Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Adytum

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

AD'YTUM (ἄδυτον). A private or secret chamber in a temple, from which every person but the officiating priests were stricly excluded. (Caes. B. C. iii. 105. Virg. Aen. vi. 98.) That the adytum was distinct from the cella, is clear from a passage of Lucan (Phars. v. 141 — 161.), in which the priestess, dreading the violent exertions she would have to undergo from the stimulants applied in the secret chamber to produce an effect like prophetic inspiration — pavens adyti penetrale remoti Fatidicum — stops short in the body of the temple and refuses to advance into the adytum, or den (antrum) as it is there termed, until she is compelled by force. A chamber of this kind is represented in that portion of the annexed illustration (Adytum/1.1), which lies behind the circular absis, marked in a stronger tint than the rest, and which communicates with the body of the edifice by two doors, one on each side. The whole represents the ground-plan of a small Doric temple, formerly existing near the theatre of Marcellus, at Rome on the site of which the church of S. Niccola in Carcere now stands. It is copied from the work of Labacco, who surveyed it in the 16th century, Libro dell' Architettura, Roma, 1558.

Apartments of this description were constructed for the purpose of enabling the priesthood to delude their votaries by the delivery of oracular responses, the exhibition of miracles, or any sort of preternatural effects, and at the same time conceal the agency by which they were produced. They consequently were not attached to all temples, but only to those in which oracles were uttered, or where the particular form of worship was connected with mysteries; which explains why such contrivances are so seldom met with in the ground-plans of ancient temples still existing. But the remains of another ancient temple at Alba Fucentis, in the country of the Marsi, now Alba, on the Lake of Fucino, afford ample confirmation that the illustration introduced may be regarded as a true specimen of the ancient adytum. The interior of that edifice retained its pristine form, and was in a complete state of preservation when visited by the writer. It differs only slightly in construction from the example in the cut; for the secret chamber is not placed behind the absis, but is constructed underneath it, part being sunk lower than the general floor of the main body of the temple (cella) and part raised above it, so that the portion above would appear to the worshippers in the temple merely as a raised basement, occupying the lower portion of the absis, and intended to support in an elevated position the statue of the deity to whom the edifice was dedicated; nor has it any door or visibile communication into the body of the temple; the only entrance into it being afforded by a postern gate within a walled enclosure at the back of the premises, through which the priests introduced themselves and their machinery unseen and unknown. But the one remarkable feature of the whole, and that which proves to conviction the purpose to which it has been applied, consists in a number of tubes or hollow passages formed in the walls, which communicate from this hidden recess into the interior of the temple, opening upon different parts of the main walls of the cella, and thus enable a voice to be conveyed into any part of the temple, whilst the person and place from whence it comes remain concealed.

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  Adytum/1.1