Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The mysteries of Isis were religious initiation rites performed in the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis in the Greco-Roman world. They were modeled on other mystery rites , particularly the Eleusinian mysteries in honor of the Greek goddesses Demeter and Persephone , and originated sometime between the third century BCE and the second century CE .
The cult was probably introduced in Rome during the 2nd century BC, as attested by two inscriptions discovered on the Capitoline Hill mentioning priests of Isis Capitolina. [4] Cassius Dio reports that in 53 BC the Senate ordered the destruction of all private shrines inside the pomerium dedicated to Egyptian gods; [ 5 ] however, a new temple ...
Like other cults from the eastern regions of the Mediterranean, the cult of Isis attracted Greeks and Romans by playing upon its exotic origins, [135] but the form it took after reaching Greece was heavily Hellenized. [136] Isis's cult reached Italy and the Roman sphere of influence at some point in the second century BCE. [137]
The cult of Isis is thought to have arrived in Pompeii around 100 BCE; the existing temple was built following the destruction of its predecessor in the earthquake of 62 CE. [7] Though Isis' origins were in Ancient Egypt, her cult spread widely throughout the Greco-Roman world.
The Egyptian goddess Isis was a representative of the imperial cult, comparable to the position of Venus in the Julian imperial house. In this context, bricks with military brick stamps found on site suggest that a building had been erected on behalf of the Emperor for the purpose of cult practice promoted by the Emperor.
Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation, and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras. Translated and edited by Richard Gordon. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-13293-1. Beck, Roger (2006). The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-921613-0. Blakely, Sandra (2018).
In the early Imperial era, the princeps (lit. "first" or "foremost" among citizens) was offered genius-cult as the symbolic paterfamilias of Rome. His cult had further precedents: popular, unofficial cult offered to powerful benefactors in Rome: the kingly, god-like honours granted a Roman general on the day of his triumph; and in the divine ...
Serapis figured among the international deities whose cult was received and disseminated throughout the Roman Empire, with Anubis sometimes identified with Cerberus. At Rome, Serapis was worshiped in the Iseum Campense, the sanctuary of Isis built during the Second Triumvirate in the Campus Martius.