The eighth circle of Hell contains 10 pouches, or bolgias. Dante calls this vast region Malebolge, meaning roughly “evil ditches” or “evil pouches.”
Malebolge is reserved for fraudulent sinners—people who deceived others without necessarily having a special bond of trust with their victims. Its ten concentric ditches descend toward the center of Hell, with stone bridges crossing them. Each bolgia contains a different form of fraud: panderers and seducers, flatterers, simoniacs, false prophets, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, fraudulent counselors, sowers of discord, and falsifiers.
Several of Inferno’s most famous scenes take place here. In the eighth bolgia, Ulysses and Diomedes appear as paired flames for their deceptive counsel. In the seventh, thieves undergo horrifying transformations with snakes. The ninth contains figures punished for creating religious or political division, while the tenth afflicts falsifiers with disease and madness.
A frequent mistake is to answer nine because Dante’s Hell is organized into nine circles. The eighth circle is Malebolge, but its internal structure is different: it is divided into ten bolgias. The ninth and final circle is Cocytus, the frozen lake of traitors.