Hell

**Hell** is a lower plane of existence that serves as place of punishment for damned souls in Christian and other cosmologies. It is home to Satan and his devils.

## Circles

Hell is traditionally divided into nine circles. Here is Dante's schema:

Circle 0: **The Vestibule**

Passing through the Gates of Hell (bearing the motto, "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here"), one find the realm of the Uncommitted, people neutral in life. They are continually stung by wasps and eaten by worms.

The river Acheron divides the Vestibule from the First Circle; Charon ferries souls across it.

Circle 1: **Limbo**

Home of virtuous pagans; it may be the same realm described by Olympian worshipers as the Asphodel Fields. Here Dante encounters Homer, Horace, Ovid, Hector, Aeneas, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Orpheus, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Saladin, Averroes and Avicenna.

Circle 2: **The Lustful**

The entrance to the Second Circle is guarded by Minos, who has taken on a serpentine form in his role of judge of the Underworld.

Among those buffeted by the winds of the Second Circle are Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Paris, Achilles, Tristan, Paulo and Francesca.

3: **The Gluttonous**

A realm of putrid, icy rain and slush. Cerberus guards the damned here.

Circle 4: **The Greedy**

According to Dante, this circle is ruled by Plutus, god of wealth.

Circle 5: **The Wrathful**

This circle is dominated by the River Styx, which forms a slimy mire here. Phlegyas serves as a ferry operator here.

Circle 6: **Heretics**

Beyond the Stygian marsh are the red-hot towers of the City of Dis. It is guarded by Medusa and the Furies. Epicurus is one of the heretics encountered here, burning in an oven.

Circle 7: **The Violent**

The Minotaur guards the entrance to the Seventh Circle. The first ring of the circle, for those who were violent to the their neighbors, is patrolled by Centaurs. Its inmates, immersed in the burning river Phlegethon, include Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun. In the next ring is the Wood of Suicides, where the souls of the self-destructive are transformed into trees; they are tormented by Harpies. In the final ring of the circle, scorched by a rain of fire, are usurers, sodomites and blasphemers.

Circle 8: **The Fraudulent**

There is a great cliff over the Eighth Circle, which Dante is carried down by Geryon. This circle features a series of ditches, the Malebolgeor bolgia, which imprison the panderers and seducers (including Jason), flatterers, simoniacs (including Simon Magus), sorcerers (notably Tiresias), corrupt politicians, hypocrites (among them Caiaphas), thieves, evil counselors (including Ulysses) and sowers of discord (which Dante claims includes both Mohammad and Ali). The final bolge is for falsifiers: alchemists, imposters, counterfeiters and perjurers.

The devils of this circle are known as malebranche.

Circle 9: **The Traitors**

The deepest circle of Hell, the frozen lake of Cocytus, is guarded by giants, including Nimrod, Typhon and Antaeus. The treacherous souls in the ninth circle include Mordred, Ganelon, Brutus, Cassius, Judas Iscariot--and Lucifer himself, who continually chews on Judas' head.

## Links

**Wikipedia:** Hell

**Cutting Edge Conformity:** A Map of Hell

**Power Score:** A Guide to the Nine Hells

**TV Tropes:** Hell