As the two poets enter, Dante reads the inscription above the gate that tells them that they enter upon those whom God had rejected and Hell had not taken in, who were "nowhere," because of their refusal to make a choice in life.  They are seen to be condemned, to forever follow a banner in an endless, furious pace, being stung by flies and hornets as they went.

One cannot help but find their reflection in the modern day stockmarket where the 'investors' sell the same old limited pile of stock to each other at ever higher prices, in an endless procession, following the banner of taking profits never earned, while in their seeking they get but stung, though urged by the banner to continue the game.  Indeed, for such as those, there is no entrance to the realm of harmony.  Also, they would likely be rejected from entering Hell as they might be to disruptive to it.

One finds a lot of them in the financial derivatives market, or in the gambling casinos of financial speculation.  One finds them playing in funds, banks, brokerages, exchanges for commodity gambling, currency trading, stock contract peddling, etc..  They are the wrecking crew of the world's economic systems, and of the populations that stand in their way.  Indeed, they would be to disruptive to even Hell, itself, and interfere with its order and give it a bad name.  Indeed, their place is "nowhere."  They have no principle.  They live for the moment.  Their life is circumscribed by nothing.  They stand at the portal of the first stage of hell, called: "Limbo."

Those who pass the screening process at the portal may enter, but they may get stuck in Limbo.  This is Dante's First Circle of Hell.  The souls, there, suffer no physical torment, but they must live in desire without hope of ever seeing their salvation, or God.  Here, Dante (the Pilgrim) finds all the great none-Christian thinkers of humanity.  Presumably they are individuals of great capacity who might have reached infinity, but set their goals too low, or who had aimed for the infinite but never saw the fruits of their labor as an uplifted humanity.

The Limbo sets the tone for Dante's exploration of Hell, which is really an exploration of the principle of justice, or the outcome of fundamental principle becoming manifest, or becoming ignored.  At the entrance to the "Limbo" a sign proclaims that the door of justice was founded by divine omnipotence and the highest wisdom joined with primal love.  "ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER," the inscription ends.

Dante treats his exploration of Hell with a great sense of compassion for everyone whom the Pilgrim and his guide encounter.  He treats them as though they were there by their own volition, who needed not to have chosen the path they chose, the consequences of which were their torment.  This theme continues throughout the the 34 cantos that make up the Inferno.

There is no injustice evident in Dante's Hell.  He explores the scene bluntly with terrible metaphor to expose the ugliness that unfolds with the violation of fundamental principles.  His evident goal was to deprive the real "Hell" of its victims by raising the platform of civilization (not civility) to as high a level as possible.  He did not concern himself with the victims of crime, although his entire work itself seemed to have been roused by this concern.  Rather, he concerned himself with the mind that produces the victims and the processes that destroy society.  It must have been evident to him that the victims were like water that passed under a bridge; though terrible to behold, they could not be resurrected.  But society could be resurrected.  He evidently aimed to start a new renaissance, which, indeed, he had helped to ignite in the hearts of mankind, that he would never see to unfold in its full fruition.

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Stories about War from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche