In
Dante's
Inferno, he imagines
Hell as a
funnel-shaped
construct of nine descending "circles", or regions, each more
tortuous than the last, and populated by the
damned souls of progressively worse
sinners.
In order, from the
least tortuous,
outermost circle:
Upper Hell
- Limbo, realm of the virtuous pagans.
- Realm of those who have betrayed reason to their (carnal) passions.
- Realm of the gluttons, tormented by Cerberus.
- The Hoarders and Wasters, whose spirit was consumed in immoderate attention to wealth.
- The march of Styx, realm of the Wrathful and the Sullen, each tormented by their own fixations.
Lower Hell, in the city of Dis:
- Heretics, specifically those who deny the doctrine of immortality.
- the Violent. Murderers, suicides, blasphemers, and sodomites.
- Malebolge. Realm of the fraudulent and malicious.
- Cocytus. Realm of traitors - to kin, country, host/guest, or ruler. Satan falls into the lattermost category of treason, the ultimate traitor.