Located near the lip of the caldera, the entrance to this room is in the center under a large metal apparatus. The room itself is domed and measures twelve paces in diameter and eighteen paces in height. The metal sculpture in the center is a sundial, though esoteric in design. The ceiling of this chamber is extremely well lit. Most of the ceiling is intact, with sections schorched away. All of the hues in this room are 'hot' in humor, being either red, orange or yellow. The floor around the large sundail contains markings in an archaic script depicting various zodiac symbols as well as some Verditius runes. The path of the sun is tracked in accordance with the season and time, insofar as the remains of the mosaic allows. The Horae are well represented on what remains.
| Hora, plural Horae, in Greco-Roman mythology, any one of the personifications of the seasons and goddesses of natural order; in the Iliad they were the custodians of the gates of Olympus. According to Hesiod, the Horae were the children of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Themis, a Titaness, and their names (Eunomia, Dike, Eirene - i.e., Good Order, Justice, Peace) indicate the extension of their functions from nature to the events of human life. At Athens they were apparently two in number: Thallo and Carpo, the goddesses of the flowers of spring and of the fruits of summer. Their yearly festival was the Horaea. In later mythology the Horae became the four seasons, daughters of the sun god, Helios, and the moon goddess, Selene, each represented with the conventional attributes. Subsequently, when the day was divided into 12 equal parts, each of them took the name of Hora. |
There are four doors at the quarters, representing the equinoxes and solistices. Each door is marked with a distinct symbol and gemstone on the center of the door. The gemstones correspond to each of the four elements as represented by the stones which are found in the fountain vis source. The symbols are not hermetic. Above each door is an animal symbol. The equinoxes are sphinxes, andro- for spring, gyno- for autumn. The summer solistice appears to be Chimaera, while the winter solistice is a panther.
Until recently, these doors have evaded any attempt to open them, physical or magical. Constantine, however, has succeeded in turning into mist and journeying beneath. This tactic, unfortunately, only worked on the doors for the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice.
Above the archway that leads to this chamber, these words are written:
Great Heaven, whose mighty frame no respite knows,
Father of all, from whom the world arose:
Hear, bounteous parent, source and end of all,
Forever whirling round this earthly ball;
Abode of Gods, whose guardian power surrounds
the eternal World with ever during bounds;
Whose ample bosom and encircling folds
The dire necessity of nature holds.
Aetherial, earthly, whose all-various frame
Azure and full of forms, no power can tame.
All-seeing Heaven, progenitor of Time,
forever blessed, deity sublime,
Propitious on a novel mystic shine,
And crown his wishes with a life divine.
There seems to be no regiones in this chamber.
HeliosGreek: "Sun"), in Greek religion, the sun god. He drove a chariot daily from east to west across the sky and sailed around the northerly stream of Ocean each night in a huge cup. In classical Greece, Helios was especially worshiped in Rhodes, where from at least the early 5th century BC he was regarded as the chief god, to whom the island belonged. His worship spread as he became increasingly identified with other deities, often under Eastern influence. From the 5th century BC, Apollo, originally a deity of radiant purity, was more and more interpreted as a sun god. During the Roman Empire the sun itself came to be worshiped as the Unconquered Sun. |
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SolIn Roman religion, name of two distinct sun gods at Rome. The original Sol, or Sol Indiges, had a shrine on the Quirinal, an annual sacrifice on August 9, and another shrine, together with Luna, the moon goddess, in the Circus Maximus. Although the cult appears to have been native, the Roman poets equated him with the Greek sun god Helios. The worship of Sol assumed an entirely different character with the later importation of various sun cults from Syria. The Roman emperor Elagabalus (reigned AD 218-222) built a temple to him as Sol Invictus on the Palatine and attempted to make his worship the principal religion at Rome. The emperor Aurelian (reigned 270-275) later reestablished the worship and erected a magnificent temple to Sol in the Campus Agrippae. The worship of Sol as special protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial cult until it was replaced by Christianity. | |
This chamber is open to the sky,a crystal dome covering it, yet the sky is always seen. There are rich mosaics depicting:
Glowing Helios whom mild-eyed Euryphaessa, the far- shining one, bare to the Son of Earth and starry Heaven. For Hyperion wedded glorious Euryphaessa, his own sister, who bare him lovely children, rosy-armed Eos and rich-tressed Selene and tireless Helios who is like the deathless gods. As he rides in his chariot, he shines upon men and deathless gods, and piercingly he gazes with his eyes from his golden helmet. Bright rays beam dazzlingly from him, and his bright locks streaming form the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face: a rich, fine-spun garment glows upon his body and flutters in the wind: and stallions carry him. Then, when he has stayed his golden-yoked chariot and horses, he rests there upon the highest point of heaven, until he marvelously drives them down again through heaven to Ocean.
There is an altar of gold dedicated to Helios, upon it is inscribed:
Hail to you, lord! Freely bestow on me substance that cheers the heart. And now that I have begun with you, I will celebrate the race of mortal men half-divine whose deeds theMuses have showed to mankind.
There were once statues in this room, but what they were or where they have been removed to is unknown.
Besides, Fame tells, by Age Fame reverend grown,
That Phoebus gave his Chariot to his Son,
And whilst the Youngster from the Path declines
Admiring the strange Beauty of the Signs,
Proud of his Charge, He drove the fiery horse,
And would outdo his Father in his Course.
The North grew warm, and the unusual Fire
Dissolved its Snow, and made the Bears retire;
Nor was the Earth secure, each Country mourned
The Common Fate, and in its City's burned.
Then from the scattered Chariot Lightning came,
And the whole Skies were one continued Flame.
The World took Fire, and in new kindled Stars
The bright remembrance of its Fate it bears.
Phaethon(Greek: "Shining," or "Radiant"), in Greek mythology, the son of Helios, the sun god, and a woman or nymph variously identified as Clymene, Prote, or Rhode. Taunted with illegitimacy, Phaethon appealed to his father, who swore to prove his paternity by giving him whatever he wanted. Phaethon asked to be allowed to drive the chariot of the sun through the heavens for a single day. Helios, bound by his oath, had to let him make the attempt. Phaethon set off but was entirely unable to control the horses of the sun chariot, which came too near to the earth and began to scorch it. Nonnus states (38.35 off.): "There was tumult in the sky shaking the joints of the immovable universe; the every axle bent which runs through the middle of the revolving heavens. Libyan Atlas could hardly support the self-rolling firmament of stars, as he rested on his knees with bowed back under this greater burden." To prevent further damage, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at Phaethon, who fell to the earth at the mouth of the Eridanus (a river later identified as the Po), where, according to Apollonius of Rhodes, the stench of his half-burnt corpse made the Argonauts sick for several days when they came upon it in their travels (4.619-23). Plato confirms this in his own version of the crisis, given in Timaeus 22 CE. The Egyptian priest talking with Solon states that the legend of Phaethon "has the air of a fable; but the truth behind it is a deviation (parallaxis) of the bodies that revolve in heaven around the earth, and a destruction, occurring at long intervals, of things on earth by a great conflagration." Aristotle, furthermore, tells us this has to do with Pythagorean tradition (Meteorlogica 1.8.345A): "The so-called Pythagoreans give two explanations. Some say that the Milky Way is the path taken by one of the stars at the time of the legendary fall of Phaethon; others say that it is the circle in which the sun once moved. And the region is supposed to have been scorched or affected in some other such way as a result of the passage of these bodies." Tradition holds that after the dreadful fall of Phaethon, and when order was re-established, Zeus catasterized Phaethon, that is, placed him among the stars, as Auriga (Greek Hëniochos and Erichthonios); and at the same time Eridanus was catasterized. Nonnos gave us a detailed report (38.424-31): "But rather father Zeus fixed Phaethon in Olympus, like a charioteer, and bearing that name." As he holds in the radiant Chariot of the heavens with shining arm, he has the shape of a Charioteer starting upon his course, as if even among the stars he longed again for his father's car. The fire-scorched river also came up to the vault of the stars with consent of Zeus, and in the starry circle rolls the meandering stream of burning Eridanus. |
Last modified: Mon Nov 30, 1998 / Jeremiah Genest