Commentary Inf XX 85-93

Finally here is Manto. She is described as 'vergine cruda' (cruel virgin [in the sense that she does not like the company of men]), a phrase that may reflect Statius's description of her (Theb. IV.463) as 'innuba Manto' and/or Dante's description of that other diviner, Erichtho, who is 'Eritón cruda' at [Inf IX 23]. Here she practiced her divinatory arts with her servants and died. Those who had fled her fearsome presence returned after her death and built Virgil's city upon her bones, giving it her name, but not her divinatory capacity. What is at first shocking about this account is that it contradicts what we find in the Aeneid, where (Aen. X.198-203) we learn that the city was founded by Ocnus, the son of Manto. In other words, Dante has excised (indeed, has forced Virgil himself to excise) Ocnus. For if Manto had had progeny, as she did according to Virgil, then her mantic ability might have been passed on to others -- the claim that Virgil was evidently himself bent upon making in his poem (see, again, the study by Marie Desport [Desp.1952.1]), only to be forced to recant it here in Dante's. It is an extraordinary moment.