ISIS IN GREECE

Greek acquaintance with Isis can be documented from archaic times onwards on the Greek islands in the form of occasional votives or souvenirs representing the Egyptian Isis, but also from the literary testimony of Herodotus in the fifth century BCE.

In Egypt, Isis had already exhibited an extraordinary ability to be assimilated to other goddesses, and this ability continued in no way diminished in the Greek world. This process resulted in Isis’s gradual absorption of the functions of other Greek divinities and laid the ground for her enormous popularity in the Greek and Roman worlds.⁴ One of the most significant goddesses for this development of Isis’s character and cult was Demeter. Already Herodotus had compared these two goddesses, and their Hellenistic assimilation can be seen in terracottas portraying Isis with Demeter’s attributes - torches or stalks of wheat - and in an inscription bearing witness to their joint worship in Eleusis.⁵ Their identification led to a number of new epithets for Isis in the Graeco-Roman world, such as ploutodoteira (“the one that gives wealth”), karpophoros (“fruit bearing”) and the Latin equivalent frugifera - “corn bearer”.⁶ While Isis had already been identified with the grain goddess Renenutet in the Egyptian Late Period, her identification with Demeter in Greece points at an understanding of grain as more than simply nutrition - an immanent aspect of civilization lay in this gift.⁷ In the late second century BCE hymn from Maroneia, Isis is thus called thesmophoros - an epithet of Demeter, associated with laws and legislation, the foundation of civilized society.⁸ Isis’s close relation to Demeter was not merely facilitated by their common relation to grain but also through their common status as loving, nurturing mothers.

The association of Isis with another Greek fertility goddess, Aphrodite, is attested already in the fourth century BCE in an inscription from Perinthus in Aegean Thrace.¹⁰ Lsis’s close connections to Hathor, an Egyptian goddess of love and sexuality, surely facilitated Isis’s identification with Greek Aphrodite and were probably also responsible for Isis’s association with Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of love.¹¹ Aphrodite also lent her epithet Pelagia (“of the sea”) to Lsis, and it is possible that it was from Aphrodite and Astarte that Isis took over one of her most popular and lasting functions: her Greek and Roman role as a maritime goddess, the protector of sailors and seafaring.¹² This role is first epigraphically attested on Delos¹⁵ but may have been initiated already by Alexander’s establishment of Alexandria, a city which transformed Egypt into an important seafaring nation in Ptolemaic times.

Demeter, Aphrodite, Artemis and Tyche (see below) were the primary deities with whom Isis was identified in Hellenistic Greece. Besides these, she was also assimilated to Kybele (also known as Meter Thedri), probably owing to their common designation as Mother of the Gods. Nemesis (related to Isis dikaiosyne - also one of Isis’s early and enduring epithets - or Isis Tyche), Nike and Selene (the moon goddess, seen, e.g., in the aretalogy from Maroneia, v.

The most important change in the Greek Isis cult, however, was its transformation into a mystery religion, again prompted by similarities with the Eleusinian goddess.¹⁶ The Greeks had known this type of religion since the eighth century BCE in the cult of Demeter and, probably slightly later, in the Dionysian and Samothracian mysteries. When the so-called Oriental religions came to Greece in Hellenistic times, facilitated by Alexander’s conquests and his dreams of a universal Greek koine, most of them were slowly but surely affected by this Greek phenomenon and transformed into mystery religions themselves. The presence of a certain Timotheos in Alexandria (brought there by one of the first Ptolemaic kings), who was a priest of the Demeter mysteries and member of the most revered Eleusinian gens, the Eumolpides, probably strongly facilitated this change in the cult of Isis.¹⁷ Yet again, this aspect was not without connections to her old, Egyptian background.

In Egypt, one of Isis’s main cultic responsibilities was to revive the deceased through mourning, recitations and revitalizing the body parts following the death of the deceased. In the Graeco-Roman world, however, it was the mysteries of Isis before death itself that gave the individual a possibility of attaining continued existence after death, thus making initiation, and not the proper enactment of the elaborate Egyptian funerary procedures, the foundation for obtaining eternal life.¹⁸ The importance of the mysteries - this gift of salvation (Greek soteria) from Isis to humanity - can be gathered, for example, from Plutarch’s essay on the myth of Isis and Osiris and from the aretalogies,¹⁹ while the multi-faceted nature of her salvation is also found in other sources. In the novel of Apuleius (Metamorphoses or the Golden Ass), the goddess thus states to Lucius, the initiand: “you shall live full of glory in my protection, and when you have completed the span of your lifetime, you will pass down to the netherworld, but there also... you shall often worship me..., shining in the darkness of Acheron and ruling in the Stygian depths, when you... shall dwell in the Elysian fields”.²⁰ An inscription on a tomb stele from Bithynia confirms the belief in this promise of Isis, telling us that the deceased, Meniketes, did not take the dark road of the dead to Acheron, but fared to the harbour of happiness.²¹

The fact that we possess relatively little epigraphic evidence of mystai, yet a large number of votive inscriptions thanking Isis for her help, proves not only that her cult was not limited to these mystai,²² but also that the salvation that she effected, despite the above-mentioned references, should not be understood primarily as eschatological. Rather, it encompassed very this-worldly benefits, such as health, wealth and prestige. Apart from inscriptions thanking her for healing or rescue from shipwrecks, the this-worldly nature of Isis’s soteria can also be seen in Lucius’s post-initiation success as a lawyer.

After enduring many different troubles and after being driven by the wildest storms of fortune and her heaviest gales, at last, Lucius, you have come to the haven of Rest and the altar of Mercy... Nevertheless, the blindness of Fortune [Fortuna], while it tortured you with the worst of dangers, yet led you in its unforeseeing evil to your state of religious bliss. Let her quit now and rage in her wildest frenzy and seek another object for her cruelty. For hostile powers have no power over those whose lives have been claimed by the majesty of our Goddess.

Fortuna is the Latin equivalent of Greek Tyche, who plays a major role in Apuleius and in general in the Graeco-Roman world. Realizing the central role played by Tyche in the Graeco-Roman world and the implications of Isis’s abolition of Tyche’s tyranny is a fundamental part of understanding Isis’s popularity. In the period after Alexander the Great’s conquests, the establishment of his great oikumene with new political structures and a global rather than local world meant not only new possibilities and new cultural horizons but also a breakdown of traditional values and a greater feeling of insecurity. These factors provoked a profound need for stability and certain knowledge and have been seen as part of the explanation for Tyche’s popularity in the Hellenistic world, reflected both epigraphically and in literary sources such as Demetrios of Phalerum’s book on Tyche (Peri Tychos') from 317 BCE. The growing interest in astrology and oracles in Graeco-Roman times expresses a similar interest in one’s destiny.^2zi The fact that Demetrios had placed Tyche not only above humans but also above all other gods underlines the importance of Isis’s identification with Tyche.

Contrary to her early identification with Tyche, but in perfect harmony with the gradual growth of her power, Isis finally overcame the otherwise unchangeable fate heimarmene (Lat. fatuni).²⁵ Thus, her claim in the aretalogy of Andros, “I release the bonds of necessity (anangke)”, and the final words of Isis in the Êóòå aretalogy, “I overcome heimarmene. Heimarmene obeys me”, find their equivalent in her words to Lucius, as he first sees her at night-time on the beach of Kenchrae: “Know that I have the power to prolong your life also beyond the span of time determined by your destiny (fatum).”²⁶ Whether the misfortunes of an individual, such as death, illness, war or shipwreck, were seen as the results of Tyche or Heimarmene, the dissolution of their tyranny by Isis was a salvation resulting in a feeling of freedom much more relevant to life before death than after.

After a few centuries of worship in the Greek world, and after having incorporated the functions of some of the most important Greek goddesses such as Demeter, Aphrodite, Artemis and Tyche, there seemed to be no limits to Isis’s power. Thus, according to the Êóòå aretalogy, she was the queen of war, queen of the thunderbolt, queen of the rivers, the winds, the sea and the rain, and the one who made Horkos (“oath”) to be feared more than anything else; all of these characteristics are otherwise usually attributed to male Greek divinities like Ares and Zeus himself. Eventually, Isis’s ability to absorb the character and functions of all other gods, even Zeus, raised Isis to a position of pantokrator. “ruler of everything”.²⁷ In the aretalogy of Êóòå, this is briefly stated in v. 47: “all things yield to me”, but it is elaborated in Isis’s speech to Lucius in Metamorphoses 11.5: “I am the mother of the universe, the mistress of all elements, the first off-spring of time, the highest of deities, the queen of the dead, foremost of heavenly beings...I who order by my will the starry heights of heaven, the health-giving breezes of the sea, and the awful silences of those in the underworld.”

In close connection to this expansion of her powers towards the end of Hellenistic times, Isis also claimed responsibility for creating the entire universe, the cosmos; she divided heaven from earth, revealed the path of the stars, coordinated the paths of the sun and the moon, and brought the islands out of the abyss and into the light (Êóòå, vs. 12-14, 53). This cosmocracy can be seen in figurines representing Isis with her foot on the globe, or in the statuettes showing her with all the symbols of the cosmos, such as sun, moon and stars, as well as in her epithet urania.²^

An almost inevitable consequence of Isis’s identification with all these deities is that other goddesses were demoted to becoming simply hypostases, or aspects, of Isis. Thus, Isis ends her speech to Lucius on her cosmocratic powers, cited above, by saying: “[I am] the single form that fuses all gods and goddesses... my single godhead is adored by the whole world in various forms, in differing rites and with many diverse names” (11.5). This line of thought is also reflected in her typically surrounding foreign or “new” religions, perhaps spurred by the widespread tradition of Isis’s devotees sleeping in her temples. Two inscriptions thus state that the Isis worshipper is a virgin, and several others that the female and male dedicators were virtuous.³⁶ The period of chastity is also mentioned by Propertius, who calls these nights of abstinence “dismal rites” (tristia sollemnia), keeping him apart from his beloved Cynthia (Propertius 2.33.1-4). Tibullus tells us that his mistress, Delia, a faithful servant of Isis, had often shaken the sistra,³⁷ ritually bathed in clean waters and (unfortunately, to his mind) observed the periods of chastity demanded by Isis.³⁸

A picture emerges of a deity who seemingly demanded a high degree of personal and ethical devotion, a suspicion also supported by other sources. Thus Porphyry (De Abstinentia [On Abstinence] 4.6-9) relates of Egyptian priests devoting themselves day and night to the worship of their gods, abstaining from intercourse, and observing strict diets, and notes the importance of purification (also evidenced in other sources),³⁹ while Ovid (Ex Ponto [Poems from Exile] 1.51-5) mentions the penitents crowding around the temples of Isis. These were people who had sinned against her, had been punished with blindness and now paid penance. Acts of penance are also mentioned by Seneca (de Vita Beata [On the Happy Life] 26.8). Juvenal mocks the women who, at Isis’s bidding, they think, would go all the way to Egypt to collect water (Satires 6.522-31). Tibullus mentions a ritual called votivas reddere voces,⁴⁰ which involved singing about the aretai of Isis in front of her temple twice a day. Apuleius tells us of daily morning and afternoon rituals. The high priest asks Lucius to enrol in the military service of the goddess (11.15), and Isis lets him know that from now on his entire life shall be devoted to her (11.6). Even if we should treat these sources with proper caution, they certainly paint a picture different from that of indigenous Roman religion. The personal devotion and outwards expressions of this attachment to the goddess were probably among the reasons for the strong reactions to the cult, positive as well as negative.

Before turning to some of the other changes of the Isis cult in Rome that may have spurred these hostile reactions, it should first be stated that the Roman Isis in many ways retained her most important Egyptian and/or Greek functions. The aforementioned text by Tibullus thus continues with a prayer to his mistress’ goddess, begging Isis to heal him, “for that you can heal is shown by the crowds of painted panels in thy temples”, a role also reflected in epithets like restitutrix salutis and sospitatrix⁴^ Other sides of her Greek character also continued unchanged, not least her identification with Fortuna, and her role as protector of navigation.⁴² The festival of Ploiaphesia, which was celebrated in the spring and signalled the opening of the sailing season, is first explicitly mentioned in a Greek inscription from Eretria in the first century BCE (Siris 8, cf. no. 130), but its importance in Roman times can be deduced from the incorporation of the festival (now called Navigium Isidis) into the official Roman calendar.⁴³ Her most widely ring for the Roman rulers. The substantial evidence of the very close connection between Isis and some of the emperors, particularly from the second century CE, could simply reflect personal devotion; but some sources actually suggest a return to the Egyptian connection between Isis and the divine ruler. The statue of Commodus as Horus between a bull (Osiris-Apis) and a cow (Isis-Hathor) thus suggests - at least - knowledge of the Egyptian mythology concerning the dynastic succession.⁴⁹ The obelisk of Domitian (in Piazza Navona) shows him being crowned by Isis and Serapis and is inscribed with hieroglyphs translated thus: “Autocrator, Caesar Domitianus, beloved of Isis”.⁵⁰ Isis was also portrayed on coins issued by Vespasian celebrating his triumph in Judea (the night before which he had visited the Iseum Campense), and on the triumphal arch in Thessaloniki commemorating the emperors’ victory over the Persians in 303 CE.⁵¹ Evidence of Isis’s close relation with the imperial cult can also be found in Apuleius, who tells us that a prayer was uttered for various departments of the Roman state in connection with the Navigium (Metamorphoses 11.17), and in the prefatory words pro salute imperatoris in numerous inscriptions. Just as Isis- Sothis in ancient Egypt was responsible for the inundation of the Nile and consequently of the fertility of the entire country, so Isis-Sothis on Roman coins (issued at the beginning of the New Year in connection with the Vota Publicd) may in the same manner have been connected to the prosperity of the Roman Empire.⁵² In any case, Isis would not be the only example of the emperors’ eager embracing of foreign divinities that were thought to legitimize their political power.

The Egyptianizing tendency can also be observed in Roman religious art. While the Egyptian traits of Isis had been largely downplayed in Greece (where the number of images is very small compared to the epigraphic evidence of her popularity), portraying her only with a small crown with cow-horns, perhaps a small situla (a small jug) in her hands, and otherwise with the attributes of Greek divinities, in Rome we find a return to Egyptian hieratic stature and symbols. Thus she could be seen with the Ankh symbol (the sign of life) and the Uraeus snake, both closely related to Isis in Egypt. A return to the Egyptian high crowns with cow-horns and a solar disc, or with feathers, is also observable from Roman times. Besides her headdress, the most significant attributes of Isis were a situla and a sistrum and the so-called nodus isiacus (“knot of Isis”) signalling a special way of tying her dress.⁵³

The evidence of festivals for Isis held in Hellenistic times is sparse, but from Roman times we possess an abundance of information about festivals held in honour of Isis.⁵⁵ The celebration of Isis’s search for Osiris, her mourning and joyous finding of Osiris known already from the Middle Kingdom in Egypt was one of the most popular. It consisted of a yearly procession of mourning and wailing participants. They walked towards the Nile (symbolizing Isis’s search) where they eventually filled a jug with water and cried joyously over the finding of Osiris.⁵⁴ In Roman literature, we find several references to this ritual, now convictions expressed in the religion of Isis. Therefore, the religion would attract not only poor people with a material or spiritual need of a powerful divinity, but also stoics, astrologers and rationalists. The idea of a great cosmic deity would have appealed to the scientists of the time, such as Ptolemy the astronomer (cf. Palatine Anthology 9.577), as well as philosophical thinkers such as Platonists and Stoics, who would certainly have recognized one of Apuleius’s characteristics of Isis as Providentia (Metamorphoses 11.15) or the equivalent Greek pronoia (see, e.g., Papyrus Oxyrhunchus 1380, v. 123ff.). Sources on Isis’s magical powers are numerous in Roman times, as are references to her affiliations with astrology. It thus makes good sense that Apuleius, who is otherwise known as a faithful Neoplatonist, would be attracted to Isis. Perhaps the best illustration of her all- encompassing attraction, however, are the innumerable scientific and philosophical interpretations that Plutarch is able to extract from the myth of Isis and Osiris in his On Isis and Osiris.