O accursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts!
ATTRIBUTION:
Virgil [Publius Vergilius Maro] (70–19 B.C.), Roman poet. Aeneas, in Aeneid, bk. 3, l. 56-7 (19 B.C.), trans. by J.W. MacKail (1908).
Alluding to the story of Polydorus, who was killed for his gold by the treacherous King of Thrace during the Trojan War. In Dante’s Purgatory, cto. 22, Virgil’s lines are seemingly misconstrued by Statius.
