Entry to Hell

According to Greek mythology, Theseus and Pirithuous travel to the underworld in attempt to abduct Persephone. However, their plan fails and they are instead captured as prisoners.
While on a mission to capture Cerberus, Hercules finds them trapped in this underworld, but is only able to save Theseus. In fact, Dante mentions this in Canto IX: “If you remember well, your Cerberus still bears his chin and throat peeled clean for that!” (IX, 98-99) Therefore both Hercules and Theseus have gone to, and escaped from hell.
Furthermore, since Dante bases his visions of hell on Virgil’s Aeneid, we can also assume that Aeneas has gone to, and returned from hell. Of course there are countless other mortals that could have entered hell, including Orpheus and Odysseus.
However, what’s important is not the number of mortals that have entered hell, but the fact that mortals have indeed entered hell. According to Dante, the first gate of hell was forced open by Jesus during his first coming, during his death. However, if the Pilgrim is unable to travel through this second gate, how were the past heroes able to before Jesus opened it?

Cantos 5-7

During Cantos 5-7, Dante continues his journey through the circles of Hell and on the way learn of the relationship between crime and punishment. Travelling through the second, third, fourth, Dante meets the souls of those who have committed sins of Lust, Gluttony, and Avarice. Part of the Seven Deadly Sins, these three sins are categorized into a group of evil thoughts known as Lustful Appetite. In these Cantos, Dante realizes that the crimes a soul commits on earth are determinant of its punishment in the underworld. Those who had lusted for earthly pleasures in life thus suffer the torrential storms that molest their sin-stained souls and the bestial judgment of Minos’ serpentine tail. After passing to the third circle of hell, Dante finds Cerberus guarding the souls of the Gluttonous. Having lived their lives in greed and excess, these souls now dwell in the underworld in the excrement and waste that pours from the sky. Cerberus, like these greedy souls, fights for even the simplest earthly material: mud. Unlike Aeneas’s Sibyl, Dante’s Virgil grabs merely a handful of this excrement filled mud to pacify the ferocious dog. Continuing onwards to the fourth Circle of Hell, Dante discovers the lair of Plutus, the god of wealth. In this circle, the priests, popes and cardinals of Avarice and those that led Prodigal lives of waste are condemned to an eternal competition, pushing weights in shameful song, screaming “Why hoard?” and “Why waste?” It is interesting how Dante, a Catholic, would directly criticize the religious leaders of his own faith for hoarding wealth by condemning to this fifth circle of hell. It makes me question the integrity of his faith. As Canto Seven ends, Dante is left entering the Fifth Circle of Hell to explore the River Styx, its ferryman Phlegyas, and its unfortunate residents of Wrath and Sloth.