Liveblogging the thesis part 2

[hawkwing_lb]

2. The Archaeological Record

History does not consist of completed and crumbling ruins; rather it consists of a half-built villa abandoned by a bankrupt builder.
- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World, 1910


2.1: Delos

Francoise Dunand points out that at Delos, we have the most evidence - and the most complete architectural evidence, as well - for the cult of Isis surviving in a Greek context.# It is also the most limited in terms of time, as the surviving remains and inscriptions date from the beginning of the third century BCE to the sack of Delos in 88 BCE.

Delos, however, does not provide us with evidence of the cult of Isis in isolation. Isis appears to have appealed most to the Greek world either accompanying, or accompanied by, her consort Sarapis, at least initially. Where Sarapeia occur, Isis rarely fails to be eventually mentioned.

We have at Delos three Sarapeia, all of them along the Inopos. Callimachus refers to it as Egyptian Inopos.# In antiquity, the Inopos was believed to connect underground to the Nile. These Sarapeia are separate from the civic and major cult centres of the island. Two of these seem to have been private sanctuaries, Sarapeion A and Sarapeion B.# Sarapeion C, the largest of the three, appears to have been the official, "public", sanctuary,# at least after 180 BCE#. This was the largest of the three complexes, with separate temples to Sarapis, Isis, and Sarapis, Isis and Anubis - although this last identification is uncertain.

The earliest Sarapeion which we know of is Sarapeion A#. IG 1299, sometimes called the Sarapeion chronicle, provides us with an idea of its origins. It seems that Apollonius (I), a priest from Memphis, brought the cult of Sarapis with him to Delos from Egypt, where he was succeeded by his son Demetrios and then Apollonius (II), his grandson. This latter Apollonius is the author of the first part of the inscription: he tells of seeing Sarapis in a dream. The god ordered him to buy the land, then full of filth, where Sarapeion A now stands, and to build "a Sarapeion." This was completed within six months. For an unstated reason, a suit was brought against Apollonios by “wicked men,” but the god worked a miracle in depriving them of all oratorical skill.#

The inscription dates from the latter quarter of the third century, and since Apollonius (II), one of the inscription's authors, is the third priest of Sarapis mentioned, it is most likely early in the third century that Apollonius (I) arrived on Delos with his god in tow. This is contemporary with the rise of Ptolemaic patronage of the cult of Sarapis in Egypt, which reached its apogee under Ptolemy III Euergetes, although there is no evidence to suggest that the Lagides were involved in the establishment or promulgation of the cults of Sarapis or Isis on Delos.#

A further inscription from Sarapeion A, a senatus consultum from 164 BC, authorises Demetrios Renaios#, almost certainly a descendant of Apollonios, to continue to serve the sanctuary. During the Athenian domination, it seems that private cults were still operated by non-Athenians: either Delians or the descendants of immigrants. The evidence suggests Sarapeion A continued through the Athenian period and did not fall out of use before the great abandonment of Delos.#

Only three inscriptions, all of them from after 166 BCE, connect Isis with Sarapis in Sarapeion A. ID 2180 and 2182 mention the Dii Kasiwi which Vidman# identifies with Isis. ID 2135 is a dedication to Sarapis, Isis, Anubis-Hermes, and Apollo-Harpocrates.

Little is known architecturally about the Sarapeion B. It seems to have been the smallest of the three, and only one inscription, IG X 4 1233, mentions Isis: she is paired with Osiris, and Sarapis is not mentioned.

By far our greatest evidence for the presence of Isis, however, comes from the official, public sanctuary, Sarapeion C. Here, in addition to the temple of Sarapis, the excavators also identified a temple to Isis and Sarapis, a temple to Isis alone, and a temple to Isis and Anubis, although this last identification is disputed.#

Its earliest beginnings cannot be pinpointed with certainty, but the site produced the oldest attested inscription regarding the Egyptian cults at Delos. IG XI 4 1306 comes from at least the beginning of third century BCE, if not, as Dunand suggests, the end of the fourth century. It is a dedication to Isis alone, by a woman with an Egyptian name.#

While dedications to Sarapis predominate through both periods#, Isis is often mentioned alongside her consort, and a number of inscriptions, as the very first does, mention her alone. These become more frequent after 168 BCE. Especially notable are the dedications to Isis by the "Athenian people": before 135 BCE, the Athenians dedicated the Doric epistyle of the temple of Isis (ID 2041), and in 129/8 BCE, the Athenian people dedicated a statue to Isis (ID 2044). Another dedication from 122/1, ID 2149, represents an Isiaic meal. A reasonably full list of the inscriptions concerning Isis are collected by Vidman: those which mention her epithets will be discussed later.

Of the surviving inscriptions, it appears that ones which mention Isis alone become more frequent as time goes on. As can be seen from the inscriptions, the number of aspects, including other goddesses, with which she is associated is quite broad, and increases over time.#

The date of the building of the first Iseion is not known with certainty. Neither is the date of the building of Sarapeion C: between the end of the fourth century and approximately 220 BCE, it is not possible to definitively locate the existence of an official sanctuary to Sarapis and to Isis, as we do not have information analogous to the chronicle inscription for Sarapeion A. The Iseion can be dated by inscription to 220 BCE# and the Sarapeion C was certainly in existence by 215 BCE.# This Iseion existed within the boundary of the official sanctuary of Sarapis, as did a structure the excavators identified as a temple or chapel to Anubis, and another smaller temple, dedicated to Sarapis, Isis and Anubis by the Athenian people in 134 BCE.# There also appears to have been a further Iseion adjacent to the Dromos#

During the third century, it appears that an explosion took place in terms of the popularity of the Egyptian cults on Delos, and an explosion, also, in terms of the popularity of Isis. We can see this in the numerous inscriptions of the second century: Isis, heretofore scarcely mentioned at Sarapeions A and B, appears in the inscriptional record, and at Sarapeion C, receives numerous dedications alone. This activity cannot be viewed in a vacuum, but must be seen in terms of cult developments elsewhere. Her growing popularity is connected to her increasing accessibility to a Greek audience: it is not coincidence that our first surviving Isis aretalogy, the Maroneia aretalogy, dates from the second century.

During the Athenian period, the cult structure at Sarapieion C consisted of an Athenian priest, a frequently Athenian subpriest (ὑφιερεύς), a sometimes Athenian kleidouchos, and other, non-Athenian cult personnel: the zakoros, the kanēphoros - this position was held by a woman - the dream interpreter, lamp bearers, and aretologists.# It seems that Sarapis and Isis had a greater appeal for Athenians in Delos than nearly any other Delian cult: the level of private, priestly, and state participation revealed by the inscriptions is, as Mikalson says "unparalleled among the cults of Delos."#

While most of the donors to special projects at Sarapeion C (ID 2614–25) in the later half of the second century bore Greek names - with a minority being Roman, and many likely freedmen or slaves - only a handful can be identified as Athenians (ID 2616.I.3–10, 2619.6–10).# Eight of the nearly one hundred and thirty surviving private dedications to the Egyptian deities can also be attributed to Athenians, with several being to Isis alone: in addition to the dedications by the priest Sosion, son of Eumenes (PA 13302), of 110/09 which included a temple and statue of Isis Nemesis along with other dedications (ID 2038, 2062–64), in 92/1 a priest's brother erected a dedication to Isis Aphrodite Dikaia (ID 2158) and in the late second century an Athenian - perhaps, by his choice of epithet, a frequent sailor or a ship captain - dedicated an altar to Isis Euploia (ID 2153).

After the sack of Delos, it seems the temple of Isis was repaired with material from the rest of the Sarapeion and the neighbouring sanctuary of the Syrian gods, attesting to continued attachment to the cult of Isis, and potentially indicating a stronger attachment to the cult of Isis than to the conjoined cult of Isis and Sarapis, or of Sarapis alone.# Bruneau argues, on the basis of a single Corinthian lamp with a representation of Isis Pelagia, that the temple of Isis continued in use, or was restored after a period of disuse, into the second century CE.# This is, of course, a valid interpretation, but a single potential votive offering from a late period does not a continuing cult presence make. It is equally possible that this late deposition represents an isolated event, or that it is indeed the result of the blind chance which Bruneau dismisses. On the other hand, Bruneau may well be correct: the second century CE presence of Isiaic cult on Delos is consistent with the popularity of Isis at other sites at this time.#

We must consider, however, what effect Athenian rule had on the development of the cult of Isis at Delos; and, indeed, at Athens herself. It was Athenian citizens, after 168 BCE, who held office as priests of Sarapis and Isis in the Sarapeion C at Delos; Athenian citizens who kept records of the activity of the cult; who dedicated epistyle and statue and chapel to Isis; and Athenian citizens among those who made votive offerings as individuals. How did the cult of Isis develop at Athens?


2.2: Attica: Athens and the Piraeus


In 333/332, the Athenians voted to allow the merchants of Kition in Cyprus to set up a hieron to Aphrodite, as the Egyptians had previously been allowed to do for Isis. This is recorded in an inscription, IG II(2) 337, which comes from the Piraeus. Such special permission was necessary because noncitizens were not allowed to own land in Attica. Grants of this type were very rare: Simms points out that "We have record of only three grants of enktesis for the purpose of building a sanctuary: the Thracians for a temple to Bendis (IG II(2) 1283), and the two grants referred to in this inscription. i.e., those to the Citians (for Aphrodite) and to the Egyptians (for Isis)."# It indicates that in the middle fourth century, the cult of Isis already existed in some form in the Piraeus of Athens, and that it had been established recently enough for the precedent to be remembered. Bar one Isigenes of Rhamnous,# epigraphically attested in IG II(2) 1927 ll.148-150, this is the earliest existing evidence for the reception of Isis in Attica, and this, unlike a single theophoric name (which may indicate a family attachment to a particular god), attests the existence of a sanctuary, with presumably the attendant paraphernalia of priesthood, cult statue, and dedications.

Simms assesses the arguments for the likelihood of the organised worship of Isis existing in some form in Athens prior to the establishment of the hieron.# Like Dow,# she concludes that one theophoric name and the potential relationship between Lycurgos the proposer of this decree and the Lycurgos mocked in Aristophanes# for his interest in things Egyptian is not sufficient evidence to maintain that the Egyptian merchants received their grant of enktesis and thus permission to officially worship their god much prior to the Cypriot grant. Simms convincingly argues that both the Egyptian and the Kitian grants should be seen in light of Lycurgos' programme to revitalise an Athens which, by this time, had lost any claims to an empire or a confederacy and was more reliant upon its indigenous resources than it had been for over a century.

"Trade was vital to the success of Lycurgus' program; the foreign merchants were vital to trade...The decree states that it is the merchants of Citium who have requested a site for a sanctuary for their goddess Aphrodite. It was probably also Egyptian merchants who were given land to build a sanctuary of Isis.# Athenian trade with Egypt was of long standing... Since foreign merchants were not protected by the state gods, it was only reasonable that they would desire a domicile in Athens for one of their native deities. In other words, the grants of enktesis to the Citians and the Egyptians had a purely economic motivation, i.e., the encouragement of foreign trade."#

On the basis of coincidence, it is not possible to adduce a personal religious motive for Lycurgos with regard either to the introduction of Isis or of Aphrodite: we cannot demonstrate his interest in either Egyptian or specifically Isiaic cult.# Indeed, there is no demonstrable citizen participation in the cult of Isis in Athens for at least the next century.

Theophoric names are, however, important evidence for tracing the development of Isiaic (and Sarapic) cult in Athens. Before about 240 BCE, Egyptian theophoric names are extremely rare.# Apart from Isigenes, the first example is that of a Sarapion, who appears in an inscription# of the beginning of the second century BCE as the father of an honoured priest, one AmmoniosL unusually, as in Athens Egyptian theophoric names in a family usually derive from the same god. Thus we can place Sarapion in the third century. After this other Sarapic names appear, but not until the second half of the second century.#

The appearance of the name Sarapion coincides with the establishment at Athens of a society of "Sarapiasts". An inscription from either the middle of the third century or of 216/5-215/4 BCE affords us information on the organisation and the activities of this society,# which seems to have existed for a while without being particularly important: it is difficult to say whether the members were metics or freedmen, but it is probable that Athenian citizens were not among them, as there are no patronymics or demotics.# The putative chief of the college was a woman, the proeranistria, who carried out a central role in the cult: she received praise and a crown for having carried out the sacrifices during games. From the list of officers, Dow argues (and Dunand concurs) for a membership figure of between fifty and eighty persons#, which celebrated sacrifices and games in honour of Sarapis. Dunand uses the evidence of the inscription to argue for the existence of a Sarapeion, "in which the proeranistria would carry out the sacrifices and where the decree honouring the association's principal members would be displayed."# This is plausible, but, sadly, presently unprovable.

We cannot say for certain that Isis was also honoured by the Sarapiasts. However, as Sarapis and Isis frequently appear together elsewhere, it is far from unlikely that this Athenian association also acknowledged Isis as Sarapis' consort.

Isis certainly continued to be honoured in the Piraeus during this period. While there is no epigraphic evidence for the third century, there is a statue of Isis or of a priestess of the goddess, discovered in 1959. It dates most likely from the third century,# and while the bands crossed over the breast and the arms hidden under the mantle are Egyptian elements, the hairstyle, clothing, and features of this statue are incontestably of the Greek type. Is this the same Isis of the Egyptian cult which we know of from the fourth century? Does this represent a hybridisation of Egyptian and Greek cult? Or is it, as Dunand asks, a purely Greek cult of an Egyptian goddess?# Questions of Greekness must wait, however, for the final chapter of this study.

Dunand argues that the introduction of Isis, known from the fourth century, stems from different motives than the introduction of Sarapis roughly a century later: where Isis was initially installed by Egyptians for personal religious reasons, for Dunand the arrival of Sarapis is a response to a new, mobile political order, in which the influence exercised by the Ptolemaic dynasty over the Greek world is a significant contributing factor. While Athens enjoys a cordial relationship with the Lagides after achieving independence from the Macedonians, the absence of direct Lagide involvement with the cult of Sarapis outside Egypt is notable: even within Egypt, royal involvement in and support for the cult of Sarapis begins to diminish noticeably with the reign of the fourth Ptolemy, as P.M. Fraser has demonstrated.#

The association of Sarapiasts at Athens does not imply the existence of a public cult. It is not until the last quarter of the third century# that we can be reasonably certain of the appearance of a public cult to the Egyptian gods. We do not possess much evidence about its beginnings: the oldest inscription dates from the end of the third or the start of the second century.# Not until the second half of the second century does the evidence relating to the cult of Isis become more plentiful and more explicit: and in this period there is a large body of inscriptional evidence for Athenian patronage of the cults of Isis and Sarapis at Delos. Isis, in particular, appears to have been favoured by the Athenian people.# An inscription dating from the last years of the second century and formerly thought to have come from Delos in fact comes from Athens, where it was found.# It provides us with evidence for the organisation of the cult of the Egyptian gods. The cultic personnel included the kleidouchos, the zakoros, and the interpreter of dreams. While the priest and the kleidouchos were both Athenian citizens, the others were foreigners, the dream interpreter coming from Antioch. It is again hard to estimate how much the cult of the Egyptian gods in Athens retained of Egyptian practice: while we know that dream interpretation was important in the cult in Egypt, it is not as though it was an uncommon practice in Greece.

This inscription sees Isis, in first place, accompanied by Sarapis, and Anubis and Harpocrates as well. We can compare this with the Delian inscriptions, which usually place Sarapis first.# But Isis, in Athens as in Delos, is not always accompanied by other deities. An inscription to Isis Dikaiosyne# must come from the Sarapeion,# attesting to the close links between the respective worship of Isis and Sarapis even when they are not explicitly connected.

By the first century BCE, it appears that of the two deities associated in the common cult, Isis had become pre-eminent.# She figures on Athenian coins of the end of the second century and of the first century,# and, Dunand argues, in the first century BCE, possesses a sanctuary on the southern side of the Acropolis. Walker confirms the existence of a monumental sanctuary to Isis on the Asklepion terrace in the Hadrianic period, but because of the many topographical problems connected with the history of the buildings on the south slope of Acropolis, it is difficult to reconstruct the existence of any earlier cult structure for Isis.# It is not impossible, however, that one existed: in the fifth century BCE, the spring-house at the west end of the Asklepion terrace became a centre for a state cult to Pan and the Nymphs, and in the third quarter of the first century BCE, a block of Hymettan marble was erected to record the names of the deities honoured in this area. It comprised five names on three panels: the first panel being Hermes, Aphrodite, and Pan; the second, the Nymphs; and the third, Isis,# and it is probable that the dedication of a statue of Aphrodite to Isis in the second century CE represents an identification of the two previously unconnected cults, with Isis predominating.#

Whether or not it is possible to establish the existence of a sanctuary to Isis on the Acropolis during the first century BCE, however, it is certain that an official cult of Isis existed in Attica at the end of the Hellenistic period. A decree of the Athenian Boule dating from the second half of the first century BCE has prescriptions concerning the cult of Isis and Sarapis.# Pollitt discusses EM 13342, found in 1961 at Pikermi, in the former deme of Teithras. This inscription can be divided into two parts: the first, as previously mentioned, dating from the second half of the first century BCE, and the second, dating from the first century CE. The inscription concerns a joint cult of Isis and Sarapis, and provides for the yearly appointment of a zakoros (zakoroV), and makes provision for a formal denunciation of those who violate sacral regulations. It mentions a naoV, probably a temple to Isis and Sarapis, with which the stoa - on one of the columns from which the inscription was carved - also mentioned in the inscription was probably associated.

A number of inscriptions attest the increasing popularity of Isis during the course of the first century, as do the grave reliefs of women in the dress of Isis from Athens, studied in great detail by E.J. Walker. While the majority of the extant reliefs date from the period after the first half of the first century CE, the earliest are Augustan in date. A relief of Isis from the Agora, and a stele inscribed to Onesiphoron, both fragmentary, were sculpted by skilled craftsmen. The Onesiphoron stele is quite large, and the Agora relief is life size. These are the only two extant reliefs to show sistrum and situla in motion.# As they stand at the beginning of the corpus of Athenian grave reliefs using the dress of Isis, these must be seen as a significant development in the growth of the cult at Athens, especially in light of Isis's popularity in the Roman period, which gives us Isiaic material written by such eminent Greeks as Plutarch.

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I've reached my Designated Halfway Rest Point. Brief stoppage, and straight on till morning. Or at least, till all the damn citations are bloody well cited.

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

::comprehends::

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[clarentine]

I can follow the thrust of the arguments.

I'm assuming the format of the opening paragraphs (in previous post) are following a pre-determined rule? I was a little confused by some of the transitions (that is, lack thereof), but that may be an artifact of the format.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I'm making up the rules of the format as I go along. Since Athens and Delos have different histories, I needed something that would give me an excuse to jump between them without the need for an elaborate segue.

If you could tell me more specifically what is confusing, I'd greatly appreciate it.

(Thank you, if I haven't said it already, for reading.)

[clarentine]

See previous rock, then; I'll post my comment there.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Thanks.