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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 .
Isis's cult, like others in the Greco-Roman world, had no firm dogma, and its beliefs and practices may have stayed only loosely similar as it diffused across the region and evolved over time. [ 152 ] [ 153 ] Greek aretalogies that praise Isis provide much of the information about these beliefs.
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 ...
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).
Both goddesses were most probably introduced to Mainz by the Roman army, who carried religions with them in the context of the expansion of the Roman empire. The cult of Isis originates from Egypt, while the Mater Magna is a Greek adoption of the Anatolian goddess Kybele (closely related to the cult of Attis).
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.
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.