Another fiend guards the fourth ring: Plutus, Roman God of Wealth. Before him, in a display of pointlessness that reminds me of Sisyphus, a mob of avaricious & prodigal shove heavy casques in circles, some clockwise & some counter-, reversing direction when they collide. Most of the greedy ones are clerics, who've rejected the asceticism of Christ. Virgil (maybe in response to Canto 6's report on Florence?) waxes allegorical on Fortune, who lifts some people & nations while dashing others. And then, at the River Styx, the wrathful wrestle among themselves, holding each other under the brackish water.
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