Triangular Chamber of Tiresias

This triangular chamber can only be accessed through the floor, which leads to a long shaft dropping downwards. The three walls are covered with the three stories of Tiresias's blindness and the gift of foresight.

• The first depicts the story of Tiresias being blinded by the gods because, as some say, he disclosed their secrets to mortal men.
• The second mosaic shows the second story of Tiresias 's blindness: that Athena blinded the young Tiresias by covering his eyes with her hands when he surprised her naked. Tiresias' mother, the Nymph Chariclo who was dear to Athena and one of her attendants, asked the goddess to restore his sight but Athena, not being able to do so, cleansed instead his ears in such a way that she caused him to understand the sounds of birds. Athena also gave Tiresias a staff made of cornel-wood with whose help he could walk like those who can see. It is also said that Athena did not take the sight of young Tiresias but, as Athena herself explained to Chariclo, these were the old laws of Kronos, and that these laws inflicted the penalty of blindness on any mortal who beheld an immortal without consent. As Tiresias' blindness could not be taken back Athena then bestowed on him the power to utter oracles, to understand the birds (the bird-observatory of Tiresias could still be visited many generations after his death), to live a long life and, after his death, to keep his understanding among the dead.
• The third shows the story that Tiresias was once watching two snakes copulating and that when he wounded the female he was turned into a woman; but later he saw the same snakes copulating again and, having wounded the male, he was transformed into a man. Tiresias remained a woman for seven years and became a man again in the eighth. So when Zeus and Hera once disputed whether the pleasures of love are better enjoyed by women or by men, on account of what had happened to Tiresias and his knowledge of both sides of love, they referred to him for a decision. Tiresias then told them that: "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only; but a woman's sense enjoys all ten in full." For this utterance, they say, Hera blinded him, but Zeus bestowed on him the power of a seer.

The ceiling of the chamber is a raised relief of snakes and birds coiled together.

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Last modified: Sat Nov 6, 1999 / Jeremiah Genest