The roof the subterranean chamber is supported by a number of pillars (3.5 paces tall) decorated with colorful relief sculptures. A central group of sixteen pillars is flanked by trio of pillars on each of the eastern and western ends of the cavern. The sixteen pillars are arranged in two groups (east and west) of four pairs. The four rows of four (each comprising an east pair and a west pair) are spaced evenly across the width of the chamber (from north to south). Each of the four pillars in the northernmost row has a built in censor. The pillars in the next row to the south each have a small basin of water, rather like a baptismal fount. The third row is decorated with semiprecious gems and polished metal. The pillars of the southernmost row have oil lamps. In the middle of these sixteen pillars is a hearth built around an seemingly bottomless fissure in the rock floor and above it in the ceiling is a central shaft which you can see just a bit of the sky. Four Ways lead off from corners of the cavern, to the northeast, northwest, southwest and southeast, and each is named after a river in the Underworld. They all have a common structure: Fourteen large steps or landings lead upward to a shrine at the end of the passage. Each step is carved with an abstract emblem, the emblems increasing in complexity as one goes from the shrine toward the central temple. The emblems appear to be structured around the numbers one through ten, although the last four (the eleventh through fourteenth) are more complex.
The northeastern passage has walls of reddish brown, which has flaked off to create a dry, brown dust on the floor. At the end of the tunnel is a fissure in the living rock, which seems to be a "bottomless pit."
The northwestern passage is very cold, built of blackest rock, with a inky stream which ran its length from the shrine, a spring flowing from a clef in the rock. It runs out into the main temple and vanishes into an opening in the floor at the base of one of the pillars, which has been displaced to accommodate it.
The southwestern passage has green walls and a white floor, a terrific blast of hot, humid wind blows continually from an opening at the wall at the end of the tunnel.
The southeastern passage is golden colored. The heat in the tunnel is almost unbearable, for at the shrine is an eternal flame, which seems volcanic in origin, and which yields three pawns of Ignem Vis every year.
The first pillar, which is directly in front of the Eastern Portal (it is at the eastern portal that ingress and egress to the temple is provided), shows Dionysius dancing with his thyrsus. He wears a green cloak and is accompanied by a snake and a panther. South to the second pillar of the eastern trio represents Hermes holding a caduceus, wears his broad-brimmed hat, and is accompanied by a rooster. He is depicted as a mature man, dressed in a red and green tunic and mantle. He stands behind a table on which there are two dice and other paraphernalia; a Gorgon mask hangs on the wall behind him. The pillar in the southeast corner of the central sixteen depicts Hera crowned and seated in her throne, which has emerald lions for armrests; she is attended by her peacock and holds a scepter topped by a dove or cuckoo. Green is the most common color on this relief. West to the fourth pillar, which forms a pair with the third; it depicts Zeus. In bold reds it shows him in a classic pose: seated on his throne and attended by his eagle. He holds a thunderbolt in one hand and in the other a scepter topped by a golden orb.
North to the next pair, starting again with the eastern pillar, which depicts a lunar spirit, in dark blues. She is slim, with short hair, a ten-rayed crown, and also an upward lunar crescent on her brow. She wears shoes, a studded belt and a full-length tunic, with a sort of vest made from a Bacchic panther skin with the head attached. She holds a sistrum in her right hand and a vase in her left. She sits under a canopy in a chariot drawn across the sea by a black horse and a white horse. Paired with the preceding pillar is one depicting Helios. He is shown as an old, but clean-shaved, winged man with a radiate crown, and holding a pruning saw in his right hand and a vase in his left. He wears a long tunic, revealing his bare feet, sleeves to elbows, with a belt. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by two hippocampi (one black, one white). The dominant colors are red and gold.
The third pair of pillars: the first of which depicts two nearly naked figures, apparently Apollo and Artemis, facing each other in a forest clearing. In the sky above them hovers a barefoot, naked, winged child (of unclear sex) holding a downward pointing dart in his right hand and a dish in his left. The colors are red and white. A pillar showing Harmonia, a winged girl, naked but for sandals and a multicolored mantle over her left arm and wrapped around her legs. Her hair is piled up and she wears a necklace, ear rings and a tiara with a gem in the middle of a six-pointed star. She pours from a vase in her right hand into a dish in her left. In the background a dart flies upward into a rainbow between the twin peaks of a mountain. Gold and silver dominate the colors.
The northernmost of the four eastern pairs of pillars. The more eastern one Ares driving his triumphal chariot drawn by a red horse and a blue horse. He sits naked but for a cloak draped over his left shoulder, and is beardless, with short, red hair. He holds a long lance in his right hand, and holds the reins in his left. He wears bronze greeves and a Phrygian helmet. Beside him is a figure-eight shield decorated with a bronze apple surmounted by a spread-wing Victory. Red is the dominant color. Victory flies above Ares. She is winged and naked but for a purple mantle over her left arm, wrapped back around her legs and flung again over her left arm. She wears ear rings and sandals, and Her hair is done up; she holds a laurel wreath in her hands. The pillar depicts a martial goddess, a young woman, who wears a thin, saffron tunic, above her knees, with simple boots and bracelets on her left arm. Her hair is fastened up, and she wears ear rings. She appears to be forcing open with her bare hands the jaws of a lion, wreathed with roses, who sits beside her. An unused sword or dagger lies on the ground nearby.
The third of the eastern trio of pillars depicts Fortuna in the center of the "wheel of fortune." She wears a long, heavy, coarse mantle of varying hue over a tunic, and has bracelets on her arms. She holds the cornucopia in her left hand and a ship's rudder in her right. Four small figures are on the rim of the wheel, a young man to the left, a mature man on top, an old man on the right, and a decrepit man at the bottom.
The next pillar in order is one of the western trio, in the southwest corner of the temple. It depicts Kronos as an old man carrying a sickle in his right hand and in his left an hour glass filled with black sand. The dominant colors on the relief are black, brown and white.
The southeast corner of the western quadruple of pairs of pillars. The pillar there depicts Prometheus suffering his punishment. He is suspended upside down, hanging by his left leg from a tree, on which a snake climbs towards him. Red is the dominant color: Prometheus has red hair and is naked and sun-scorched; blood runs from a wound where the eagle of Zeus daily tears his liver. A burning brand lies on the ground nearby.
To the west is a pillar depicting Hades. He is horrifically depicted in blacks and whites, for he wears skeletal armor and stands in the midst of severed body parts. He holds an empty dish in his right hand an (apparently) empty cornucopia in his left. In the background is a beehive tomb flanked by a white cypress on the left and a dark cypress on the right.
The next pair of columns to the north begins with a depiction of Hephaestus. He is attractive, sports a goatee, and has long ringlets descending from his navy-blue Phrygian cap (which has golden ram's horns on it). He wears a short green tunic, to mid thighs and mid upper arms, and has a pendant around his neck. He holds a large hammer in his left hand and raises his right in an odd salute (the fingers divided in two groups of two). He wears elaborate sandals and leggings, almost up to his knees, which leave the forward half of his feet exposed. His legs are crippled in some way. He stands on an anvil, to the base of which two small figures (male and female) are chained. They do not look quite natural, and may be effigies or Hephaestus' automata.
The next is the first pillar that does not depict a deity; it shows a conical tower with seven stories (like a ziggurat) standing on a small is land in the midst of the ocean. Four rivers (blue, white, yellow and red) flow from the base of the tower into the sea. A lightning bolt has struck, knocking the conical top off the tower. Two small figures (male and female), apparently blasted out of the tower, are falling to earth. Fire is everywhere, showing through seven openings in the side of the tower, and raining down on the island from the tower. The color scheme is primarily structured around the quadruple blue, green, yellow and red.
The western trio, to the northernmost of the three pillars. It is displaced approximately a pace to the south of where it should be, in order to accommodate a pool or basin filled by the stream from the Northwest Way (which flows from the spring in its shrine). This pool empties into a drain in the floor of the temple. Aphrodite is depicted as a young woman, with copper-colored skin, naked but for a tiara, shoes laced up her calves and her kestos (embroidered magic girdle); she kneels by the side of a pool. From a gold drinking horn in her left hand she pours water onto the ground, from the silver horn in her right she pours water into the pool. In the background is a beehive tomb flanked by white and dark cypresses, similar to those on the fourteenth pillar. A eight-rayed star blazes above, which is surrounded by seven smaller stars.
The northwest pair of pairs, starting at the pillar in the southeast corner, depicts the Moon, ruled by Artemis. A young crescent moon shines above a desolate scene at the beach: two canines (black and white) bay at the moon while some sort of crustacean emerges from the water. The twin towers of a walled city are visible in the distance. The dark blue of the sky and ocean is the dominant color. Paired with the Moon is a pillar depicting the Sun, ruled by Apollo. A brilliant solar disk shines above a walled garden in which a boy and girl dance, arm in arm Golden drops of sunshine seem to be falling from the solar disk; yellow and gold are the dominant colors in this sunny scene. Pillar of Hermes: The scene is dominated by Hermes, who flies in the air, sandals strapped to his legs, naked but for a blue cloak clasped over his shoulders. He is young, clean-shaved, and on his head is a broad, red, winged hat.
In his left hand he holds a long caduceus, with two snakes wound tightly on the top; his right holds to his mouth a long golden trumpet, from which hangs a banner emblazoned with an equal-armed cross. Below him, on a small island in the midst of the ocean, is a green sarcophagus, in which stands Adonis as a naked, young child. The sarcophagus is flanked by two figures, that of Athena and Ares.
The Pillar of Athena: She is seated on a throne, and holds scales in her left hand and an upright sword in her right; a helmet with a red horsehair fringe is pushed back on her blond hair. She wears a green mantle over a blue robe; on her chest is a red aegis with the Mask of the Gorgon in the center. The four primary colors, red, blue, green and yellow, are balanced in the picture. Westernmost pillar. It depicts a figure with two faces like Janus, except that one is female and the other male. This androgyne is dancing in an oval formed by two dragons, who bite each other's tails. Outside this oval, in the corners of the relief, are four heads: an old man's, a calf's, a lion's and an eagle's.
Last modified: Sat Nov 6, 1999 / Jeremiah Genest