XXII/3 Barratry, the civil version of Simony (cf. Canto XIX), was the crime for which Dante himself was condemned by his native city (he was to have been decapitated if ever he returned to Florence). No biographer has suggested that this was anything but a trumped-up charge to precipitate his exile. Thus crime, charge, verdict and punishment were all themselves acts of political racketeering. Dante is significantly silent throughout this Canto, for the only time in the journey. Here protected by the light of his innocence he is shown surrounded by the Devils who repeat the accusation made by their Florentine counterparts; he meets it whichever way he turns. Here and there we see traces of a rubber-stamp lily (the rubber-stamp being what Reich would have called the character armour of corrupt political officials). -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.