Liveblogging the thesis part 3
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hawkwing_lb3. The Image of Isis
The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.
- Ezra Pound, "Affirmations IV: As for Imagisme," 1915
3.1. Introduction.
We are fortunately endowed with a large body of evidence relating to the iconography and mythology of Isis in both pre-Ptolemaic Egyptian and Roman contexts. This good fortune is counterbalanced by the fact that outside Egypt, during the Hellenistic period, the evidence is not as abundant as one might wish, and our ability to construct a reasonably full picture of the evolution of the image of Isis is affected by the uneven preservation of figural remains and the regional and chronological variation in the epithets of Isis attested in epigraphy.
3.2. Isis in Egypt.
The Pyramid Texts, among the earliest records of Egyptian religion, indicate that Isis is one of the earliest of Egypt's goddess. From the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, Isis, along with Hathor, was one of a number of goddesses associated with bovine and maternal imagery.# By the New Kingdom, Isis appears to have eclipsed Hathor in importance, in several sites becoming associated with iconography and titles that had previously belonged to the Sky Cow,# and achieving pre-eminence in a number of significant symbolic areas. As the sister-wife of Osiris, she held dominion in the netherworld; as the mother of Horus the child, Hor-pa-khered which the Greeks transliterated as Harpocrates, she had a maternal role and stood as protector and legitimator of the king, who is identified with Horus. Riding in and guiding the barque of Re, she defended against evil. She was also associated with the inundation of the Nile, and thus with the fertility of the land.# It is in this capacity, it seems, that she was first known to the Greeks, as the "Demeter of the Egyptians".#
In the Egyptian context, her iconographic repertoire contains certain consistent elements: the uraeus, the stylised serpent which symbolised sovereignty; the headdress, which, with her assimilation of many of the roles and titles of Hathor and Mut, became less often the stylised throne, and more often a combination of the horns-and-sundisk of Hathor and the paired vulture headdress of Mut: the paired vultures and the sundisk occur frequently in the headdress of Isis.#
With the arrival of Alexander and his successors, the Lagides, Isis acquired another spouse, Sarapis, and a further set of associations. While a discussion of the origins of the god Sarapis are beyond the scope of this present thesis (and indeed are more than adequately discussed by P.M. Fraser#), it must be noted that it appears Sarapis is a Greek form of the Egyptian name Osor-Hapi, Osiris in his form of Apis, the bull of Memphis. Sarapis was promoted by Ptolemy II alongside the royal cult in Alexandria. It is Sarapis who, alongside Isis and much less prominently, Harpocrates and Anubis, appears initially to be the more prominent deity in this selection of Egyptian gods who frequently share a cult sanctuary in the wider Greek world.# By the Roman period, this trend is reversed, with Isis the more prominent deity. One of the questions this thesis intends to raise is why this should be so.
The surviving images of Sarapis within and outside Egypt portray him in the Greek style. Within Egypt, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Isis is portrayed in both Greek and Egyptian styles of sculpture. Outside Egypt, as one might expect, the Greek style predominates, and while it is possible that the Egyptian style existed in some Greek locations, no evidence for it survives.
3.3. Isis in Greece.
The image of Isis in the early phase of her introduction to Greece as an object of cult is not simple to reconstruct. Fraser discusses, and dismisses, official Ptolemaic interest in the spread of the cult,# and while the earliest dedication at the site of the sanctuary of the Egyptian gods at Delos is to Isis by an Egyptian woman, the remains of the statue of Isis from Sarapeion C are rather later in date, and show an Isis modelled after Aphrodite. Likewise, at Athens we know that Egyptians were granted a site from the worship of Isis at the Piraeus, but as yet no other evidence has come to light for that particular cult, and we do not know whether or not it imported Egyptian norms wholesale - including Egyptian style sculpture - or whether it included Greek elements, which may have included the use of a Greek sculptor to create the cult statue. Indeed, Isiaic figures are scant in Athens and Attica before the Roman period. Only in the first century BCE, which gives us two incidences of grave reliefs featuring women "in the dress of Isis", a genre ably catalogued and discussed by E.J. Walters, do potential Isiaic representations begin to appear.
It is possible that Walters' interpretation may be challenged by analysis put forward by Sally-Ann Ashton, in her discussion of the sculptural portrayals of royal women in Hellenistic Egypt, although Walters' identification of the grave reliefs as representing women who were most likely connected to the cult of Isis in either Delos or Athens remains convincing.
Walters succeeds in establishing a typology of grave reliefs featuring what she terms "women in the dress of Isis". These grave reliefs appear in the archaeological record in the latter half of the first century BCE and are present until the latter part of the third century CE. They "belong to a period of heightened production of figured grave reliefs in Athens,"# and we may view them as reliable indicators of the establishment of Isiaic cult in Athens. They begin to appear after the Athenian abandonment of Delos, where members of prominent Athenian families appear to have participated in the cult of Isis and Sarapis. It is far from likely that this coincidence of timing is due to serendipity alone. Walters links this uptick in Isiaic imagery both to Delian influence, and - chronologically - to the period of Roman domination.#
These grave reliefs feature women in a mantle with a long fringe, knotted at the chest in the so-called "Isiaic knot", worn over a sleeved gown, an Egyptian style of dress which "was the most popular and distinctive form of dress for representations of Isis in the Roman Empire."# Walters goes to some effort to compare the imagery of the Attic grave reliefs with those of representations of female dress in Egypt, most notably those of the Ptolemaic queens, and assumes that this type of representation, with fringed mantle and corkscrewed hair, is intended to assimilate the royal women to Isis. She thus assumes that these iconographic elements were Isiaic before they were royal.
Ashton, however, demonstrates that Ptolemaic royal iconography was transferred into the iconographic repertoire of Isiaic cult, and was well-established therein by the Roman period. She argues that the association between this type of representation and the goddess Isis only developed in the Roman period, possibly as a result of Cleopatra VII's use of the goddess for political legitimation. "The close association between deities and their assimilation to foreign equivalents," she says, "may explain how attributes that were intended to represent Ptolemaic queens were taken by the Hellenistic Greeks in Egypt and overseas to represent an Egyptian goddess."# If Ptolemaic royal iconography became associated with priestesses of Isiaic cult, surely this raises questions about the evolution of the image of Isis from an Egyptian goddess associated with the legitimation of the king to a more universal power.
Walters mentions three representations from the period with which we are concerned. The Onesiphoron stele (N.M. 3036), which is a grave stele, and the fragmentary Agora relief (S 1142) are both Augustan in date. They carry sistrum and situla, both in - as Walters says - subtle motion, and may come from the same workshop. They have Walters' "dress of Isis."# The votive relief of Isis Dikaiosyne (N.M 8426), from the early first century BCEE, also features Isis in this dress, but this is the first example of it in Athens, and there are only three early representations from the Hellenistic world outside Egypt, two from Smyrna, and one from Rhodes.# There is no evidence of this dress from Delos, where Athenian involvement in the cult of Sarapis and Isis grew during the period of Athenian domination: it is only in Athens under Roman rule that this Egyptian garb becomes -- and remains for over three centuries -- popular in connection with the cult of Isis.
On Delos, by contrast, the remains of the colossal statue of Isis in the Iseion, dated to 128/7 BCE, is in the form of Aphrodite, leaning leftwards, and draped in a chiton. A standing figure in chiton and plain mantle, diagonally draped from her left shoulder, seems to have been a common cult figure of Isis,# and is known on coins as early as 117/6 B.C.# So while evidence from the Roman empire supports the popularity of the "dress of Isis", it is far from common during the Hellenistic period.
It becomes apparent, looking at the evidence from elsewhere in the Greek world during the Hellenistic period, that the use of Ptolemaic royal iconography in the cult of Isis at Athens may in fact be something of an outlier: an imaginative adaptation of iconography from the last of the Hellenistic monarchies in a city now subordinate to the greater power of Rome. In practice, of course, it seems unlikely that the process was as quite intentional as I have made it sound, but it is, at least, a theory that fits the evidence as we know it.
A representation of Isis which becomes far more popular in the Hellenistic period is that of the nursing Isis. While a handful of Late Dynastic examples exist, it's clear that the popularity of Isis suckling Harpokrates is a Hellenistic innovation. Vincent Tran Tam Tinh, in his catalogue of this type of representation, identifies three main statue groups from the pre-imperial period: Isis nursing seated on a throne,# Isis nursing raising a chalice of acanthus leaves,# and Isis nursing seated on a wicker basket.# We have one example of the enthroned Isis lactans from Delos.# Tran Tam Tinh suggests that the Isis lactans type demonstrates new emphasis on her role as a maternal deity as well an agricultural one,# but the architectural prominence of mammisi in Egyptian temenoi related to Isis would rather argue, it seems, for a Greek representation of a pre-existing Egyptian theme.
3.4. The image of Isis in the literature.
Our evidence for views of Isis in literature is diverse. The problem with this diversity, however, is that it spans several centuries and a number of disparate geographic locations, from the hymns at the temple of Philae in Upper Egypt to the hymns of Isidoros in the Fayyum, and from the aretalogies of Kyme and Maroneia, among others, with their possible basis in an original Memphite text to the literary compositions of Apuleius of Madaurus in Book 11 of his Metamorphoses in the second century C.E., not leaving aside Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride.
It is my intention to briefly examine these materials both geographically and chronologically, starting with the hymns from Philae, and to discuss thematically at the end of this overview what can be deduced from this material regarding the image of Isis in Hellenistic Greece. A further discussion regarding the growth in the popularity of Isis during this period will follow.
3.4.1. Philae.
There are a number of hymns from several different structures at Philae, where Arsinoe II is also a synnaos theos, a temple-sharing goddess. While there is some evidence to indicate that Philae might have been in use during the Ramesside period,# it is only in the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty that this site becomes significant in terms of religious activity, and only in the Ptolemaic period that it acquires the importance as a cult centre of Isis which it retains until the sixth century CE.#
At Philae, during the Hellenistic period, the iconography remains strongly Egyptian and Pharaonic. Ptolemy is portrayed as Pharaoh, and Isis is shown in purely Egyptian terms. So too, the hymns, ably catalogued and discussed in Zabkar's work, show few, if any, non-Egyptian elements. According to the inscriptions, it is the king who recites the hymns,# although others - perhaps priests and/or other cultic personnel - may have spoken them during festivals and ceremonies. The relationship which emerges from the hymns is one which exists between the king and the goddess, in which the king offers the goddess her due respect and titulature, which in turn legitimises the king: "The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Usikare-meramun, adores his mother Isis."# Isis is, of course, "Queen of the gods," and, "divine mother of Horus;"# "First royal spouse of Onnophris," and, "one who protects her brother and watches over the weary-of-heart;"# "giver of life", "lady and desire of the green fields", "fragrance of the palace", "lady of upper and lower Egypt who issues orders among the divine Ennead;"# "the one who pours out the inundation that makes all people live and green plants grow", "the lady of Heaven, Earth and the Netherworld;"# "like Re when he shows himself in the morning", "ruler of gods and goddesses", "mightier than the mighty", "great of massacre against her enemy", "who gives orders in the barque of the king of upper and lower Egypt;"# "the one who rises and dispels darkness", "the brilliant one in the celestial waters;"# "mistress of women", "pre-eminent in upper Egypt", "mistress of lower Egypt;"# "eldest in the womb of Nut", "great of magical power", "beloved of Re", "whom the gods have propitiated after rage."# All these hymns - which show a universalising trend in the manner in which they incorporate many aspects previously associated with Hathor, but are significantly less total in their claims than the Isidoros hymns or the aretalogies - serve to display and legitimate the king's relationship with the goddess and the king's equivalence with Horus. Their ideology - vis-a-vis the goddess and the individual, less so vis-a-vis the goddess and the world - is much more closely located than the ideology of the other hymns of praise. Isis emerges as a goddess of many powers, but one who is concerned primarily with the pharaoh, her "son", and one whose concerns exist principally in an Egyptian milieu. The hymns of Philae may be seen chiefly as the natural evolution of the indigenous Egyptian tradition.
3.4.2.Hymns of Isidorus.
The hymns of Isidorus come from Medinet Madi in the southern Fayyum, unearthed by an Italian excavation team in 1935 at the site of a temple to Isis-Hermouthis. They were found in the rectangular court of the temenos, carved into the antae of the entryways. Three are addressed to Isis-Hermouthis, of which two mention two other gods who are synnaos with Hermouthis; Sokonopis, a crocodile divinity, and Anchoes, addressed here as the goddess's son. The fourth hymn is not in honour of the goddess, but of a local hero, Porramanres, who is said to have 'founded' the temple. While the hymns themselves contain no specific date, on the evidence of the dedication of the antae to Ptolemy IX Soter and allusions within the hymns, Vanderlip dates the hymn inscriptions and probably their composition also, to between 88 and 80 BCE.#
The relationship which emerges from the hymns of Isidorus is rather less royal and elite-focussed in nature, while also being influenced by external (Greek) ideas and goddesses. Here Isis is both the local goddess Isis-Hermouthis and the more universal Thiouis "because you alone are all other goddesses named by the races of men."# This is the Isis of many names, and here she is associated with a number of goddesses from Syria, Thrace, and Greece, most notably Astarte, Hera, Aphrodite, and Demeter. Astarte, Aphrodite, and Demeter, are also associated with her in the inscriptions from Delos, and in the literature.
We see in this universalising trend the beginnings of the idea of a more personal relationship between goddess and worshipper which seems to come to the fore in the later Roman mystery cults. Isis is "Immortal Saviour", able - and, presumably, at least in some cases - willing to relieve her worshipper from pain.# Indeed, this personal relationship is reflected in the situation of the hymns themselves: unlike those at Philae, which were most likely written to be recited as part of a ritual or festival,# it seems as plausible as not that the hymns of Isidorus were an expression of the personal devotion of the author.
Isis is Agathetyche, good fortune, in whom 'every city rejoices', discoverer of life and grain, with dominion over child-bearing# and the Nile.# She can heal the sick and cause merchants to prosper. In hymn 3, Isis is 'ruler of the highest gods', and 'giver of all good things' who can grant both material gain and 'soundness of understanding,'# in addition to long life, and here she may also defend the 'most dear of princes', for she is able to annihilate those who come against him and give courage to the few who stand with him.# Hymn 3 is also interesting in that it plays up the universalising aspects of Isidorus' view of Isis: whether she is in Libya, or the south wind, or the north wind, or the east wind, or Olympus with the Olympians, or in "heaven above, a judge with the immortal gods,"# Isis still directs the world of men and witnesses individual virtue.
These hymns are later than (in general) the ones from Philae, and later than the Maroneia aretalogy at least. While they can be said with certainty to reflect only local, specific views of Isis and Isis-Hermouthis, we can see in them - and in Isidorus' use of classical Greek vocabulary - a blend of Greek and Egyptian elements which also occurs in the early aretalogies. Egyptian Isis, having already gathered to herself many aspects and titles of other Egyptian goddesses, is now doing the same thing to Greek and Syrian deities, as her worshippers interpret her in the light of their own experiences and understandings of the world. We can see also in this universalising tendency of Isidorus's hymns the beginnings of the trend towards henotheism in her cult which would come to the fore much more prominently in the Roman period and which is so clearly in evidence in chapter eleven of Apuleius's Metamorphoses.
Yet the degree of commonality between the epithets of Isis used in the Fayyum hymns and the ones from Philae is striking, given the distance between the sites, and speaks to a continuity in thought and conception which exists alongside the alterations that take place in the goddess's image over time and across space. This continuity is also to be seen in the aretalogies of Kyme and Maroneia, which we will discuss next.
3.4.3. Greek Aretalogies
The aretalogies have been discussed since the discovery of the Andros aretalogy, a praise hymn to Isis from the first century BCE, in 1838, a discussion which has only grown more complex with the discovery of aretalogies from Thessalonica (1st-2ndC CE) Ios (2nd-3rdC CE), Kyme (1stC-2nd C CE), and Maroneia (2ndC BCE).
The question of whether these aretalogies owe their descent to an original Memphite text (mentioned in both the Kyme and Andros texts), is one which has been much debated. Yves Grandjean, on the publication of the Maroneia aretalogy, is among those who have discussed it at length.# The evidence supports the possibility, and on the basis of the numerous points of congruence with Egyptian epithets and phrases related to Isis, it may be said to be plausible. As it is not a question which can be easily settled in the absence of further evidence, however, this thesis will not attempt to address it. We will take the issue of the M-text as likely but presently unproveable, and proceed on that basis to treat of the Maroneia and the Kyme aretalogies and their relationship to the image of Isis in Greece.
3.4.3.1. Maroneia
The Maroneia text is the oldest known of the Isis aretalogies outside Egypt, and the latest to be found. Published in the 1970s by French scholar Yves Grandjean, it can be dated on palaeographical grounds to the second part of the second century BCE.# It, like the Kyme text, is practically complete, rendering it immensely important to the study of the image of Isis.
The Maroneia text is also important for its location. Not in the islands, nor yet in Asia Minor, Maroneia lies to Greece's north, in Thrace. That the earliest known of the Greek aretalogies should be so distant from Egypt itself has significant implications for our understanding of the spread of Egyptian religion: we cannot merely subscribe to simplistic models of geographic diffusion, particularly in the highly mobile Hellenistic world. To understand the image of Isis, we must attempt to engage in imaginative empathy, and attempt to elucidate why she appealed in specific ways to specific persons at specific places.
The writer of the Maroneia aretalogy composed his hymn of praise, we are told, out of gratitude for the miraculous healing of his eyes. It differs from the other aretalogies in not following an I-formula: the Maroneia text uses the second and the third person interchangeably to refer to the goddess, a form of address similar to the Isidorus hymns. Unlike the later aretalogies, too, it begins by describing the goddess's origins, rather than opening immediately with praises, and it is composed in prose.
It also contains many more Greek elements than the later aretalogies: instead of naming Osiris as the goddess's husband, it names Sarapis, mentions Helios and Selene, and identifies Isis with Demeter:
"[A]mong the Greek cities you most honour Athens. It is there that for the first time you made known the fruits of the earth... This is why we are eager to see in Greece, Athens, and in Athens, Eleusis, considering (Athens) the city of Europe, and (Eleusis) the sanctuary of the city."#
It reflects also the movement towards henotheism "...[Y]ou are called the many by men; life indeed knows you alone to be the gods." The rest of its component parts reflect the concerns of the other aretalogies: Isis discovered writing with Hermes, both sacred and demotic, and reflects a distinction between initiated and others; established justice, and language both Greek and barbarian; gave laws and led to the establishment of cities, caused parents to be honoured by children, and arranged for life to come into being through man and woman.
3.4.3.2. Kyme.
Kyme (also Cyme) was one of the major Greek cities of Aeolis in western Anatolia. Strabo locates it north of the river Hermus,# and Dunand discusses the cult of Isis there in the third volume of her useful survey.#
The Kyme aretalogy is the most complete of the known aretalogies, all of which are similar to it in form, which is why we are examining it alongside the Maroneia text, despite its relatively late date. Although later in date than the Maroneia text, it contains a greater amount of more obviously Egyptian elements. While - as the Kyme aretalogy is complete, and the Maroneia one is not - it is impossible to say that the concerns of the Kyme aretalogy would not also be found in a complete version of the Maroneia aretalogy: certainly the Kyme text elaborates on the kinds of authority with which Isis is endowed. While certain concerns are mirrored - writing, laws, cities, relations between men and women - some, such as justice/retribution, as elaborated, and some, particularly the concerns with the sea, the heavens - sun, moon and stars - and destiny, which are not mentioned in the Maroneia text, have a prominent place here.
The Kyme aretalogy, unlike the Maroneia aretalogy, names Isis as the sister-wife of Osiris, rather than the wife of Sarapis: she is the eldest daughter of Kronos, rather than the daughter of Earth, and in the Kyme aretalogy, she is the mother of King Horus, thus emphasising her connections to Egyptian royalty and divinity. "For me was built the city of Bubastis," renders her specific to one Egyptian locality even as the rest of the aretalogy makes much of her universal aspects.
Her concern with the sea - "I devised the activities of seamanship" and "I calm the sea and make it surge" - reflects the growth of the cult of Isis Pelagia at Alexandria in the first centuries BCE and CE. But as for the rest of the hymn, it, much more so than the Maroneia text, views Isis as a goddess who is concerned with establishing right order in the universe. Whereas the Isis of Maroneia "discovered" writings, gave laws, and established justice and languages, the Isis of Kyme devised letters, gave laws and "ordained what no one can change". She is involved with the fundamental order of existence: "I separated the earth from the heaven. I showed the paths of the stars. I regulated the course of the sun and the moon," in addition to being involved with the fundamental order of domestic and civil existence: "I brought together woman and man. I assigned to women to bring into light their infants in the tenth month" is coequal with "I established the sacred precincts of the gods. I abolished the rules of the tyrants. I put an end to murders," and "I made the good and the bad to be distinguished by nature."
This agglomeration of roles can be seen as a continuation of the process that led, in Egypt, to Isis in many places acquiring associations that had previously belonged to Hathor or other gods. The strengths of Hellenistic religion - indeed, Greco-Roman religion after the second century BCE - and particularly the non-indigenous cults such as those of Cybele, Atargatis, Mithras and Isis lay in flexibility; in their ability to be many things to many people, and to provide the framework within which the world - domestic, civil, natural, supernatural - can be explained and understood. And if these explanations are frequently mutually contradictory, that may also be counted among their strengths. The Walt Whitman quote is apposite: "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"#
We have seen thus far that universalising tendencies appear as forerunners to and companions of henotheism. The henotheistic view, already visibly present albeit in embryonic form in the Maroneia aretalogy and in a more developed form in the Kyme text ("No one is honoured without my consent") reaches its pinnacle in Apuleius's Metamorphoses XI.5. Here Isis is, "I who am the mother of the universe, the mistress of all the elements, the first offspring of time, the highest of the deities, the queen of the dead, foremost of heavenly beings, the single form that fuses all gods and goddesses."
While the Metamorphoses are separated in time from the Maroneia aretalogy by two centuries, and the Kyme aretalogy by perhaps as much as one, it is almost certain that Apuleius was aware of the contents of at least some of the earlier aretalogies. The tendency towards henotheism was in existence from the earliest, becoming more prominent over time. So, too, the agglomerative nature of Isis cult, which we may see at work in the number of epithets which are given Isis by her worshippers at Delos and elsewhere.
3.5. The epithets of Isis in the inscriptions at Delos and elsewhere.
Athens:
Vidman, no. 6: Isis Dikaiosyne, first century BCE.
Delos:
IG XI 4, 1305, Aphrodite, Sarapeion A, before 166 BCE
IG XI 4, 1306, to Isis (no epithet), by Taessa, Sarapeion C, 3rd C BCE (earliest dedicatory inscription to the Egyptian gods)
IG XI 4, 1253, to Anoubis Hegemon, Sarapis Soter and Isis Soteira, according to the prostagma of the god, Sarapeion C, before 166 BCE (2nd C)
IG XI 4, 1254, and IG XI 4, 1255, are the same dedication
IG XI 4, 1234, According to the prostagma of Osiris, to the all-powerful gods, and to the all-powerful Great Mother (possibly Isis Pantokrateira as known in POxy 1380, 20), Sarapeion C, before 166 BCE
I Delos 2101, to Isis mother of the gods Astarte, Sarapeion C, 130/129 BCE
I Delos 2149, to anointed Isis, 122/1
I Delos 2079, Gaius (son) of Gaius Acharneus, being priest in the on Nausiou archon (eniautói?) [In the archonship of Nausios?] and the melanéphoroi and the therapeutai on behalf of the people of Athens and the people of the Romans [hRómaión] to Isis Dikaiosyne he set [this] up possibly between 120-110 BCE.
I Delos 2072, Ptolemaios (son) of Dionysios Polurrénios, dream interpreter (oneirokrites) and aretalogist (aretalogos), and the woman Kallistion (?) of Marsuos Antiochissa, to Isis Tyche Firstborn (Protogeneiai), 115/4
I Delos 2073, to Tyche the Firstborn to Isis, by the same man the same (?) year.
I Delos 2059, to Nike Isis, Aristion son of Eudoxos, Melitene, being priest, according to the prostagma he set [this] up, 114/3.
I Delos 2060, to Isis Hygeia, 112/1.
I Delos 2375, Athenagoras son of Athenagoras, Athenian, to Artemis Hekate, 112/1.
I Delos 2038, Sosio priest of Sarapis, on behalf of the Athenian people and the king Nicomedis III dedicated the naos and the agalma of Isis Nemesis, 110/9.
I Delos 2062, Sosio to Isis Nemesis
I Delos 2063, Sosio to Isis Nemesis
I Delos 2064, Sosio to Isis Taposiris. (this and the preceding two inscriptions date to110/9, as Sosio is priest for that year)
I Delos 2153, to Isis Euploia, 104/3
I Delos 2080, to Isis Aphrodite, 105/4
I Delos 2040, on behalf of Mithradates VI Eupator to Isis Aphrodite Dikaios, 101/100
I Delos 2158, to Isis Aphrodite Dikaios, same year
I Delos 2107, a column to Isis Euphrosyne Dikaiosyne, before 88, restored after the Mithridatic war.
I Delos 2132, to Isis Soteira Astarte Aphrodite, uncertain date, pos. after 88.
As we can see from the inscriptions, Isis has a number of epithets. The priest Sosio of 110/9 prefers to dedicate his inscriptions to Isis Nemesis. Nemesis to the ancient Greeks did not have the characteristics of today: Nemesis was a distributor of fortune in proportion to one's deserts. In the Greek tragedies she is an avenger of crime and punisher of hubris, and in her rule over men's fortunes and fates may be seen as comparable to Tyche. Tyche, as governor of fortune, prosperity and destiny, is among the epithets frequently associated with Isis, and Isis's role as governor of human destiny is highlighted in the aretalogies. "I conquer Destiny: Destiny obeys me."# Isis Tyche is also associated with the Athenian Protogeneia, the first-born daughter of Erechtheus.
Isis is also called Soteira, and associated with Sarapis Soter. This may be a holdover from the association of Isis and Sarapis with the Theoi Soteroi in the royal cult of the Ptolemies, or an independent development associating the qualities of Zeus Soter with these gods - safety, protection, deliverance from harm, concerns which are seen not only in the aretalogies, but in the hymns of Isidorus from Medinet Madi.
Isis is also associated in some of the Delian inscriptions with Euphrosyne, one of the three Graces; in one inscription with Taposiris, presumably the site of Taposiris Magna (modern Abusir) in Egypt. IG XI 4, 1234 may well be a reference similar to the Isis Pantokrateira in POxy, or refer to Cybele, the Great Mother. Isis is also linked to Aphrodite and to Astarte, and in I Delos 2132, to both Aphrodite and Astarte at once. (Apuleius, list of places and goddesses who are really Isis.) Aphrodite, understandably, is a popular association at Delos, as elsewhere: the statue of Isis within the temenos of Sarapeion C is in the style of Aphrodite.
By far the most popular epithet for Isis, however, and the only one found also at Athens during our period, is either Dikaios or Dikaiosyne. Dikaios means observant of right, righteous, just, lawful, fair, moderate: dikaiosyne is the abstract noun justice or righteousness. This fits well with the trend we have observed in the aretalogies, wherein Isis is fundamentally concerned with the order, nomos, of existence, universal, civil and domestic, and her role as giver of laws and institutor of cities. This also has links to her role with regard to destiny, Tyche and Nemesis: Isis rewards the right and causes retribution to come to the one who has done wrong.#
3.6.Isis and Demeter at Athens
Connections between Isis and Demeter were recognised by the Greeks as far back as the early Archaic period, if the so-called "Isis grave" at Eleusis is any indication.# Herodotos in the fifth century made the connection explicit, and the Maroneia aretalogy, with its mentions of Athens and Eleusis, is further evidence for a widely recognised similarity, if not identification, between the goddesses.
Petra Pakkanen, in her study on interpreting early hellenistic religion and the cults of Demeter and Isis in Hellenistic Athens, outlines their points of connection in far greater detail than is possible here. Despite the numerous dissimilarities in the actual practice of their cults, the similarities in their mythologies and their symbolic repertoires - both are, at a fundamental level, goddesses of the grain and the harvest with a strong maternal link [cite] - argue strongly for the influence of the cult of Demeter on the popularity of Isiac cult, and its ultimate development in the Roman period into a cult with an initiatory and "mystery" element. [cite] As, however, our physical evidence for the presence of Isiaic cult at Athens in this period is rather thin on the ground, we cannot examine the connections between the cults in anything other than a theoretical fashion.
3.7. Specificity, universality, change and continuity.
3.7.1.Specificity and universality.
Throughout its history and across the regions where it was to be found, the cult of Isis contained elements of change and continuity, universality and specificity. Her local specificity is more pronounced in Egypt, as we have more local evidence from that region, at least prior to the Roman period. However, locality and specificity emerges from both of the sites of our case studies, Delos - where the statue of Isis in the Iseion is in the form of Aphrodite - and Athens, where the Walters' catalogue of women in the dress of Isis indicates the emergence of a local expression of the cult. Local permutations also manifest in Euboeia, where Isis overshadows Sarapis almost from the beginning, among other Greek locations.
The specific local trend - which exists in most forms of Greek cult: every locality has their own variations on the theme with reference to most gods of the Olympic pantheon as well as the other deities, imported or locally-arisen - is counterbalanced by a universalising trend. This trend can be seen in Hellenistic religion and philosophy in general [citePakkanen], but in the cult of Isis, this universality is a strong component of her presentation in the Greek aretalogies, where she emerges as a pre-eminent deity, fundamentally concerned with nomos and with control over fate. Among her most widespread aspects are womanhood/motherhood and the grain harvest, and it is thus apposite that the Greek deities with whom we find her most associated are Aphrodite, whose name is linked to Isis in a number of inscriptions, and Demeter, who is first paralleled with Isis by Herodotos.
3.7.2. Change and continuity.
During the Hellenistic period, the form and cult of Isis undergoes significant change, at least on the surface. Visually, the most striking of these changes is the use of the Greek style of sculpture and depiction to represent the image of the goddess. In addition, the emergence of representations (both Egyptian and Greek) which show Isis nursing Harpocrates mark a distinct change in representations of the maternal Isis: previously associations between Isis and her infant had been primarily through the mammisi, architecturally, as part of the sanctuaries. This period also sees an increase in the association of Isis with navigation and the sea: expansions of her previous areas of responsibility in terms of control of fate and apotropaic tendencies. Isis as Isis Pelagia (at Alexandria and elsewhere) and Isis Euploia (Isis of the good ships) may be related to Isis's Egyptian role as a protector of the barque of Ra, but it is equally possible that this is a separate development, arising from the increased amount of travel possible within the Hellenistic world.
Elucidating changes in cult practice is less straightforward, due to the nature of the evidence. There seems, however, to have been a strong element of continuity with pre-existing Egyptian practice, in terms of use of water in the cult, as at Delos, where in the Sarapeion A channels connect a basin to the Inopos river, which has mythic connections to the Nile; hymn-singing and the importance of dreams and processions. Isis's association with magic, healing, protection, and the grain harvest are elements of her presentation which continue from a very early period in Egyptian religion, and show no signs of disappearing when she reaches a wider audience.
Okay. One last push. And then I can post the conclusion in the morning.
The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.
- Ezra Pound, "Affirmations IV: As for Imagisme," 1915
3.1. Introduction.
We are fortunately endowed with a large body of evidence relating to the iconography and mythology of Isis in both pre-Ptolemaic Egyptian and Roman contexts. This good fortune is counterbalanced by the fact that outside Egypt, during the Hellenistic period, the evidence is not as abundant as one might wish, and our ability to construct a reasonably full picture of the evolution of the image of Isis is affected by the uneven preservation of figural remains and the regional and chronological variation in the epithets of Isis attested in epigraphy.
3.2. Isis in Egypt.
The Pyramid Texts, among the earliest records of Egyptian religion, indicate that Isis is one of the earliest of Egypt's goddess. From the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, Isis, along with Hathor, was one of a number of goddesses associated with bovine and maternal imagery.# By the New Kingdom, Isis appears to have eclipsed Hathor in importance, in several sites becoming associated with iconography and titles that had previously belonged to the Sky Cow,# and achieving pre-eminence in a number of significant symbolic areas. As the sister-wife of Osiris, she held dominion in the netherworld; as the mother of Horus the child, Hor-pa-khered which the Greeks transliterated as Harpocrates, she had a maternal role and stood as protector and legitimator of the king, who is identified with Horus. Riding in and guiding the barque of Re, she defended against evil. She was also associated with the inundation of the Nile, and thus with the fertility of the land.# It is in this capacity, it seems, that she was first known to the Greeks, as the "Demeter of the Egyptians".#
In the Egyptian context, her iconographic repertoire contains certain consistent elements: the uraeus, the stylised serpent which symbolised sovereignty; the headdress, which, with her assimilation of many of the roles and titles of Hathor and Mut, became less often the stylised throne, and more often a combination of the horns-and-sundisk of Hathor and the paired vulture headdress of Mut: the paired vultures and the sundisk occur frequently in the headdress of Isis.#
With the arrival of Alexander and his successors, the Lagides, Isis acquired another spouse, Sarapis, and a further set of associations. While a discussion of the origins of the god Sarapis are beyond the scope of this present thesis (and indeed are more than adequately discussed by P.M. Fraser#), it must be noted that it appears Sarapis is a Greek form of the Egyptian name Osor-Hapi, Osiris in his form of Apis, the bull of Memphis. Sarapis was promoted by Ptolemy II alongside the royal cult in Alexandria. It is Sarapis who, alongside Isis and much less prominently, Harpocrates and Anubis, appears initially to be the more prominent deity in this selection of Egyptian gods who frequently share a cult sanctuary in the wider Greek world.# By the Roman period, this trend is reversed, with Isis the more prominent deity. One of the questions this thesis intends to raise is why this should be so.
The surviving images of Sarapis within and outside Egypt portray him in the Greek style. Within Egypt, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Isis is portrayed in both Greek and Egyptian styles of sculpture. Outside Egypt, as one might expect, the Greek style predominates, and while it is possible that the Egyptian style existed in some Greek locations, no evidence for it survives.
3.3. Isis in Greece.
The image of Isis in the early phase of her introduction to Greece as an object of cult is not simple to reconstruct. Fraser discusses, and dismisses, official Ptolemaic interest in the spread of the cult,# and while the earliest dedication at the site of the sanctuary of the Egyptian gods at Delos is to Isis by an Egyptian woman, the remains of the statue of Isis from Sarapeion C are rather later in date, and show an Isis modelled after Aphrodite. Likewise, at Athens we know that Egyptians were granted a site from the worship of Isis at the Piraeus, but as yet no other evidence has come to light for that particular cult, and we do not know whether or not it imported Egyptian norms wholesale - including Egyptian style sculpture - or whether it included Greek elements, which may have included the use of a Greek sculptor to create the cult statue. Indeed, Isiaic figures are scant in Athens and Attica before the Roman period. Only in the first century BCE, which gives us two incidences of grave reliefs featuring women "in the dress of Isis", a genre ably catalogued and discussed by E.J. Walters, do potential Isiaic representations begin to appear.
It is possible that Walters' interpretation may be challenged by analysis put forward by Sally-Ann Ashton, in her discussion of the sculptural portrayals of royal women in Hellenistic Egypt, although Walters' identification of the grave reliefs as representing women who were most likely connected to the cult of Isis in either Delos or Athens remains convincing.
Walters succeeds in establishing a typology of grave reliefs featuring what she terms "women in the dress of Isis". These grave reliefs appear in the archaeological record in the latter half of the first century BCE and are present until the latter part of the third century CE. They "belong to a period of heightened production of figured grave reliefs in Athens,"# and we may view them as reliable indicators of the establishment of Isiaic cult in Athens. They begin to appear after the Athenian abandonment of Delos, where members of prominent Athenian families appear to have participated in the cult of Isis and Sarapis. It is far from likely that this coincidence of timing is due to serendipity alone. Walters links this uptick in Isiaic imagery both to Delian influence, and - chronologically - to the period of Roman domination.#
These grave reliefs feature women in a mantle with a long fringe, knotted at the chest in the so-called "Isiaic knot", worn over a sleeved gown, an Egyptian style of dress which "was the most popular and distinctive form of dress for representations of Isis in the Roman Empire."# Walters goes to some effort to compare the imagery of the Attic grave reliefs with those of representations of female dress in Egypt, most notably those of the Ptolemaic queens, and assumes that this type of representation, with fringed mantle and corkscrewed hair, is intended to assimilate the royal women to Isis. She thus assumes that these iconographic elements were Isiaic before they were royal.
Ashton, however, demonstrates that Ptolemaic royal iconography was transferred into the iconographic repertoire of Isiaic cult, and was well-established therein by the Roman period. She argues that the association between this type of representation and the goddess Isis only developed in the Roman period, possibly as a result of Cleopatra VII's use of the goddess for political legitimation. "The close association between deities and their assimilation to foreign equivalents," she says, "may explain how attributes that were intended to represent Ptolemaic queens were taken by the Hellenistic Greeks in Egypt and overseas to represent an Egyptian goddess."# If Ptolemaic royal iconography became associated with priestesses of Isiaic cult, surely this raises questions about the evolution of the image of Isis from an Egyptian goddess associated with the legitimation of the king to a more universal power.
Walters mentions three representations from the period with which we are concerned. The Onesiphoron stele (N.M. 3036), which is a grave stele, and the fragmentary Agora relief (S 1142) are both Augustan in date. They carry sistrum and situla, both in - as Walters says - subtle motion, and may come from the same workshop. They have Walters' "dress of Isis."# The votive relief of Isis Dikaiosyne (N.M 8426), from the early first century BCEE, also features Isis in this dress, but this is the first example of it in Athens, and there are only three early representations from the Hellenistic world outside Egypt, two from Smyrna, and one from Rhodes.# There is no evidence of this dress from Delos, where Athenian involvement in the cult of Sarapis and Isis grew during the period of Athenian domination: it is only in Athens under Roman rule that this Egyptian garb becomes -- and remains for over three centuries -- popular in connection with the cult of Isis.
On Delos, by contrast, the remains of the colossal statue of Isis in the Iseion, dated to 128/7 BCE, is in the form of Aphrodite, leaning leftwards, and draped in a chiton. A standing figure in chiton and plain mantle, diagonally draped from her left shoulder, seems to have been a common cult figure of Isis,# and is known on coins as early as 117/6 B.C.# So while evidence from the Roman empire supports the popularity of the "dress of Isis", it is far from common during the Hellenistic period.
It becomes apparent, looking at the evidence from elsewhere in the Greek world during the Hellenistic period, that the use of Ptolemaic royal iconography in the cult of Isis at Athens may in fact be something of an outlier: an imaginative adaptation of iconography from the last of the Hellenistic monarchies in a city now subordinate to the greater power of Rome. In practice, of course, it seems unlikely that the process was as quite intentional as I have made it sound, but it is, at least, a theory that fits the evidence as we know it.
A representation of Isis which becomes far more popular in the Hellenistic period is that of the nursing Isis. While a handful of Late Dynastic examples exist, it's clear that the popularity of Isis suckling Harpokrates is a Hellenistic innovation. Vincent Tran Tam Tinh, in his catalogue of this type of representation, identifies three main statue groups from the pre-imperial period: Isis nursing seated on a throne,# Isis nursing raising a chalice of acanthus leaves,# and Isis nursing seated on a wicker basket.# We have one example of the enthroned Isis lactans from Delos.# Tran Tam Tinh suggests that the Isis lactans type demonstrates new emphasis on her role as a maternal deity as well an agricultural one,# but the architectural prominence of mammisi in Egyptian temenoi related to Isis would rather argue, it seems, for a Greek representation of a pre-existing Egyptian theme.
3.4. The image of Isis in the literature.
Our evidence for views of Isis in literature is diverse. The problem with this diversity, however, is that it spans several centuries and a number of disparate geographic locations, from the hymns at the temple of Philae in Upper Egypt to the hymns of Isidoros in the Fayyum, and from the aretalogies of Kyme and Maroneia, among others, with their possible basis in an original Memphite text to the literary compositions of Apuleius of Madaurus in Book 11 of his Metamorphoses in the second century C.E., not leaving aside Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride.
It is my intention to briefly examine these materials both geographically and chronologically, starting with the hymns from Philae, and to discuss thematically at the end of this overview what can be deduced from this material regarding the image of Isis in Hellenistic Greece. A further discussion regarding the growth in the popularity of Isis during this period will follow.
3.4.1. Philae.
There are a number of hymns from several different structures at Philae, where Arsinoe II is also a synnaos theos, a temple-sharing goddess. While there is some evidence to indicate that Philae might have been in use during the Ramesside period,# it is only in the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty that this site becomes significant in terms of religious activity, and only in the Ptolemaic period that it acquires the importance as a cult centre of Isis which it retains until the sixth century CE.#
At Philae, during the Hellenistic period, the iconography remains strongly Egyptian and Pharaonic. Ptolemy is portrayed as Pharaoh, and Isis is shown in purely Egyptian terms. So too, the hymns, ably catalogued and discussed in Zabkar's work, show few, if any, non-Egyptian elements. According to the inscriptions, it is the king who recites the hymns,# although others - perhaps priests and/or other cultic personnel - may have spoken them during festivals and ceremonies. The relationship which emerges from the hymns is one which exists between the king and the goddess, in which the king offers the goddess her due respect and titulature, which in turn legitimises the king: "The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Usikare-meramun, adores his mother Isis."# Isis is, of course, "Queen of the gods," and, "divine mother of Horus;"# "First royal spouse of Onnophris," and, "one who protects her brother and watches over the weary-of-heart;"# "giver of life", "lady and desire of the green fields", "fragrance of the palace", "lady of upper and lower Egypt who issues orders among the divine Ennead;"# "the one who pours out the inundation that makes all people live and green plants grow", "the lady of Heaven, Earth and the Netherworld;"# "like Re when he shows himself in the morning", "ruler of gods and goddesses", "mightier than the mighty", "great of massacre against her enemy", "who gives orders in the barque of the king of upper and lower Egypt;"# "the one who rises and dispels darkness", "the brilliant one in the celestial waters;"# "mistress of women", "pre-eminent in upper Egypt", "mistress of lower Egypt;"# "eldest in the womb of Nut", "great of magical power", "beloved of Re", "whom the gods have propitiated after rage."# All these hymns - which show a universalising trend in the manner in which they incorporate many aspects previously associated with Hathor, but are significantly less total in their claims than the Isidoros hymns or the aretalogies - serve to display and legitimate the king's relationship with the goddess and the king's equivalence with Horus. Their ideology - vis-a-vis the goddess and the individual, less so vis-a-vis the goddess and the world - is much more closely located than the ideology of the other hymns of praise. Isis emerges as a goddess of many powers, but one who is concerned primarily with the pharaoh, her "son", and one whose concerns exist principally in an Egyptian milieu. The hymns of Philae may be seen chiefly as the natural evolution of the indigenous Egyptian tradition.
3.4.2.Hymns of Isidorus.
The hymns of Isidorus come from Medinet Madi in the southern Fayyum, unearthed by an Italian excavation team in 1935 at the site of a temple to Isis-Hermouthis. They were found in the rectangular court of the temenos, carved into the antae of the entryways. Three are addressed to Isis-Hermouthis, of which two mention two other gods who are synnaos with Hermouthis; Sokonopis, a crocodile divinity, and Anchoes, addressed here as the goddess's son. The fourth hymn is not in honour of the goddess, but of a local hero, Porramanres, who is said to have 'founded' the temple. While the hymns themselves contain no specific date, on the evidence of the dedication of the antae to Ptolemy IX Soter and allusions within the hymns, Vanderlip dates the hymn inscriptions and probably their composition also, to between 88 and 80 BCE.#
The relationship which emerges from the hymns of Isidorus is rather less royal and elite-focussed in nature, while also being influenced by external (Greek) ideas and goddesses. Here Isis is both the local goddess Isis-Hermouthis and the more universal Thiouis "because you alone are all other goddesses named by the races of men."# This is the Isis of many names, and here she is associated with a number of goddesses from Syria, Thrace, and Greece, most notably Astarte, Hera, Aphrodite, and Demeter. Astarte, Aphrodite, and Demeter, are also associated with her in the inscriptions from Delos, and in the literature.
We see in this universalising trend the beginnings of the idea of a more personal relationship between goddess and worshipper which seems to come to the fore in the later Roman mystery cults. Isis is "Immortal Saviour", able - and, presumably, at least in some cases - willing to relieve her worshipper from pain.# Indeed, this personal relationship is reflected in the situation of the hymns themselves: unlike those at Philae, which were most likely written to be recited as part of a ritual or festival,# it seems as plausible as not that the hymns of Isidorus were an expression of the personal devotion of the author.
Isis is Agathetyche, good fortune, in whom 'every city rejoices', discoverer of life and grain, with dominion over child-bearing# and the Nile.# She can heal the sick and cause merchants to prosper. In hymn 3, Isis is 'ruler of the highest gods', and 'giver of all good things' who can grant both material gain and 'soundness of understanding,'# in addition to long life, and here she may also defend the 'most dear of princes', for she is able to annihilate those who come against him and give courage to the few who stand with him.# Hymn 3 is also interesting in that it plays up the universalising aspects of Isidorus' view of Isis: whether she is in Libya, or the south wind, or the north wind, or the east wind, or Olympus with the Olympians, or in "heaven above, a judge with the immortal gods,"# Isis still directs the world of men and witnesses individual virtue.
These hymns are later than (in general) the ones from Philae, and later than the Maroneia aretalogy at least. While they can be said with certainty to reflect only local, specific views of Isis and Isis-Hermouthis, we can see in them - and in Isidorus' use of classical Greek vocabulary - a blend of Greek and Egyptian elements which also occurs in the early aretalogies. Egyptian Isis, having already gathered to herself many aspects and titles of other Egyptian goddesses, is now doing the same thing to Greek and Syrian deities, as her worshippers interpret her in the light of their own experiences and understandings of the world. We can see also in this universalising tendency of Isidorus's hymns the beginnings of the trend towards henotheism in her cult which would come to the fore much more prominently in the Roman period and which is so clearly in evidence in chapter eleven of Apuleius's Metamorphoses.
Yet the degree of commonality between the epithets of Isis used in the Fayyum hymns and the ones from Philae is striking, given the distance between the sites, and speaks to a continuity in thought and conception which exists alongside the alterations that take place in the goddess's image over time and across space. This continuity is also to be seen in the aretalogies of Kyme and Maroneia, which we will discuss next.
3.4.3. Greek Aretalogies
The aretalogies have been discussed since the discovery of the Andros aretalogy, a praise hymn to Isis from the first century BCE, in 1838, a discussion which has only grown more complex with the discovery of aretalogies from Thessalonica (1st-2ndC CE) Ios (2nd-3rdC CE), Kyme (1stC-2nd C CE), and Maroneia (2ndC BCE).
The question of whether these aretalogies owe their descent to an original Memphite text (mentioned in both the Kyme and Andros texts), is one which has been much debated. Yves Grandjean, on the publication of the Maroneia aretalogy, is among those who have discussed it at length.# The evidence supports the possibility, and on the basis of the numerous points of congruence with Egyptian epithets and phrases related to Isis, it may be said to be plausible. As it is not a question which can be easily settled in the absence of further evidence, however, this thesis will not attempt to address it. We will take the issue of the M-text as likely but presently unproveable, and proceed on that basis to treat of the Maroneia and the Kyme aretalogies and their relationship to the image of Isis in Greece.
3.4.3.1. Maroneia
The Maroneia text is the oldest known of the Isis aretalogies outside Egypt, and the latest to be found. Published in the 1970s by French scholar Yves Grandjean, it can be dated on palaeographical grounds to the second part of the second century BCE.# It, like the Kyme text, is practically complete, rendering it immensely important to the study of the image of Isis.
The Maroneia text is also important for its location. Not in the islands, nor yet in Asia Minor, Maroneia lies to Greece's north, in Thrace. That the earliest known of the Greek aretalogies should be so distant from Egypt itself has significant implications for our understanding of the spread of Egyptian religion: we cannot merely subscribe to simplistic models of geographic diffusion, particularly in the highly mobile Hellenistic world. To understand the image of Isis, we must attempt to engage in imaginative empathy, and attempt to elucidate why she appealed in specific ways to specific persons at specific places.
The writer of the Maroneia aretalogy composed his hymn of praise, we are told, out of gratitude for the miraculous healing of his eyes. It differs from the other aretalogies in not following an I-formula: the Maroneia text uses the second and the third person interchangeably to refer to the goddess, a form of address similar to the Isidorus hymns. Unlike the later aretalogies, too, it begins by describing the goddess's origins, rather than opening immediately with praises, and it is composed in prose.
It also contains many more Greek elements than the later aretalogies: instead of naming Osiris as the goddess's husband, it names Sarapis, mentions Helios and Selene, and identifies Isis with Demeter:
"[A]mong the Greek cities you most honour Athens. It is there that for the first time you made known the fruits of the earth... This is why we are eager to see in Greece, Athens, and in Athens, Eleusis, considering (Athens) the city of Europe, and (Eleusis) the sanctuary of the city."#
It reflects also the movement towards henotheism "...[Y]ou are called the many by men; life indeed knows you alone to be the gods." The rest of its component parts reflect the concerns of the other aretalogies: Isis discovered writing with Hermes, both sacred and demotic, and reflects a distinction between initiated and others; established justice, and language both Greek and barbarian; gave laws and led to the establishment of cities, caused parents to be honoured by children, and arranged for life to come into being through man and woman.
3.4.3.2. Kyme.
Kyme (also Cyme) was one of the major Greek cities of Aeolis in western Anatolia. Strabo locates it north of the river Hermus,# and Dunand discusses the cult of Isis there in the third volume of her useful survey.#
The Kyme aretalogy is the most complete of the known aretalogies, all of which are similar to it in form, which is why we are examining it alongside the Maroneia text, despite its relatively late date. Although later in date than the Maroneia text, it contains a greater amount of more obviously Egyptian elements. While - as the Kyme aretalogy is complete, and the Maroneia one is not - it is impossible to say that the concerns of the Kyme aretalogy would not also be found in a complete version of the Maroneia aretalogy: certainly the Kyme text elaborates on the kinds of authority with which Isis is endowed. While certain concerns are mirrored - writing, laws, cities, relations between men and women - some, such as justice/retribution, as elaborated, and some, particularly the concerns with the sea, the heavens - sun, moon and stars - and destiny, which are not mentioned in the Maroneia text, have a prominent place here.
The Kyme aretalogy, unlike the Maroneia aretalogy, names Isis as the sister-wife of Osiris, rather than the wife of Sarapis: she is the eldest daughter of Kronos, rather than the daughter of Earth, and in the Kyme aretalogy, she is the mother of King Horus, thus emphasising her connections to Egyptian royalty and divinity. "For me was built the city of Bubastis," renders her specific to one Egyptian locality even as the rest of the aretalogy makes much of her universal aspects.
Her concern with the sea - "I devised the activities of seamanship" and "I calm the sea and make it surge" - reflects the growth of the cult of Isis Pelagia at Alexandria in the first centuries BCE and CE. But as for the rest of the hymn, it, much more so than the Maroneia text, views Isis as a goddess who is concerned with establishing right order in the universe. Whereas the Isis of Maroneia "discovered" writings, gave laws, and established justice and languages, the Isis of Kyme devised letters, gave laws and "ordained what no one can change". She is involved with the fundamental order of existence: "I separated the earth from the heaven. I showed the paths of the stars. I regulated the course of the sun and the moon," in addition to being involved with the fundamental order of domestic and civil existence: "I brought together woman and man. I assigned to women to bring into light their infants in the tenth month" is coequal with "I established the sacred precincts of the gods. I abolished the rules of the tyrants. I put an end to murders," and "I made the good and the bad to be distinguished by nature."
This agglomeration of roles can be seen as a continuation of the process that led, in Egypt, to Isis in many places acquiring associations that had previously belonged to Hathor or other gods. The strengths of Hellenistic religion - indeed, Greco-Roman religion after the second century BCE - and particularly the non-indigenous cults such as those of Cybele, Atargatis, Mithras and Isis lay in flexibility; in their ability to be many things to many people, and to provide the framework within which the world - domestic, civil, natural, supernatural - can be explained and understood. And if these explanations are frequently mutually contradictory, that may also be counted among their strengths. The Walt Whitman quote is apposite: "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"#
We have seen thus far that universalising tendencies appear as forerunners to and companions of henotheism. The henotheistic view, already visibly present albeit in embryonic form in the Maroneia aretalogy and in a more developed form in the Kyme text ("No one is honoured without my consent") reaches its pinnacle in Apuleius's Metamorphoses XI.5. Here Isis is, "I who am the mother of the universe, the mistress of all the elements, the first offspring of time, the highest of the deities, the queen of the dead, foremost of heavenly beings, the single form that fuses all gods and goddesses."
While the Metamorphoses are separated in time from the Maroneia aretalogy by two centuries, and the Kyme aretalogy by perhaps as much as one, it is almost certain that Apuleius was aware of the contents of at least some of the earlier aretalogies. The tendency towards henotheism was in existence from the earliest, becoming more prominent over time. So, too, the agglomerative nature of Isis cult, which we may see at work in the number of epithets which are given Isis by her worshippers at Delos and elsewhere.
3.5. The epithets of Isis in the inscriptions at Delos and elsewhere.
Athens:
Vidman, no. 6: Isis Dikaiosyne, first century BCE.
Delos:
IG XI 4, 1305, Aphrodite, Sarapeion A, before 166 BCE
IG XI 4, 1306, to Isis (no epithet), by Taessa, Sarapeion C, 3rd C BCE (earliest dedicatory inscription to the Egyptian gods)
IG XI 4, 1253, to Anoubis Hegemon, Sarapis Soter and Isis Soteira, according to the prostagma of the god, Sarapeion C, before 166 BCE (2nd C)
IG XI 4, 1254, and IG XI 4, 1255, are the same dedication
IG XI 4, 1234, According to the prostagma of Osiris, to the all-powerful gods, and to the all-powerful Great Mother (possibly Isis Pantokrateira as known in POxy 1380, 20), Sarapeion C, before 166 BCE
I Delos 2101, to Isis mother of the gods Astarte, Sarapeion C, 130/129 BCE
I Delos 2149, to anointed Isis, 122/1
I Delos 2079, Gaius (son) of Gaius Acharneus, being priest in the on Nausiou archon (eniautói?) [In the archonship of Nausios?] and the melanéphoroi and the therapeutai on behalf of the people of Athens and the people of the Romans [hRómaión] to Isis Dikaiosyne he set [this] up possibly between 120-110 BCE.
I Delos 2072, Ptolemaios (son) of Dionysios Polurrénios, dream interpreter (oneirokrites) and aretalogist (aretalogos), and the woman Kallistion (?) of Marsuos Antiochissa, to Isis Tyche Firstborn (Protogeneiai), 115/4
I Delos 2073, to Tyche the Firstborn to Isis, by the same man the same (?) year.
I Delos 2059, to Nike Isis, Aristion son of Eudoxos, Melitene, being priest, according to the prostagma he set [this] up, 114/3.
I Delos 2060, to Isis Hygeia, 112/1.
I Delos 2375, Athenagoras son of Athenagoras, Athenian, to Artemis Hekate, 112/1.
I Delos 2038, Sosio priest of Sarapis, on behalf of the Athenian people and the king Nicomedis III dedicated the naos and the agalma of Isis Nemesis, 110/9.
I Delos 2062, Sosio to Isis Nemesis
I Delos 2063, Sosio to Isis Nemesis
I Delos 2064, Sosio to Isis Taposiris. (this and the preceding two inscriptions date to110/9, as Sosio is priest for that year)
I Delos 2153, to Isis Euploia, 104/3
I Delos 2080, to Isis Aphrodite, 105/4
I Delos 2040, on behalf of Mithradates VI Eupator to Isis Aphrodite Dikaios, 101/100
I Delos 2158, to Isis Aphrodite Dikaios, same year
I Delos 2107, a column to Isis Euphrosyne Dikaiosyne, before 88, restored after the Mithridatic war.
I Delos 2132, to Isis Soteira Astarte Aphrodite, uncertain date, pos. after 88.
As we can see from the inscriptions, Isis has a number of epithets. The priest Sosio of 110/9 prefers to dedicate his inscriptions to Isis Nemesis. Nemesis to the ancient Greeks did not have the characteristics of today: Nemesis was a distributor of fortune in proportion to one's deserts. In the Greek tragedies she is an avenger of crime and punisher of hubris, and in her rule over men's fortunes and fates may be seen as comparable to Tyche. Tyche, as governor of fortune, prosperity and destiny, is among the epithets frequently associated with Isis, and Isis's role as governor of human destiny is highlighted in the aretalogies. "I conquer Destiny: Destiny obeys me."# Isis Tyche is also associated with the Athenian Protogeneia, the first-born daughter of Erechtheus.
Isis is also called Soteira, and associated with Sarapis Soter. This may be a holdover from the association of Isis and Sarapis with the Theoi Soteroi in the royal cult of the Ptolemies, or an independent development associating the qualities of Zeus Soter with these gods - safety, protection, deliverance from harm, concerns which are seen not only in the aretalogies, but in the hymns of Isidorus from Medinet Madi.
Isis is also associated in some of the Delian inscriptions with Euphrosyne, one of the three Graces; in one inscription with Taposiris, presumably the site of Taposiris Magna (modern Abusir) in Egypt. IG XI 4, 1234 may well be a reference similar to the Isis Pantokrateira in POxy, or refer to Cybele, the Great Mother. Isis is also linked to Aphrodite and to Astarte, and in I Delos 2132, to both Aphrodite and Astarte at once. (Apuleius, list of places and goddesses who are really Isis.) Aphrodite, understandably, is a popular association at Delos, as elsewhere: the statue of Isis within the temenos of Sarapeion C is in the style of Aphrodite.
By far the most popular epithet for Isis, however, and the only one found also at Athens during our period, is either Dikaios or Dikaiosyne. Dikaios means observant of right, righteous, just, lawful, fair, moderate: dikaiosyne is the abstract noun justice or righteousness. This fits well with the trend we have observed in the aretalogies, wherein Isis is fundamentally concerned with the order, nomos, of existence, universal, civil and domestic, and her role as giver of laws and institutor of cities. This also has links to her role with regard to destiny, Tyche and Nemesis: Isis rewards the right and causes retribution to come to the one who has done wrong.#
3.6.Isis and Demeter at Athens
Connections between Isis and Demeter were recognised by the Greeks as far back as the early Archaic period, if the so-called "Isis grave" at Eleusis is any indication.# Herodotos in the fifth century made the connection explicit, and the Maroneia aretalogy, with its mentions of Athens and Eleusis, is further evidence for a widely recognised similarity, if not identification, between the goddesses.
Petra Pakkanen, in her study on interpreting early hellenistic religion and the cults of Demeter and Isis in Hellenistic Athens, outlines their points of connection in far greater detail than is possible here. Despite the numerous dissimilarities in the actual practice of their cults, the similarities in their mythologies and their symbolic repertoires - both are, at a fundamental level, goddesses of the grain and the harvest with a strong maternal link [cite] - argue strongly for the influence of the cult of Demeter on the popularity of Isiac cult, and its ultimate development in the Roman period into a cult with an initiatory and "mystery" element. [cite] As, however, our physical evidence for the presence of Isiaic cult at Athens in this period is rather thin on the ground, we cannot examine the connections between the cults in anything other than a theoretical fashion.
3.7. Specificity, universality, change and continuity.
3.7.1.Specificity and universality.
Throughout its history and across the regions where it was to be found, the cult of Isis contained elements of change and continuity, universality and specificity. Her local specificity is more pronounced in Egypt, as we have more local evidence from that region, at least prior to the Roman period. However, locality and specificity emerges from both of the sites of our case studies, Delos - where the statue of Isis in the Iseion is in the form of Aphrodite - and Athens, where the Walters' catalogue of women in the dress of Isis indicates the emergence of a local expression of the cult. Local permutations also manifest in Euboeia, where Isis overshadows Sarapis almost from the beginning, among other Greek locations.
The specific local trend - which exists in most forms of Greek cult: every locality has their own variations on the theme with reference to most gods of the Olympic pantheon as well as the other deities, imported or locally-arisen - is counterbalanced by a universalising trend. This trend can be seen in Hellenistic religion and philosophy in general [citePakkanen], but in the cult of Isis, this universality is a strong component of her presentation in the Greek aretalogies, where she emerges as a pre-eminent deity, fundamentally concerned with nomos and with control over fate. Among her most widespread aspects are womanhood/motherhood and the grain harvest, and it is thus apposite that the Greek deities with whom we find her most associated are Aphrodite, whose name is linked to Isis in a number of inscriptions, and Demeter, who is first paralleled with Isis by Herodotos.
3.7.2. Change and continuity.
During the Hellenistic period, the form and cult of Isis undergoes significant change, at least on the surface. Visually, the most striking of these changes is the use of the Greek style of sculpture and depiction to represent the image of the goddess. In addition, the emergence of representations (both Egyptian and Greek) which show Isis nursing Harpocrates mark a distinct change in representations of the maternal Isis: previously associations between Isis and her infant had been primarily through the mammisi, architecturally, as part of the sanctuaries. This period also sees an increase in the association of Isis with navigation and the sea: expansions of her previous areas of responsibility in terms of control of fate and apotropaic tendencies. Isis as Isis Pelagia (at Alexandria and elsewhere) and Isis Euploia (Isis of the good ships) may be related to Isis's Egyptian role as a protector of the barque of Ra, but it is equally possible that this is a separate development, arising from the increased amount of travel possible within the Hellenistic world.
Elucidating changes in cult practice is less straightforward, due to the nature of the evidence. There seems, however, to have been a strong element of continuity with pre-existing Egyptian practice, in terms of use of water in the cult, as at Delos, where in the Sarapeion A channels connect a basin to the Inopos river, which has mythic connections to the Nile; hymn-singing and the importance of dreams and processions. Isis's association with magic, healing, protection, and the grain harvest are elements of her presentation which continue from a very early period in Egyptian religion, and show no signs of disappearing when she reaches a wider audience.
Okay. One last push. And then I can post the conclusion in the morning.
