roman Empire, Justinian went on to answer Dante’s second question: why does he reside in the sphere of Mercury?¹⁴

This little planet is adorned with spirits
whose acts were righteous, but who acted for
the honor and the fame that they would gain:

and when desires tend toward earthly ends,
then, so deflected, rays of the true love
mount toward the life above with lesser force.
vi.112-117

These souls delighted in justice, and the myriad inhabitants blend their voices into supreme harmony, far from wickedness and influences of earth. He pointed out one figure in particular residing in Mercury, Romieu de Villeneuve:

[Villeneuve] was a pilgrim who entered the service of Raymond Berenger, count of Provence, and became his chief minister, arranging royal marriages for all his daughters. He exemplifies the faithful steward who returned more than he received in his service of his lord but who-like Dante himself-was unjustly driven away into a life of exile and poverty.¹⁵

And thus did Justinian’s speech end.

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💭 Philosophical Exercises

You should take no action unwillingly, selfishly, uncritically, or with conflicting motives.

~ Marcus Aurelius

Dante’s tomb | photo by The Photographer

In 2011, I was lucky enough to visit Ravenna—the final refuge of Dante’s exile. Even seven centuries after his death, if you wish to visit the tomb of the greatest poet Florence ever gave to the world, you must still go to Ravenna, not to Florence herself.

It is no excuse to say that I was only twenty-one and did not yet grasp the full greatness of what my eyes beheld that day, when I stood before Dante’s tomb. Whatever beauty my mind contains is thanks to two people: Dante and, even more importantly, my father.

Without my father, I would not have known Dante, nor would I have ever visited Ravenna.

Little did either of us know, however, that not far from Dante’s tomb stood the Basilica of San Vitale.

The mosaics at San Vitale, Jesus Christ and the Apostles | photo Petar Milošević

I.

One often wonders how different their life would have been if they discovered a piece of wisdom sooner than they actually did. In fact this theme is weaved throughout canto VI that we explore in this post. A single change, a single small decision can alter the entire course of human life, and even of a civilisation. But, lets not jump ahead of ourselves.

I do not know how my life would have changed if we actually visited San Vitale on that day. My life was certainly altered after visiting Dante’s tomb, so it is fair to say that a minor change with major results might have happened if we also visited San Vitale.

I have to guide my reader through this not relying on memory, but relying on images from books that I own. What I see is that on opposite walls of the apse in San Vitale are two iconic panels: one depicting Emperor Justinian and his retinue, the other showing Empress Theodora with hers.

Placing these larger-than-life portraits of earthly rulers in the most sacred part of the church was a bold statement. It visually aligned the Byzantine Emperor with God, asserting that his power was divinely ordained.

For a political exile like Dante, this fusion of imperial and divine authority must have been particularly striking.

Dante definitely visited San Vitale and had witnessed the propagandistic power (to use a modern word) of the mosaics on its walls.

Theodora (left) and Justinian (right)

The mosaics of Justinian and Theodora are especially intriguing: both the Emperor and his wife are depicted at equal scale, which is highly unusual, implying that Theodora held a degree of influence equal to that of Justinian.

Justinian and Theodora. Dante and Beatrice. Civil and Divine law. Dante portrays Justinian as the one who was first set straight in faith by Pope Agapetus, and through this he was moved by God’s Spirit and thus prunes and solidifies the Roman Empire’s messy laws.

It would seem strange to my reader at first, but I do think what Dante describes here has a profound influence on our lives. Allow me to explain.

II.

I will explore briefly Pope Agapetus in the themes, but two profound influences that this has on our lives are these: first, the continuity of events of our lives; and, second, how we could order our lives.

“The cradle rocks above an abyss” wrote Nabokov in his Mnemosyne “and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

For the modern human being, the time before birth and the time after death feel like vast abysses. But it was not always so.

The time before our birth once felt rooted, not empty. We knew our genealogy—our parents, our land, our work, our faith. There was continuity. We were not “thrown into the world,” as the existentialists would later claim. Rather, we knew our place in it.

The second abyss, the time after our death, was also shaped by understanding. For the faithful, it was the promise of Paradise. For those less certain, there remained a sense of continuation: children would inherit our craft, our traditions, our land. Life would go on.

Modern existence, more often than not, is deprived of these two anchoring pillars. The past feels severed; the future feels uncertain.

In this canto, Dante offers us a vision that restores such continuity. He recounts the entire history of Rome, not merely as a secular chronicle, but as a sacred unfolding. Rome, for Dante, had a providential purpose. It was born to “give birth” or, better yet, to serve as the vessel through which Christianity would be carried to the world.

In Dante’s view, pagan Rome was not accidental. It was essential. It prepared the world for the coming of Christ. The Roman Empire became the stage upon which the drama of salvation could unfold.

I would love to explore further how this idea completes the arc begun in Virgil’s Aeneid, where Aeneas, fleeing the ashes of Troy, plants the seed of Rome and how Dante’s Commedia becomes its spiritual continuation. This, my reader, you will find in the Themes section.

Christianity was not born in a vacuum. Just as truth needs a messenger, Christianity needed a medium. Rome was that messenger.

III.

The second important lesson that Dante offers after restoring our connection to the two abysses is the correction and pruning of laws, a task undertaken by Justinian.

What Justinian accomplished was the removal of superfluous laws and the organisation of chaotic ones. He brought clarity where there had been confusion, and order where there had been disorder. In Dante’s vision, this legal harmony laid the groundwork for the Roman Empire to become a fertile vessel through which Christianity could flourish.

My reader may ask: how is this applicable to our lives? We are not emperors.

And yet, fixing messy rules is the first step to organising one’s own life after gaining clarity. It is the removal of what is superfluous, and the elevation of what is essential. It is the deliberate shaping of your inner law, so that harmony can take root and a good life can flourish.

To be able to work, you need a clear and organised desk. When your desk gets messy, you don’t go out and buy a bigger one, you clear it.

In the previous canto, Dante learnt how to see essence of things, beyond and then make correct vows. Once we learn these two important elements, we will know which “laws” to strip away from ourselves, which habits or impulses to get rid of.

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This Week’s Sinners and Virtuous 🎭

(Themes, Quotes, Terms and Characters)

A 1783 edition of The Gallic Wars

I. Agapethos

Hollander notes that Dante compresses history to make Agapetus the hinge that turns imperial power toward service of divine justice rather than faction. If we read this spiritually, Agapetus embodies an ethos of agape - a love that purifies intention before it reforms institutions.

II. The Aeneid → The Divine Comedy

There seems to be a deep sense of a providential continuity in this canto. Virgil described how the great city of Rome was founded by the Trojan Aeneas. This led to a creation of ‘a vessel’ that will one day serve as a foundation for Christianity according to Dante. But there is more, Virgil and his Aeneid give root and birth to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Without the Aeneid there would be no Divine Comedy. Dante was inspired by Virgil’s supreme wisdom, but also Aeneas’s descent into the underworld.

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Quotes 🖋️

(The ones I keep in my journal as reminders of eternal wisdom):

Before I grew attentive to this labor,
I held that but one nature—and no more—
was Christ’s—and in that faith, I was content;

~ lines 13-15, Paradiso, Canto V

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1. Robin Kirkpatrick, Paradiso 378

2. Robert Hollander, Paradiso 156

3. Dorothy L. Sayers, Paradise 101

4. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 441

5. Hollander 158

6. Charles S. Singleton, Commentary on the Paradiso 116

7. Hollander 159

8. Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy 719

9. Hollander 162

10. Singleton 118

11. Singleton 123

12. Sayers 105

13. Singleton 125

14. Paradiso v.127-129

15. Mandelbaum 723