A. Rich, in his Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities, relates, under the heading of the word “Adytum,” that many of the ancient temples possessed chambers the existence of which was known only to the priests, and which served for the {3} production of their illusions. He visited one at Alba, upon the lake of Fucius. It was located amid the ruins of a temple, and was in a perfect state of preservation. This chamber of mysteries was formed under the apsis—that is to say, under the large semi-circular niche which usually sheltered the image of the god, at the far extremity of the edifice. “One part of this chamber,” says he, “is sunk beneath the pavement of the principal part of the temple (cella) and the other rises above it. The latter, then, must have appeared to the worshipers gathered together in the temple merely like a base that occupied the lower portion of the apsis, and that was designed to hold in an elevated position the statue of the god or goddess whose name was borne by the edifice. This sanctuary, moreover, had no door or visible communication that opened into the body of the building. Entrance therein was effected through a secret door in an enclosure of walls at the rear of the temple. It was through this that the priests introduced themselves and their machinery without being observed by the hoi polloi. But there is one remarkable fact that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the purpose of the adytum. One discovers here a number of tubes or pipes which pierce the walls between the hiding-place and the interior of the temple. These tubes debouch at different places in the partitions of the cella, and thus permit a voice to be heard in any part of the building, while the person and place from which the sound issues remain unknown to the auditors.”
Sometimes the adytum was simply a chamber situated behind the apsis, as in a small temple which was still in existence at Rome in the sixteenth century. An architect named Labbacco has left us a description of the edifice. Travelers who have visited the remains of the temple of Ceres, at Eleusis, have observed a curious fact. The pavement of the cella is rough and unpolished, and much lower than the level of the adjacent porch, thereby indicating that a wooden floor, on a level with the portico, covered the present floor, and hid from view a secret vault designed to operate the machinery that moved the flooring. This view is confirmed by vertical and horizontal grooves, and the holes constructed in the side walls. Similar contrivances existed in India. Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius (1, III, {4} Ch. v), says: “The Indian sages conducted Apollonius toward the temple of their god, marching in solemn procession and singing sacred hymns. Occasionally they would strike the earth in cadence with their staves, whereupon the ground moved like a sea in turmoil, now rising with them to the height of almost two feet, then subsiding to its regular level.” The blows from the wands were evidently the cue for the concealed assistants to operate the machinery that moved the soil. Says Brown, in his Stellar Theology: “Among the buildings uncovered at Pompeii is a temple of Isis, which is a telltale of the mysteries of the Egyptian deity, for the secret stair which conducted the priests unseen to an opening back of the statue of the goddess, through whose marble lips pretended oracles were given and warnings uttered, now lies open to the day, and reveals the whole imposition.”
The Bible has preserved to us the story of the struggle of Daniel with the priests of Bel, in which the secret door played its part. The Hebrew prophet refused to worship the idol Bel, whereupon the King said to him: “Doth not Bel seem to thee to be a living god? Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day?” Then Daniel smiled and said: “O King, be not deceived; for this is but clay within and brass without, neither hath he eaten at any time.” The King sent for his priests and demanded the truth of them, declaring his intention of putting them to the sword should they fail to demonstrate the fact that the god really consumed the offerings of meat and wine. And the priests of Bel said: “Behold, we go out; and do thou, O King, set on the meats, and make ready the wine, and shut the door fast, and seal it with thy own ring. And when thou comest in the morning, if thou findest not that Bel hath eaten up all, we will suffer death, or else Daniel that hath lied against us.” And they “little regarded it, because they had made under the table a secret entrance, and they always came in by it, and consumed those things.”
Daniel detected the imposture in a very original manner. He caused ashes to be sifted upon the floor of the temple, whereby the footsteps of the false priests were made manifest to the enraged King of Babylon. {5}
One reads in Pausanias (Arcadia, 1 VIII, Ch. xvi) that at Jerusalem the sepulcher of a woman of that country, named Helena, had a door which was of marble like the rest of the monument, and that this door opened of itself on a certain day of the year, and at a certain hour, by means of concealed machinery, thus antedating our time-locks. Eventually it closed itself. “At any other time,” adds the author, “if you had desired to open it, you would have more easily broken it.”
When Aeneas went to consult the Cumæan Sibyl, the hundred doors of the sanctuary opened of themselves, in order that the oracle might be heard.
“Ostia jamque domus patuere ingentia centum
Sponte sua, vatisque ferunt responsa per auras.”
APPARATUS FOR BLOWING A TRUMPET ON OPENING A DOOR.