Temple of Apollo ekphrasis-Book 6

When Aeneas lands at Cumae he heads directly for the Temple of Apollo, which is located at “the citadel’s heights”. There was a huge cave which was the house of the sibyl, or prophetess, who spoke with the authority of Apollo. 

In front of this Temple there is a grove with a shrine to the “Goddess at Crossroads” who is identified in the gloss as Hecate. Apparently her shrine was at Avernus, which is a crater and lake outside the city of Cumae, but Virgil blended the two sites into one shrine.

Aeneas sees doors made by the famous inventor Daedalus after his escape from Crete. He was the man who created the maze to imprison the Minotaur, and was later thrown into it himself. In order to escape he invented working sets of wings to allow both himself and his son Icarus to fly way.

These doors show some important mythological scenes. The first  scene on the first door shows the murder of Androgeos’, a son of Minos and Pasiphae, who was murdered in Athens by rival athletes after winning all the contests. This murder is the reason Athens must send young people to Crete as sacrifices to the Minotaur.

Then an image of the children of Cecrops, who was half man and half serpent.  Apparently his children died after opening a box which Athena gave them, but warned them never to open.This is used as a general reference to the people of Athens.

The doors also showed the urn used to draw lots, which was the Athenian method for making impartial decisions, and the means by which the young men and women were chosen as sacrifices for the Minotaur.

Next, “opposite” (I do not know if this means the opposite door or the opposite side of the door?) is the city of Knossos on Crete. Apparently the doors showed Pasiphae with the bull who was the Minotaur’s father. Then the Minotaur itself, and it’s maze house which Daedalus constructed.

Here Virgil addresses Icarus, Daedalus’ son, and tells him that he would have been an important figure on the doors but his father was too grieved over his death. Daedalus was unable to show his son his death even though he tried twice. 

Aeneas is summoned into the temple, which is situated in an enormous cave with a hundred tunnels running off in myriad directions.