The Chamber of Mars

This chamber lies beyond the Fire Gate.

The gateway to this room contains the following words above its lintel:

Magnanimous, unconquered, boistrous Mars, In darts rejoicing, and in bloody wars: Fierce and untamed, whose mighty power can make The strongest walls from their foundations shake: Mortal destroying king, defiled with gore, Pleased with war's dreadful and tumultuous roar: Thee, human blood, and swords, and spears delight, And the dire ruin of mad savage fight. Stay, furious contests, and avenging strife, Whose works with woe, embitter human life; To lovely Venus, and to Bacchus yield, To Ceres give the weapons of the field; Encourage peace, to gentle works inclined, And give abundance, with benignant mind.

In the lowest level of the regiones this chamber does not move. However, entrance through a great bronze mirror allows passage into a higher regio and a hallway which leads to a large natural cavern which shows sign of magical manipulation. This cavern seems to move, the distance of the hallway between it and the base chamber changes with time. The natural cavern is over ten paces wide and thirty paces long. Two rows of ornate columns line the hall and reach up to the naturally vaulted ceiling approximately eight paces high. The entire room is bathed in a light reddish glow from the ceiling, though the exact lighting source(s) are indistinct. All the walls sparkle with a single continuous mosaic made of some sort of luminescent, translucent material. The mosaic on the ceiling at first glimpse depicts two enormous beasts battling to the death: one a giant griffon, the other a massive dragon, coiled and writhing. Closer examination shows shows an epic battle of two enormous armies. The armies are of various colorations, though distinct from each other. The one identified with the griffin is composed of various Hellenic soldiers, in both Byzantine and ancient greek costume. The dragon on the other hand is comprised of an overwhelming number of various enemies, the majority being Moors and Turks. There are also many mystical energies and beasts depicted on both sides of the mosaic. The mosaic slowly moves, but the battle never ends.

One row of the columns of this chamber are all sculpted with classical epic heroes: Achilles, Theseus, Ulysses etc. Opposed to it is a row of columns of creatures such as the Medusa, Minotaur and Cyclops. The heroes are depicted in their prime of manhood, they are impressive renderings. All of the columns are constructed of a strange, unknown, rock.

The floor contains a spear like motif and is ringed with an invocation in ancient Greek. The invocation is actually parts of the Iliad, though the way they are strung together might seem to indicate some other meaning. The following are a partial list of the quotes, in the order they appear. The book and verse are given for reference.

The I looked on the Phrygian men with their swarming horses,
so many of them, the people of Otreys and godlike Mygdon,
whose camp was spread at that time along the banks of Sangarios;
and I myself, a helper in war, was marshalled among them
on that day when the Amazon women came, men's equals
(Book III, lines 185 to 189)

We went against Thebe, the sacred city of Eetion,
and the city we sacked, and carried everything back to his place,
and the sons of the Achaians made a fair distribution
and for Atreus' son they chose out Chryseis of the fair cheeks,
(Book I, lines 366-369)

Agamemnon the lord of men was taken with shuddering
fear as he saw how from the cut the dark blood trickled downward,
and Menebios the warlike himself shuddered in terror;
(Book IV, lines 148-150)

Then he went on to kill Pylon and Ormenos. Meanwhile
Leonteus, the scion of Ares, struck down Antimachos'
son, Hippomachos, with a spear cast into the warbelt
and afterwards drawing his sharp sword out of the scabbard
(Book XII, lines 187-190)

Again Hektor threw at Aias with the shining javelin,
but Aias with his straight on him avoided the bronze spear
by a little, and Hektor struck Schedios, the son of high-hearted
Iphitos and far the best of the Phokians, one who lived in his home in
famous Panopeus and was lord over many people.
He struck him far beneath the collar-bone, and the other pointed
bronze head tore clean through and came out by the base of the shoulder.
He fell, thunderously, and his armor clattered upon him.
(Book XVII, lines 304-311)

Nergal (Erragal, Erra, Engidudu - 'lord who prowls by night') -, the Unsparing, god of the underworld, husband of Ereshkigal, lover of Mami. As Erra he is a hunter god, a god of war and plague. He is submissive to Ea. He can open the doorposts to the underworld to allow the passage of a soul. He achieved his post by refusing to stand before an address of Namtar. When Ereshkigal called him to be punished, he dragged her off of her throne by the hair, and threatened to decapitate her. She offered him the position asher consort and he accepted. He is an evil aspect of Shamash. He allows Enkidu's spirit to visit Gilgamesh at the behest of Ea. He is sometimes the son of Ea. Prior to his first journey to the underworld, he builds a chair of fine wood under Ea's instruction to give to Ereshkigal as a gift from Anu. He is advised not to take part of the food, drink and entertainment offered there. He is tempted by Ereshkigal and eventually succumbs, sleeping with her for seven days. Hethen takes his leave, angering her. The gatekeeper lets him out and he climbs the stairway to heaven. He hides from Namtar in heaven, but is discovered and returns to the underworld to marry Ereshkigal. In some versions, on the way back to the Underworld, he seizes control of Namtar's attendant demons and grabs Ereshkigal by the hair. In this position she offers marriage. He commands the Sebitti, seven warriors who are also the Pleadies, they aid in his killing of noisy, over-populous people and animals. He rallies them when he feels the urge for war, and calls Ishum to light the way. They prefer to be used in war instead of waiting while Erra kills by disease. He regards Marduk as having become negligent and prepares to attack his people in Babylon. He challenges Marduk in Esagila in Shuanna/Babylon. Marduk responds that he already killed most of the people in the flood and would not do so again. He also states that he could not run the flood without getting off of his throne and letting control slip. Erra volunteers to take his seat and control things. Marduk takes his vacation and Erra sets about trying to destroy Babylon. Ishum intervenes on Babylon's behalf and persuades Erra to stop, but not before he promises that the other gods will acknowledge themselves as Erra's servants. An ancient Sumerian hymn relates that Nergal was given the hursag-mountain (hur-sag-ki-a) as his special province. Nergal is also brought into specific relationship with the kur. An epithet of the Sumerian war-god haracterizes him as En-ki-kur-ra, "lord of the mountain land." Nergal is elsewhere said to rise "into the land of the rising sun [kur-utu-e]." Here the word translated as "land" by von Weiher is none other than kur, so a perfectly literal translation would be "He who rises into the mountain of the rising sun." This interpretation is supported by another hymn, wherein Nergal/Mars is invoked as follows: "You are horrifying like a flood, rising on the mountain where the sun rises [kur-utu-e]." In a fragmentary hymn of uncertain date, finally, Nergal is said to have once defeated the agents of chaos upon the mountain of sunrise, whereupon he replaced An and temporarily assumed the reins of heaven. In the face of these traditions, it must be acknowledged that Nergal/Mars was indissolubly connected with the mountain of sunrise. Yet how are we to explain this peculiar feature of Sumerian cosmology? For the fact is that, under the current arrangement of the solar system, Mars does not appear to rise in the east with the Sun. Indeed, the Sun and Mars are never visible together in the sky during those relatively rare occasions when Mars moves in close proximity to the Sun, the red planet only coming into view after the Sun has gone down. Moreover, when Mars does appear in the east, it is always faint and typically invisible, being then on the other side of the Sun. Thus, while the passages invoking Venus/Inanna in conjuction with the mountain of the sun might be considered to have reference to some terrestrial mountain-top and Venus' current tendency to appear close by thesun, such cannot be the case with Mars. Equally baffling from an astronomical standpoint are those passages in which Nergal/Mars is associated with the site of the sun's disappearance. Witness the epithet Lugal-ki-du-su-a: "King of the site of the Sunset." According to Sjeberg, the epithet Hus-ki-a likewise characterizes Nergal as "Lord of the sunset." A closely related epithet is Lugul-du-su-a: "King who effects the Sunset." Once again we are presented with a glaring anomaly: What, if anything, does the planet Mars have to do with the site of the sunset in the west? In the current arrangement of the Solar System, the answer is simply "nothing." In apparent recognition of this anomaly, some scholars have sought to question the literal meaning of these epithets.

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Last modified: Fri Oct 22, 1999 / Jeremiah Genest