Phlegyas: Circle 5, Inferno 8   The infernal employee who transports Dante and Virgil in his boat across the Styx (Inf. 8.13-24)--circle of the wrathful and sullen--is appropriately known for his own impetuous behavior. In a fit of rage, Phlegyas set fire to the temple of Apollo because the god had raped his daughter. Apollo promptly slew him. Phlegyas, whose own father was Mars (god of war), appears in Virgil's underworld as an admonition against showing contempt for the gods (Aen. 6.618-20). Megaera, one of the Furies, tortures a famished and irritable Phlegyas in Statius' Thebaid (1.712-15).