Violence: Circle 7, Inferno 11   Virgil explains to Dante that sins of violence take three forms according to the victim: other people (one's neighbor), oneself, or God (Inf. 11.28-33). Those who perpetrate violence against other people or their property--murderers and bandits--are punished in the first ring of the seventh circle, a river of blood (Inferno 12). Those who do violence against themselves or their own property--suicides and squanderers (more self-destructive than the prodigal in circle 4)--inhabit the second ring, a horrid forest (Inferno 13). Note how Dante's use of anaphora in the opening description of the forest (Inf. 13.1-9--more evident in the Italian) reinforces his conception of suicide. The third ring--inside the first two--is a barren plain of sand ignited by flakes of fire that torment three separate groups of violent offenders against God: those who offend God directly (blasphemers: Inferno 14); those who violate nature, God's offspring (sodomites: Inferno 15-16); and those who harm industry and the economy, offspring of nature and therefore grandchild of God (usurers: Inferno 17). Identifying the sins of these last two groups with Sodom and Cahors (Inf. 11.49-50), Dante draws on the biblical destruction of Sodom (and Gomorrah) by fire and brimstone (Genesis 19:24-5) and the medieval condemnations of citizens of Cahors (a city in southern France) for usury. Dante's emotional reactions to the shades in the seventh circle range from neutral observation of the murderers and compassion for a suicide to respect for several Florentine sodomites and revulsion at the sight and behavior of the lewd usurers.