Isis Pelagia: Images, Names and Cults of a Goddess of the Seas 9004413898, 9789004413894

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Illustrations, Tables and Map
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Origins
of Isis, Goddess of the Seas
1.1 The Masters of the Waves in
Ancient Egypt
1.2 Isis, Navigation, and the Aquatic Element during the Pharaonic
Period
1.3 Isis, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks
1.4 Arsinoe, Aphrodite, Isis and the Marine Element
Chapter 2 The Canonization of a New Prerogative
Chapter
3 Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas
3.1 Th
e Isis-with-a-Sail Type
3.1.1 Origin and Definition
3.1.2 A Typology
3.1.3 Evolution and Questions of Identification
3.1.4 Attempts at Contextualization
3.2 The Problem of Sculpted Representations of the Isis-with-a-Sail
Type
3.2.1 A Long-Debated Body of Statuary
3.2.2 The Problematic Contribution of Textual Sources
3.3 Other Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas
Chapter 4
The Names of Isis, Goddess of the Seas
4.1 Isis Eὔπλοια
4.2 Isis πελαγία
4.3 Isis σώτειρα
4.4 Isis Φαρία
4.5 Isis κυβερνῆτις and ὁρμίστρια
Chapter 5
A Cult for Isis, Goddess of the Seas
5.1 The Cult Sites of Marine Isis
5.2 Ritual Practices
5.3 Festivals in Honor of Isis, Goddess of the Seas
5.3.1 The Navigium Isidis
5.3.2 The Sacrum Phariae
Chapter
6 Sarapis and the Sea
6.1 Sarapis: Fulfilling the Need for a God
6.1.1 Sarapis, from Memphis to the Mediterranean
6.1.2 Sarapis and the Solar Barque
6.2 A New Field of Action for Sarapis
6.2.1 The Premises
6.2.2 The Assertion: Sarapis, the Annona … and Isis
6.2.3 Sarapis and Neptune
6.2.4 Sarapis, the Emperor and the Roman Army
6.3 Isis and Sarapis, Figureheads and Names of Ships
Chapter 7 Disappearance and Renaissance of Marine Isis and
Sarapis
Conclusion
General Bibliography
Index of Ancient Sources
General Index

Citation preview

Isis Pelagia: Images, Names and Cults of a Goddess of the Seas

Religions in the Graeco-Roman World Series Editors David Frankfurter (Boston University) Johannes Hahn (Universität Münster) Frits G. Naerebout (University of Leiden) Miguel John Versluys (University of Leiden)

VOLUME 190

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rgrw

Isis Pelagia: Images, Names and Cults of a Goddess of the Seas By

Laurent Bricault Translated from the French by

Gil H. Renberg

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Alexandria. Drachm for Hadrian (126–127). Priv. coll. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bricault, Laurent, author. | Renberg, Gil H., translator. Title: Isis Pelagia : images, names and cults of a goddess of the seas / by  Laurent Bricault ; translated from the French by Gil H. Renberg. Other titles: Isis, dame des flots. English Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Series: Religions in the  Graeco-Roman world, 0927-7633 ; volume 190 | Revised and updated  translation of Isis, dame des flots. | Includes bibliographical  references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019037171 (print) | LCCN 2019037172 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004413894 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004413900 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Isis (Egyptian deity) | Ocean—Religious aspects. Classification: LCC BL2450.I7 B67813 2020 (print) | LCC BL2450.I7 (ebook)  | DDC 299/.312114—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037171 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037172

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0927-7633 ISBN 978-90-04-41389-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-41390-0 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Preface vii List of Illustrations, Tables and Map ix Abbreviations xv Introduction 1 1 The Origins of Isis, Goddess of the Seas 11 1.1 The Masters of the Waves in Ancient Egypt 12 1.2 Isis, Navigation, and the Aquatic Element during the Pharaonic Period 15 1.3 Isis, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks 19 1.4 Arsinoe, Aphrodite, Isis and the Marine Element 23 2 The Canonization of a New Prerogative 43 3 Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas 54 3.1 The Isis-with-a-Sail Type 54 3.1.1 Origin and Definition 54 3.1.2 A Typology 58 3.1.3 Evolution and Questions of Identification 86 3.1.4 Attempts at Contextualization 96 3.2 The Problem of Sculpted Representations of the Isis-with-a-Sail Type 109 3.2.1 A Long-Debated Body of Statuary 109 3.2.2 The Problematic Contribution of Textual Sources 128 3.3 Other Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas 131 4 The Names of Isis, Goddess of the Seas 147 4.1 Isis Eὔπλοια 149 4.2 Isis πελαγία 152 4.3 Isis σώτειρα 158 4.4 Isis Φαρία 160 4.5 Isis κυβερνῆτις and ὁρμίστρια 167 5 A Cult for Isis, Goddess of the Seas 171 5.1 The Cult Sites of Marine Isis 171 5.2 Ritual Practices 183

vi

Contents

5.3 Festivals in Honor of Isis, Goddess of the Seas 203 5.3.1 The Navigium Isidis 203 5.3.2 The Sacrum Phariae 229 6 Sarapis and the Sea 232 6.1 Sarapis: Fulfilling the Need for a God 232 6.1.1 Sarapis, from Memphis to the Mediterranean 232 6.1.2 Sarapis and the Solar Barque 235 6.2 A New Field of Action for Sarapis 239 6.2.1 The Premises 239 6.2.2 The Assertion: Sarapis, the Annona … and Isis 243 6.2.3 Sarapis and Neptune 258 6.2.4 Sarapis, the Emperor and the Roman Army 262 6.3 Isis and Sarapis, Figureheads and Names of Ships 270 7 Disappearance and Renaissance of Marine Isis and Sarapis 277 Conclusion 289 General Bibliography 293 Index of Ancient Sources 361 General Index 366

Preface It was in the course of preparing the Atlas de la diffusion des cultes isiaques, the Recueil des inscriptions concernant les cultes isiaques, and lastly the Sylloge nummorum religionis isiacae et sarapiacae, which each required collecting numerous sources that were unpublished or little known, that I was inspired to devote a short monograph to the maritime prerogatives of Isis, also including her divine companion Sarapis even though his role in this context seems rather secondary. This study, under the title of Isis, Dame des flots, appeared in 2006 in the series Aegyptiaca Leodiensia,1 which at the time was overseen by my colleague and friend Michel Malaise, who remains greatly missed. Since the writing of this work, the field of Isiac studies has seen a large growth in publications. Monographs, collections of essays, and articles featuring either discussions of specific matters or broad syntheses have all presented their share of sources, reflections, and analyses, and also sometimes errors or omissions. My participation in the preliminary heuristic inquiries for some volumes of the Roman Provincial Coinage series, the publication of the first four volumes of Bibliotheca Isiaca, the new series Supplements to the Bibliotheca Isiaca, the international Isiac colloquia and their resulting volumes edited in collaboration with Miguel John Versluys, and the groups of sources – published or still unedited – collected by an international team of scholars coordinated by Richard Veymiers for inclusion in the Thesaurus iconographicus cultuum isiacorum, are all efforts that have enriched the corpus of sources pertaining to Isis and the divinities in her circle. This considerable documentary enrichment has been accompanied by a profound renewal in the study of the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world. In recent years a large number of theories, terminological definitions, concepts and notions have been discussed, critiqued, deconstructed or invalidated, beginning with the Cumontian paradigm of the “oriental religions”. All of these projects and all of these epistemological evolutions provided reasons leading me to embark on a new version, entirely revised, of Isis, Dame des flots. The reader will not find here new and revolutionary interpretations or innovative paradigms, but rather a tentative reconstruction of the history of Isis as goddess of the seas that draws from the widest range of sources possible. 1  See the reviews by Jean Leclant, in a Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (2007), 685–686; Françoise Dunand, in Chronique d’Égypte 165–166 (2008), 368–370; Richard Veymiers, in Kernos 21 (2008), 335–337; and Valentino Gasparini, in Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente Antico 25 (2008), 115–117.

viii

Preface

This second version is offered in English, thanks to the tireless scholarly generosity of Gil H. Renberg, whom I wish to thank deeply. I would like to thank also my students Anna Guédon and Nicolas Cacace for preparing the General Index. Editing six conference volumes ÉPRO/RGRW, the series which during the mid-1980s first gave me the taste for studying the religious history of the ancient Mediterranean, has been an unequalled source of pride for me. To see the appearance now, in this same series, of my first monograph in English is for me a meaningful accomplishment. For all of this, I offer my thanks to the series editors and, in particular, to my old partner M. J. Versluys, in anticipation of soon seeing the next results of our fruitful collaboration. Toulouse, December 2nd 2018

Illustrations, Tables and Map Illustrations 1 2

John Paul Jones and the Serapis. Medallion of Augustin Dupre (priv. coll.) 5 Fresco from Nymphaion (detail) (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum; ph. Museum) 26 3 Arsinoe II (?). Mosaic from Thmouis (Alexandria, former Greco-Roman Museum; ph. from Guimier-Sorbets 1998, 228 fig. 3) 33 4 Matrix from the Athenian Agora (Athens, Agora Museum; ph. Museum) 55 5 Stamp and molded terracotta from Savaria (Szombathely Museum; ph. from Buocz 2012, 173 fig. 4) 57 6–7 Coins from Alexandria (priv. coll.) 60 8 Seal from Palmyra (Damas Museum; ph. from Ingholt et al. 1955, 127, pl. XLVI no. 1024) 61 9 Coin from Iasos (Paris, BnF; ph. Museum) 62 10 Coin from Alexandria (ph. RPC III) 63 11–13 Coins from Kyme (11: ph. from SNRIS Cyme 5.2 / 12–13: priv. coll.) 63 14 Coin from Corinth (priv. coll.) 64 15 Coin from Byblos (ph. RPC IV) 64 16 Coin from Phocaea (ph. Savoca 25, 16 Sept. 2018, no. 474) 65 17 Coin from Byblos (priv. coll.) 66 18 Vota Publica coin from Rome (priv. coll.) 66 19 Gem (Berlin, Egyptian Museum; ph. from Philipp 1986, 63 no. 73, pl. 17) 67 20 Ring with intaglio (ph. from Ricci 1912, 88 no. 783, pl. XII) 67 21 Coin from Callatis (priv. coll.) 68 22 Altar from Pylaia (Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum; ph. from AdamVeleni 2002, 82–83, no. 164 pl. 98) 69 23–24 Coins from Byblos (priv. coll.) 70 25–26 Coins from Alexandria (25: ph. RPC IV / 26: priv. coll.) 70 27 Coin from Aspendos (ph. from J. Svoronos, JIAN 6 [1903], pl. XII.11) 70 28–31 Vota Publica coins from Rome (28: ph. from Alföldi 1937, pl. II.8 / 29: Berlin; ph. Museum / 30–31: Oxford; ph. LB) 71–73 32 Coin from Callatis (ph. from SNG Hungary, 10) 73 33 Coin from Nicomedia (priv. coll.) 74 34 Coin from Philippopolis (priv. coll.) 74 35 Coin from Anchialos (ph. from Ph. Margaritis, RN [1886], pl. II.1) 75 36 Coin from Perinthus (ph. Agora Coins 15, 19 Aug. 2014, no. 67) 75

x 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44–46 47 48 49 50–53 54 55–56 57 58–59 60 61 62 63 64a–b 65 66a–b 67–69 70 71 72–73 74 75 76

Illustrations, Tables and Map Lamp from Alexandria (Athens, Benaki Museum; ph. from Bruneau 1963, fig. 2) 76 Lamp from Egypt (London, BM; ph. from Bailey 1996, 131 no. Q2028 bis, pl. 172) 76 Lamp from Tell Atrib (ph. from Młynarczyk 2001, 333, fig. 1) 76 Lamp reflector from Alexandria (priv. coll. Neuchâtel) 76 Gem from Cyrene (Vienna, KHM; ph. from Zwierlein-Diehl 1973, I, 144 no. 453, pl. 75) 77 Cretula from Cyrene (ph. from Maddoli 1963–1964, 84 no. 262) 77 Coin from Byblos (ph. from G. Le Rider & H. Seyrig, RN [1968], pl. IV.340) 78 Coins from Byblos (priv. coll.) 79 Seal from Delos (ph. from Boussac 1988, 331 no. 54) 80 Gem from Carthage (London, BM; ph. from Baratte et al. 2002, pl. II.5) 81 Lamp from Cyprus (Nicosia, Cyprus Museum; ph. from Oziol 1977, no. 567, pl. 32) 81 Coins from Alexandria (priv. coll.) 82–83 Coin from Ephesus (priv. coll.) 83 Coins from Alexandria (ph. RPC III) 84 Gem (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College; ph. from Henig 1975, 34 no. 113) 85 Coins from Alexandria (ph. RPC III) 86 Corinthian lamp (Delos Museum; ph. from Bruneau 1961, 435–436 fig. 1) 91 Coin from Corinth (ph. from SNRIS Corinthus 5.4) 91 Relief from Delos (Delos Museum; ph. from Marcadé 1996, 187 no. 83) 92 Relief from Thasos (Thasos, Archaeological Museum; ph. J. Massélis) 93 Candelabrum from Aquincum (Aquincum Museum; ph. from Kovács & Szabó 2010, no. 900) 93 Gem Southesk (ph. from Carnegie 1908, no. K 4, pl. 11) 95 Painted shroud from Memphis (Berlin, Egyptian Museum; ph. from Ortiz-García 2017, figs. 2–3) 95 Coins from Alexandria (priv. coll.) 97 Medallion from Rome (Paris, BnF; ph. from Arslan 1997, 126) 97 Gem (ph. from Daumas & Mathieu 1987, pl. Ia) 98 Incised glass (Cairo, Egyptian Museum; ph. from El-Khashab 1966, 112 pl. I) 99 Statuette (Paris, BnF; ph. Museum) 101 Gem (Paris, BnF; ph. Museum) 103 Gem (Bologna, Civic Museum; ph. from Mandrioli Bizzarri 1987, 95 no. 157) 103

Illustrations, Tables and Map 77 78 79 80

xi

Gem (Udine, Civic Museum; ph. from Napolitano 1950, no. 1277 fig. 19) 103 Gem (Sibiu, Muzeul Brukenthal; ph. Museum (C. Urduzia)) 104 Gem (ph. from Veymiers 2014a, no. V.BBC 46 pl. 13) 104 Gem (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen; ph. from Veymiers 2011, no. V.BBC 37 pl. 12) 105 81 Gem (Florence, Archaeological Museum; ph. from Veymiers 2009, no. V.CB 7 pl. 58) 105 82–83 Coins from Alexandria (82: ph. RPC III / 83: ph. RPC IV) 106 84 Gem (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum; ph. from Veymiers 2009, no. V.CB 12 pl. 58) 107 85 Coin from Alexandria (ph. from SNRIS Alexandria 295A) 108 86 Statue from Mariemont (Musée royal de Mariemont; ph. M. Lechien) 112 87a–c Statue from Budapest (Budapest, Musée des Beaux-Arts; ph. Museum) 113 88a–c Statue from Benevent (Benevento, Museo del Sannio; 88a: ph. from Arslan 1997, 505 no. V. 190 / 88b: ph. from De Caro 2007, 39 no. 12 / 88c: ph. R. Veymiers) 115–116 89a–b Statue from Ostia (Ostia Museum; ph. R. Veymiers) 117 90a–b Statue from Pouzzoles (Budapest, Musée des Beaux-Arts; ph. and drawing from Gentili 2013, 58–59) 118 91a–b Statue from Messene (Messene, Archaeological Museum; ph. from Themelis 2011, figs. 8a–b) 119 92 Relief from Rome (Rome, Musei Capitolini; ph. from Arslan 1997, 401 no. V.19) 126 93 Gem (Vienna, KHM; ph. from Arslan 1997, 238 no. IV.239) 131 94 Ring with gem from Patras (Patras Museum; ph. from G. Touchais, BCH 109 [1985], 788 fig. 61) 132 95 Gem (ph. ACR online Auction 1, lot 7) 133 96a–c Statuette from Balanea (Paris, Louvre Museum; ph. D. Lebeurrier) 134–135 97 Seal from Paphos (ph. from Nikolaou 1978, pl. CLXXVII, 3) 137 98 Statuette from Fließem (Trier Museum; ph. from Religio romana 1996, 223–224 fig. 48b) 138 99 Statuette from Alexandria(?) (Athens, National Museum; ph. Wikimedia commons [T. Efthimiadis]) 139 100 Statuette from Rome(?) (Berlin, Antikensammlung; ph. N. Franken) 140 101 Statuettes from a lararium in Boscoreale (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum; ph. Wikimedia commons [M. Harrsch]) 141 102 Coin from Anchialos (priv. coll.) 142 103 Lamp from Aléria (Aléria Archaeological Museum; ph. LB) 143 104 Coin from Rhodes (priv. coll.) 144 105 Statue base from Delos (Delos in situ; ph. LB) 151

xii

Illustrations, Tables and Map

106

Funerary inscription from Rome (Florence, Archaeological Museum; ph. from RICIS Suppl. III, 154 no. 501/0132) 155 Altar from Saguntum (Sagunto, Roman theatre; ph. from RICIS Suppl. I, 101 no. 603/0401) 156 Dedication from Rome (Rome, MNR; ph. from RICIS Suppl. III, 154 no. 501/0137) 157 Gem (London, BM; ph. Museum) 159 Dedication from Portus (Rome, MNR; ph. from RICIS no. 503/1204 pl. XCVI) 165 Vota Publica coin from Rome (priv. coll.) 167 Coins from Corinth (ph. RPC IV) 178 Gem (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; ph. Museum) 181 Votive model of anchor (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum; ph. from BrunnerTraut 1979, pl. XXXIX) 187 Ring (ph. from Boardman & Scarisbrick 1970, no. 15) 188 Gem (New York, Metropolitan Museum; ph. from Richter 1956², pl. 47) 189 Statuette (London, BM; ph. Museum) 190 Coin from Alexandria (ph. RPC III) 190 Lamp from Pozzuoli (London, BM; ph. from Merkelbach 1995, pl. 213) 191 Lamp from Ostia (Ostia Museum; ph. from Merkelbach 1995, pl. 212) 191 Lamp from Carthage (Tunis, Bardo Museum; ph. from Podvin 2011, pl. 63) 193 Lamp from Sabratha (Sabratha Museum; ph. from Podvin 2011, pl. 63) 193 Lamp from Kato Paphos (Paphos District Museum; ph. from Anastassiades 2009, 149) 194 Lamp (Berlin, Egyptian Museum; ph. from Weber 1914, II, pl. 1) 195 Lamp from Ascalon (Ashkelon, Rockefeller Archaeological Museum; ph. from Johnson 2008, 130 no. 386) 196 Lamp from Minoa (ph. from Marangou 2002, 260 fig. 243.3) 196 Lamps from Alexandria (128: priv. coll. Neuchâtel / 129: London, BM; ph. from Bailey 1988, no. Q 1991) 197 Lamp from Athens (Athens, Agora Museum; ph. from Perlzweig 1961, pl. 23j) 199 Dedication from Byzance (Warsaw Museum; ph. from Łajtar & Twardecki 2003, no. 5) 204 Honorific inscription from Amphipolis (Amphipolis Archaeological Museum; ph. R. Veymiers) 221 Painting from Ostia (Vatican; ph. LB) 225 Dish (Cologne, RGM; ph. from Ensoli & La Rocca 2000, 517 no. 145) 227

107 108 109a–b 110 111 112–113 114 115 116 117a–b 118 119 120 121 122 123 124a–b 125 126 127 128–129 130 131 132 133 134

Illustrations, Tables and Map

xiii

135–137 Magical gems (Athens National Museum, Providence Museum of Art, and priv. coll.; ph. from Veymiers 2009, nno. V.CB 3, 11, and 9, pl. 58 and XXI) 236 138 Gem Southesk (ph. from Veymiers 2009, no. II.C 1 and pl. XIV) 238 139 Gem (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; ph. Museum) 243 140–143 Coins from Ephesus (priv. coll.) 245 144–146 Coins from Alexandria (ph. RPC IV) 247–248 147 Gem (ph. from Veymiers 2009, no. V.BBC 34 and pl. 56) 248 148a–b Gem (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum; ph. from Veymiers 2009, no. VI.DA 7, pl. 65) 249 149 Gem (ph. from Veymiers 2011, no. V.BBC 39, pl. 12) 249 150 Coin from Alexandria (ph. RPC III) 250 151 Coin from Sinope (priv. coll.) 253 152–153 Medallions from Rome (priv. coll.) 255 154 Sestertius from Rome (priv. coll.) 257 155a–b Ring with gem (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum; ph. from Veymiers 2009, no. V.BBC 21, pl. 56 [155a: gem] and Neverov 1998, 469 fig. 2 [155b: impression]) 258 156 Coin from Alexandria (ph. RPC III) 259 157 Dedication to Sarapis-Neptune from Carthage (Algiers Museum; ph. J.-P. Laporte) 260 158 Coin from Serdica (priv. coll.) 262 159 Coin from Nicaea (ph. from Solidus Auction, 20–21 Oct. 2017, no. 111) 263 160 Coin from Perinthus (priv. coll.) 263 161 Coin from Cologne (priv. coll.) 265 162 Vota Publica coin from Rome (Paris, BnF; ph. Museum) 265 163 Vota Publica coin from Rome (ph. Roma Numismatics, 21 May 2013, no. 1638) 266 164 Gem (Berlin, Antikensammlung; ph. from Veymiers 2014, no. I.H 5, pl. 1) 266 165 Mold from Vertault (Châtillon s/ Seine Museum; ph. from Arslan 1997, 556 no. VI.9) 267 166a–b Inscription from Aternum (166a: drawing from La Regina 1968, pl. XXIV fig. 50 / 166b: ph. BS) 269 167 Tessera (priv. coll.) 269 168 Fresco from Pietra Papa, Rome (Rome, MNR; ph. Museum) 271 169 Fresco from Ostia (Vatican; ph. Wikimedia commons [BS]) 272 170 Dedication from Coptos (London, University College; ph. Museum) 273 171 Anchor from Malta (ph. from RICIS Suppl. II, 305 no. 517/0101) 275

xiv

Illustrations, Tables and Map

172

Ivory plaque from Alexandria (Aachen, Cathedral; ph. from Lepie & Münchow 2006, 45) 282 173 Isis on the ice (drawing from Baltrušaitis 1968, 117 fig. 76) 284 174–175 Isis (drawings from Cartari, Imagini degli Dei, eds. 1608 (p. 113) & 1626 (p. 105)) 285 176 Paris coat of arms (ph. LB) 286 177 Henley Regatta’s medal (priv. coll.) 287

Tables 1 Isis-with-a-sail: A typology 58 2 Type A1r: the coins 60 3 Type A1l: the coins 62 4 Type A2r: the coins 65 5 Type A2l: the coins 67 6 Type A2r´: the coins 68 7 Type A3r: the coins 70 8 Type A5r: the coins 71 9 Type A6r: the coins 72 10 Type A6l: the coins 73 11 Type A9r: the coins 75 12 Type A10r: the coins 76 13 Type A14r: the coins 78 14 Type A14l: the coins 80 15 Type B1r: the coins 82 16 Type B2r: the coins 83 17 Type B2l: the coins 84 18 Type B5r: the coins 85 19 Type B6l: the coins 86 20 Cities issuing coins with the Isis-with-a-sail type 87

Map Map

Isis-with-a-sail: Material sources xvii

Abbreviations The abbreviations used for the periodicals are those of the Année philologique, for the papyrological collections those of the Checklist of editions of Greek Papyri and Ostraca, for the numismatic collections those of the Roman Provincial Coinage, for the epigraphic works those of the Guide de l’épigraphiste and, for the ancient authors, those of the New Pauly. Other abbreviations: CE

Pierre Roussel, Les cultes égyptiens à Délos du IIIème au Ier s. av. J.-C., Paris 1916 IBIS Jean Leclant et Gisèle Clerc, Inventaire bibliographique des Isiaca. Répertoire analytique des travaux relatifs à la diffusion des cultes isiaques (= ÉPRO, 18), 4 vols., Leiden 1972–1991 LÄ Wolfgang Helck, Eberhard Otto & Wolfhart Westendorf (eds.), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, 7 vols., Wiesbaden 1972–1992 LGG Christian Leitz (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen (= Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 110–116, 129), 8 vols., Leuven 2002–2003 LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 10 vols., ZurichMunich 1981–2009 LTUR Eva Margareta Steinby (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, 6 vols., Roma 1993–2000 RIC Roman Imperial Coinage RICIS Laurent Bricault, Recueil des Inscriptions concernant les Cultes Isiaques (= Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XXXI), 3 vols., Paris 2005 RICIS Suppl. I L. Bricault, in L. Bricault (ed.), Bibliotheca Isiaca I, Bordeaux 2008, 77–130 RICIS Suppl. II L. Bricault, in L. Bricault & R. Veymiers (eds.), Bibliotheca Isiaca II, Bordeaux 2011, 273–316 RICIS Suppl. III L. Bricault, in L. Bricault & R. Veymiers (eds.), Bibliotheca Isiaca III, Bordeaux 2014, 139–206 RICIS Suppl. IV L. Bricault, in L. Bricault & R. Veymiers (eds.), Bibliotheca Isiaca IV, Bordeaux 2019 (forthcoming) RPC Roman Provincial Coinage

xvi SIRIS

SNRIS

SNRIS Suppl. I

Abbreviations Ladislav Vidman, Sylloge inscriptionum religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae (= Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, XXVIII), Berlin 1969 L. Bricault (dir.), Sylloge Nummorum Religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae (=  Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XXXVIII), Paris 2008 L. Bricault, in L. Bricault & R. Veymiers (eds.), Bibliotheca Isiaca III, Bordeaux 2014, 245–284

map Isis-with-a-sail: Material sources

Introduction Isis was, from the beginning, the personification of the royal throne, the seat that until the end of Egypt’s Pharaonic Period remained her characteristic symbol. Indeed, such is the meaning of the hieroglyph representing her name.1 A combination of certain Isiac elements of the so-called Osirian myth,2 the toponymy of the Greco-Roman Period, and archaeology appear to place the geographical origin of her cult in Lower Egypt, though without certainty. Pharaonic Isis was multifaceted: divine mother of Horus in the Heliopolitan cosmogony, sister and spouse of Osiris, mother goddess and goddess of the dead, protectress and regenerator of life. During the course of the first millennium BCE there occurred the rise to power of Isis, the beneficent goddess, at the same time as the popularity of the Osirian myth and the funerary doctrines attached to it.3 Thanks in particular to her powerful maternal role, Isis little by little appropriated the functions, specializations, and attributes of most of the Egyptian goddesses, in a henotheistic process that led to the creation of an omnipotent and cosmic power, an evolution of which Herodotus was able to record the final phase and provide an echo.4 As protectress of royal affairs, in the 4th cent. BCE the goddess knew the favor of the Nectanebos, the last of Egypt’s native rulers, whose origins lay in the Delta region. Thanks to them, she reigned as divine mistress from Behbeit el-Hagar in Lower Egypt all the way to the island of Philae. Many were the festivals celebrating her throughout the year, down the length of the Nile.5 The Ptolemies’ seizure of power and earlier foundation of Alexandria, the new capital of the oikoumene, was to give a decisive impetus to the universalizing tendencies of Isis and to encourage the diffusion of her cult beyond Egypt. 1  On Isis before the Graeco-Roman Period, Gartland 1968; Münster 1968; Forgeau 1981; Bergman 1986; Tran tam Tinh 1990; Nagel 2019. 2  In this book I will repeatedly use the expression “Osirian myth” for the sake of simplicity. But let us not forget that the narrative of the story of Osiris was constructed over time, without leading at any given moment to a canonical version that was recognized as such by the Ancients. It is we Moderns who frequently confer, incorrectly, this role upon the version transmitted by Plutarch in his De Iside. The very question of the degree and relevance of the transfer of the Greek concept of myth to Egyptian culture is at the heart of an intense debate: Medini & Tallet 2018; Volokhine 2018; Meeks 2018, esp. the chapter nicely entitled “C’est la faute à Plutarque,” 182–187. 3  Forgeau 1981. 4  H dt. 2. 42. 5  On Isis in Egypt during the Graeco-Roman Period, Dunand 1973-I; Bricault & Versluys 2010; Bricault 2013; Nagel 2019.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_002

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Introduction

Iconographically, there arose at the time, parallel to the very traditional representations of the goddess that persisted, a new image of Isis communally called “Alexandrian,” but who might better be qualified as “Greco-Egyptian.” If, as can be seen, the general attitude of her sculpted representations remained quite fixed from the beginning – this relaxes over time – it is only the details of her clothing and finery that changed: she abandoned her long, straight tunic and attired herself with a chiton, himation and shawl with fringes, knotted between her breasts;6 she no longer wore the Egyptian wig, but rather long, twisted curls, called “Libyan,”7 comparable to our modern “British curls”; and, her head frequently remained coiffed in the manner of her ancient Pharaonic attributes, the hieroglyph of her name or the horns of Hathor enclosing the solar disk (what is called the “Crown of Hathor”), though increasingly she is ornamented with a new headdress that modern scholars, following Plutarch, refered to as a basileion, which is the Crown of Hathor surmounted by two tall feathers.8 Terracotta figurines of Isis, molded in the Greek manner and enjoying great popularity in the chôra during the 3rd cent. BCE, demonstrate the variety of new representations of the goddess, and can be organized according to three basic functions: breastfeeding Harpocrates or Apis, or even cradling Harpocrates in her arms, she is an overseer of maternity and protector of newborns; in the form of a serpent like Thermouthis or carrying a torch like Demeter, i.e. in her native or Greek appearance, she is an agricultural goddess; finally, identified with Aphrodite, she protects women, marriages, and sailors. The broadening of Isis’s puissance9 was realized for the most part in Egypt, following a typically Egyptian process in which the concept of the divine was considered fluid.10 This evolution had, on the one hand, profited from the flexibility of Egyptian theology and rather ancient equivalencies established for goddesses who were as much Egyptian as Near Eastern, and on the other hand had benefited from the influences and enrichments that came from the contacts made with the Greeks beginning in the 7th cent. BCE, whether at Naucratis, Memphis, or elsewhere. This development is certainly the accomplishment of local priestly circles that were more or less Hellenized, but also quite informed by the dynamic virtue of Egyptian henotheism that permitted one to see in the diverse goddesses, Egyptian as well as foreign, hypostases of the sole divinity Isis. It is this phenomenon that is referred to in a hymn by a certain Isidorus, 6  Malaise 1994b. 7  Schwentzel 2000. 8  Malaise 2009b; Veymiers 2014b. 9  On the concept, Vernant 1965, 79; Albert-Llorca et al. 2017. 10  Dunand & Zivie-Coche 1991, 268–272; Malaise 2000.

Introduction

3

written in Greek and inscribed at the beginning of the 1st cent. BCE on the pilasters of the entranceway of the temple of Isis-Thermouthis at Narmouthis, in the Fayoum: “The Egyptians call you Thiouis (Egyptian t3 wct, Unique One) because you are in and of yourself the embodiment of all goddesses named by the various peoples.”11 This theological effort, which seems to have had as its initial goal the popularization of Isis among the Greeks living in Egypt, is novel because during Pharaonic times the Egyptians were never preoccupied with any sort of proselytism that the basic tenets of their religion did not require. However, subsequently submitting to a foreign power concentrated in the hands of a “Greek” pharaoh and his Alexandrian court, they chose to present certain native divinities to their new political masters in a more accessible light, without in any way rejecting their essential natures.12 In this manner was born the Hellenistic Isis, rather than a Hellenized one who, revered outside of Egypt within the Isiac diaspora, revealed herself to be fundamentally identical to the one in Egypt, in terms of her visual representations, nomenclature, and areas of jurisdiction. It was according to their own jurisdictions, their accessibility, the power one attributes to them, and their ways of going about over the world, but also according to the expectations of their worshipers, their needs or desires, and the communication strategies between people and gods, that divinities were invoked or established by individuals or communities. Pluralism, constitutive of the manner of thinking about and practicing the polytheistic religions, is spread across the myths as it is across the rites; the numerous variants that affect the stories about the gods, the formulas for invoking them, and the gestures for mobilizing them reveal a fabulous cultural creativity, rich in teachings about human ways of thinking about the divine. In this sphere, the question of ancestrality ensures more than anything else the legitimacy of what one does and what one says. Religion is fundamentally a matter for the fields of tradition and memory, even if it frequently accomodates innovations.13 The gods are many, but they also come in a multitude of manifestations, often designated 11  I . Métriques 643, no. 175 I,23–24: Αἰγύπτιοι δὲ Θιοῦιν, ὅτι μούνη εἶ σὺ ἅπασαι αἱ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν ὀνομαζόμεναι θεαὶ ἄλλαι; see also Vanderlip 1972, 31. On these hymns, Moyer 2016 and Moyer 2017, with previous bibliography. 12  This reality is to be compared with that of earlier periods, when the Egyptians were confronted by the domination of the Hyksos, Nubians or Persians: Vittmann 2006. I am unaware of the existence of texts similar to, for example, the Isis Aretalogy that is discussed below (infra pp. 43–46). For the political and cultural links between Egypt and foreign peoples during the second millennium BCE, see Schneider 1998 and Schneider 2003; for the first millennium BCE, Vittmann 1998 and Vittmann 2003. 13  Assmann 2006; see also Versluys 2017, about the memory of Egypt in the Roman koine.

4

Introduction

by epithets or epicleses.14 As was written by the author of the Peri kosmou (Concerning the World), a treatise attributed to Aristotle which in fact dates at the earliest to the 1st cent. BCE, “Although God is unique, he has plenty of names that are given to him based on all of the phenemena of which he himself is the cause.” The manner in which these superhuman entities that are the gods are designated is significative of their natures and functions,15 but also of their modus operandi and place within ensembles. Their names in some way designate a first perimeter for the gods’ theological identity.16 The gods are, in fact, polyonymous (“having many names”), and often polymorphous. Isis even ends up in the 1st cent. CE being termed myrionymos (“having infinite names”) by a clergy concerned about her precedence and with identifying and naming the network formed by the ensemble of her names.17 As for the versatility of the images of gods, people sought to translate it iconographically by the assigning of various attributes (scepters, crowns, jewelry) or a specific divine gesture (breast-feeding, confrontation, majesty), but also by postures and figurative characteristics (nudity, youth, or even, as in Egypt, animal form). These manifestations appear in infinite representations, some but not all anthropomorphic, in frameworks, in eminently dynamic contexts.18 During their migrations and other relocations, gods and goddesses change. They encounter the cults of the “others,” adapting themselves to new environments, reshaping themselves, and adopting different forms, a mixed iconography, and new appellations. These journeys distort the gods, or, to be more precise, they reshape the gods, polishing and reconfiguring them through a subtle conflict between constraints and opportunities, strategies and observance, invention and tradition. It is on certain aspects (iconographic, lexical, and functional) of Isis – of the Hellenistic and later Roman Isis – that the present work is focused. When one engages in an Internet search for the terms “Isis” and “Serapis,”19 the greatest number of links primarily lead to various esoteric sites and works, 14  On the necessity of thinking – as well – about polytheism in terms of the names of the individual divine puissances, Bonnet et al. 2018. 15  Aug., Civ. Dei 6.9.1: ipsa numinum officia tam uiliter minutatimque concisa, propter quod eis dicunt pro uniuscuiusque proprio munere supplicari oportere: “these functions of the gods fragmented in a manner so petty and minute that it is necessary to invoke each according to his own office.” 16  Belayche 2017. 17  Bricault 1994. 18  Bonnet & Bricault 2016, 7–13. 19  This is the form more commonly used online than “Sarapis.” In the present study I am using the form Sarapis, which is more ancient and the form most frequently employed in Greek. See Clarysse & Paganini 2009, who show, drawing from a sampling of 4857 individuals bearing theophoric names derived from his name, that in more than 90% of

Introduction

5

FIGURE 1 John Paul Jones and the Serapis. Medallion of Augustin Dupre. c. 1840

and, secondarily and more surprisingly, to sites devoted to the American Revolutionary War. This is because of two ships that played a role in this conflict. Under the name Isis there is to be found a ship in the British Royal Navy, a frigate commanded by the English captain Charles Douglas which, in the spring of 1776, reached Quebec via the St. Lawrence River despite frozen conditions in order to support the garrison besieged by the American Gen. Benedict Arnold. Similarly, under the name Serapis one finds another British frigate, known to history for having faced the famous Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, in September 1779 at Flamborough Head, north of Great Britain, and having been captured by him (fig. 1).20 That two ships of the Royal Navy at the end of the 18th century would bear the names of two Greco-Egyptian divinities might seem curious at first glance. the cases it is a name derived from the form “Sarapis.” The names with “Serap-” appear in fewer than 8% of the cases, and first appear in the 2nd cent. BCE: thus this form, though the later of the two, was not limited to the Imperial Period as is generally thought. It in fact appears to have been influenced by the western origin of the individuals in question and the Latinized spelling they employed. It is worth noting, however, that the same person could be interchangeably addressed as Sarapion or Serapion (a common masculine name), or Sarapias or Serapias (a common feminine name), sometimes even in the same papyrus! 20  This ship was an old “Indiaman” of 900 tons offered by France to the Americans and christened in honor of Benjamin Franklin. On these episodes, Tran 2000, with earlier bibliography. The publications on this subject, particularly in English, are innumerable.

6

Introduction

Yet this can be viewed as one of the last avatars of a history with origins stretching back more than two thousand years into the past. The links that connect Isis to the marine world have for a long time attracted the attention of modern scholars, collectors and intellectuals.21 However, in Antiquity she was not the only divinity having power over the marine world: Aphrodite, Poseidon, the Dioscuri, the Samothracian gods, and other gods as well were likewise able to be called upon by sailors. As Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge has written, “The qualities assumed by a divinity determine the modes of intervention in a defined area; this is the reason for which different divinities share the same area of intervention, with each one taking action according to his own modalities.”22 Isis was not alone in that polytheistic universe even if, in many ancient and recent works she is still perceived as an exotic, Egyptian outsider to a quintessentially Mediterranean Hellenistic and Roman system. Such a view is mistaken and Isis, as well as Sarapis, was certainly one of the institutionalised religious options in the Graeco-roman world and, without doubt, one to whom people frequently turned. She joined, first in Egypt and then throughout the Mediterranean world, from a longue durée perspective, a complex network of divinities whose areas of activity were not always distinct from those of one another.23 These were able to overlap and complement each other.24 This is one of the reason why the cults of Isis must preferably be analysed in terms of appropriation rather than diffusion. These appropriations were dependent on one another to a great extent and, moreover, they were determined by much larger social and religious developments that were unfolding over time.25 They were also determined by different spaces, connected in one way or another, simultaneously global and local, and thus with many (extra) possibilities for cultural innovation. The cults of Isis are often reflective of the interrelated phenomena of religious diaspora and connectivity and must therefore be analysed on both a “local” and a “global” 21  Those connections between Sarapis and the seafaring world, in contrast, have hardly received attention up to now. 22   Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 435. See infra p. 178 with figs. 112–113 for a Corinthian coin issue of the time of Antoninus which features, on the reverse, parallel types that probably express this reality: on a first series, it is the statue of Poseidon that is found located at the center of the port of Kenchreai, whereas on a second series it is the statue of Isis that rises up in the same spot. 23  Woolf 2014; Nagel 2019. 24  On the respective roles of Athena, Poseidon and the Dioscuri in the sphere of maritime activities, Detienne & Vernant 1974, 201–215, 221–222 and 235–241; on the Dioscuri, Hadjari et al. 2007, 360–364; on Aphrodite, Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 433–437; Giuffrida 1996; Barbantani 2005; Pironti 2007, 245–247; Demetriou 2010. 25  Bricault & Versluys 2014, 23–26.

Introduction

7

level.26 This is why Isis’s areas of activity, abilities, and prerogatives in her relations with the riverine and marine worlds must be comprehended, delimited and defined with great precision if one is to try to understand how and why Isis became a goddess strongly linked to the aquatic world and then remained so for centuries. In his 1884 dissertation entitled Histoire du culte des divinités d’Alexandrie: Sérapis, Isis, Harpocrate et Anubis hors de l’Égypte depuis les origines jusqu’à la naissance de l’Ecole néo-platonicienne, published in Paris, the first modern scholarly study of this subject,27 Georges Lafaye only devoted a few pages to the “Ship of Isis” festival, noting too quickly28 that it was undoubtedly “an Alexandrian institution and that it corresponded to one of the events in the myth of Osiris.” He thus gave his answer, in just a few words, to what would become one of the main concerns of modern scholars: was the origin of this power over the waves Greek, Alexandrian, or Egyptian? The earliest attempts at collecting the documentation pertaining to the subject, always quite useful, were the contribution of Wilhelm Drexler in Roscher’s Lexikon29 and subsequently two Pauly-Wissowa articles by Johanna Schmidt.30 Godwin Vandebeek in his work De interpretatio graeca van de Isisfiguur, which was published in Leuven in 1946 and served as a standard reference for at least two decades, devoted ten pages to the goddess Isis and the sea.31 For reasons that are not always convincing, he arrived at the conclusion that this association was an essentially Greek personality trait of the goddess. This opinion from a Hellenist was counterbalanced in 1961 by the Egyptologist Dieter Müller in his rich study Ägypten und die griechischen Isis-Aretalogien: focusing on this aspect of Isis,32 he attempted, not without difficulties, and also not without forcing certain associations, to uncover the Egyptian origins. Jan Bergman, another Egyptologist, in his rather controversial essay entitled Ich bin Isis, which appeared slightly later in 1968,33 returned to the subject and reached the same conclusions, synthesized in 1974 by John Gwyn Griffiths in 26  Bricault & Versluys 2012. 27  It seems useless to me to trace the thread of earlier studies up to the end of the nineteenth century even if, in some work or some memoire, there might be a discussion regarding Isis Pharia or Isis Pelagia. The reader will find the complete references to the works presented here in the general bibliography. 28  Lafaye 1884, 126. 29  Drexler 1894. 30  Schmidt 1937; Schmidt 1938. 31  Vandebeek 1946, 44–54. 32  Müller 1961, 61–67. 33  Bergman 1968.

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Introduction

a short article entitled “The Egyptian Antecedents of the Isidis Navigium.”34 To date, no other in-depth study has appeared in which the case is taken up again and the cards are reshuffled.35 Other than the question of origins, the subject that has primarily (pre)­ occupied scholars is that of the iconographic representations pertaining to the marine Isis. The first genuine study entirely consecrated to this question is Philippe Bruneau’s “Isis Pelagia à Délos,” published in 1961, which was completed two years later in a second article, “Isis Pelagia à Délos (compléments).”36 These works justifiably revived a great interest in the subject and, in the span of just a few years, several (short) publications appeared that were devoted to representations of marine Isis and drew from different types of sources. This included a lychnological study by Charles Picard, who in 1962 wrote a note on “Lampes d’Isis Pelagia et Euploia: à Délos et ailleurs,” and a numismatic one by Paul Naster, in his 1968 communication on “Isis Pharia sur les monnaies impériales d’Alexandrie,” though these few pages did not add much of anything new to Bruneau’s analysis.37 There are four other publications that put forward an important problem concerning marine Isis. In quick succession, Hans Wolfgang Müller, Der Isiskult im antiken Benevent und Katalog der Skulpturen aus den ägyptischen Heiligtümern im Museo del Sannio and Jean-Georges Szilágyi, “Un problème iconographique” appeared in 1969,38 and the following year László Castiglione, “Isis Pharia: Remarque sur la statue de Budapest” and Fausto Zevi, “Una statua dall’Isola sacra e l’Iseo di Porto,” all proposed to recognized in three statues a representation of Isis holding an inflated sail before her.39 These identifications were quickly rejected by Bruneau in an important article of 1974, “Existe-t-il des statues d’Isis Pélagia?”, in which this scholar provided a solid argument seeking to deny the very possibility of statues of Isis-with-a-sail.40 A debate was then initiated, notably marked in 1976 by Giuseppe Pucci’s “Iside Pelagia: A proposito di una controversia iconografica,” which reexamined the known examples, confirming the existence of an Alexandrian model for this type of statue and defending the proposed identification of Isis Pelagia in the fragmentary statues of Benevento, Budapest and Ostia, contra Bruneau.41 Bruneau himself returned briefly to the subject two 34  Gwyn Griffiths 1974. 35  See infra pp. 11–18. 36  Bruneau 1961; Bruneau 1963. 37  Picard 1962; Naster 1968. 38  Müller 1969; Szilágy 1969. 39  Castiglione 1970; Zevi 1970–1971. 40  Bruneau 1974. 41  Pucci 1976.

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years later in order to reaffirm his position, in “Deliaca, 25: Isis Pelagia (IV) ou l’horreur de l’ἐποχή sceptique.”42 During the years 1980–90, several analyses periodically appeared that were devoted to known or unpublished examples, to which I shall return below, permitting the arguments to be narrowed and refined. Petros Themelis’s discovery of a statue of the goddess at Messene in the early 2000’s seems to have made it possible for there to be a final conclusion to the debate.43 Apart from these two questions regarding the origin of the function and associated iconography, long and hotly debated, the third issue that has aroused significant interest is the passage in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses devoted to the Ploiaphesia, for which the most detailed study to date, from an Egyptological point of view, was provided in 1975 by Gwyn Griffiths, whose rich commentary rather quickly raised reservations among specialists in the history of religions as well as in the literature of the Imperial Period,44 and whose general interpretation today appears partly outdated.45 The reedition with commentary of Book XI by Wytse Keulen and Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser, along with several contributions to the now fundamental conference volume Individuals and Materials in the Greco-Roman Cults of Isis edited by Valentino Gasparini and Richard Veymiers, offer rather clearly the status quaestionis and new perspectives.46 These three historiographic pillars (the origins, the iconography, the festivals) must not, however, obscure the other issues likely to help determine how and why a goddess of Egyptian origin could have become, beginning in Hellenistic times but especially during the Roman Imperial Period, one of the principal divinities having dominion over the marine world, and in turn likely to help us appreciate what this reveals. The names, epithets and epicleses attributed to her, the ways to celebrate her cult, the actors who would do so, and the reasons that led a number of cities to promote her image and her temples are all precious keys to understand this issue. To achieve this, it has indeed proven valuable to gather numerous sources,47 from the sarcastic comments of Juvenal regarding sailors’ painted ex-voto 42  Bruneau 1978. 43  Themelis 2011; see infra pp. 119–120. 44  Gwyn Griffiths 1975. See e.g. the reviews by F. Dunand in Chronique d’Égypte, LII 104, (1977), 294–299, K. Dowden in The Classical Review, 28.1 (1978), 51–52, and F. Solmsen in Gnomon, 51.6 (1979), 549–561. 45   A pul. Met. 11. 8–17; Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 31–47, 171–269. 46  Keulen & Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2015; Gasparini & Veymiers 2018; see e.g. the contributions by L. Bricault & R. Veymiers, V. Gasparini, A. Grand-Clément, and S. Pfeiffer. On the Navigium Isidis, see infra pp. 203–229. 47  It would undoubtedly be better to write “a great number of sources,” the goal of exhaustiveness remaining here, as elsewhere, a pious vow. Representing diverse types, many of

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Introduction

dedications, to the colorful description given by Apuleius regarding the procession at Kenchreai on March 5, to certain civic coins of Byblos or Alexandria showing the goddess holding a billowing sail, to a number of stone statues and countless bronze statuettes, to the multiple dedications addressing Isis as Pelagia or Euploia, and so many others that a priori seem heterogeneous but highlight the same theme that is investigated here. For a better understanding of Isis as a divinity with power over the waters, one first should investigate the origins of this “marine” Isis before contemplating the processes that enabled the development of her new power. Next, it is necessary to examine those among the images of Isis that can be identified as representing her as mistress of the sea, along with which names were applied to her at the time, before being able to determine if the goddess in this guise received special cult, in terms of ritual practices and specific festivals. This should help us reach a better understanding of how those peregrina sacra finally spread rather rapidly from the private sphere to the public and official sphere. Finally, after having frequently delved into this topic without making it the focus of the investigation, we shall turn to Sarapis in order to determine to what extent he, too, was a “marine” divinity, before spending time, in the form of an epilogue, extending the study up to the 21st century so as to highlight some of the numerous representations of Isis, “goddess of the seas,” made post-antiquity.

which remain little known among the scholars who are interested in this subject, this is quite understandable. Since the first (French) edition of this book, in 2006, there have appeared more than twenty new sources that I have been able to reunite and, moreover, present in this new edition. This increase, far from being negligible, is in large part due to the generosity of my colleague and friend Richard Veymiers and to the international Thesaurus Iconographicus Cultuum Isiacorum (ThICIs) which he coordinates.

CHAPTER 1

The Origins of Isis, Goddess of the Seas Thirty years ago when discussing the iconography of the Greco-Roman Isis, Jean Leclant wrote: Isis Pelagia, mistress of the sea and protector of sailors, beginning in Hellenistic times is widely attested in Greece as well as the coastal cities of Asia Minor. (…) This facet is generally viewed as a typically Greek form of the goddess, as the relatively minimal role that maritime sailing appears to have played in ancient Egypt is known. Isis did not originally have any association with the sea; Hathor, however, would protect sailors who would travel to Byblos. The image of Isis standing on the prow of a ship, holding in her two hands its sail inflated by the wind, in any case does not borrow a single element from Pharaonic art.1 This observation is an old one, and is also to be read in a number of works of modern scholars, for the most part classicists.2 In following an inductive approach that is more or less forced, certain Egyptologists have attempted to recover a trace of this aspect of the goddess’s personality in Egypt itself in the time of the Pharaohs,3 with Gwyn Griffiths going so far as to entitle one of his studies “The Egyptian Antecedents of the Isidis Navigium.”4 I will opt in the pages that follow for an inverse approach, attempting first to discern who in ancient Egypt had power over the waves. Did this prerogative fall to Isis in some way or other? If so, how did it manifest itself, and was this as much evident in her theology as her iconography? If not, however, might certain manifestations of her cult have been able to connect Isis to the aquatic world?

1  Leclant 1986, 346–347. 2  It already stands out in the pages devoted to maritime Isis by Vandebeek 1946, 44–54. 3  So Müller 1961; Bergman 1968. 4  Gwyn Griffiths 1974; see also Santamaría Canales 2018, more tentative than conclusive.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_003

12 1.1

CHAPTER 1

The Masters of the Waves in Ancient Egypt

The Egyptians’ connections to the sea were not the closest when compared with those of certain other ancient peoples.5 The Egyptians perceived the sea as frightening, a place where there are risks that can lead to capsizing or even death.6 But even if the sea was hardly a part of the Egyptian landscape and not central to Egyptian culture,7 Egyptians did indirectly play a key role in the development of maritime sailing vessels during the Bronze Age, following the invention and development of efficient and effective sailing riverboats.8 Certainly the Mediterranean Sea was practically inaccessible, except at certain places, because of marshes, lagoons and inhospitable islets that would nearly block access. The Red Sea was comparably inaccessible, separated from the Nile Valley by the Arabian desert – which one could cross, to be sure, but periodically and only after a good amount of preparation for the expedition.9 Facing the dangers that the Egyptians experienced when sailing on the Sea or on the Nile, they sought protection even if no divinity really appears to have 5  This view of the matter appears to go at least as far back as Herodotus. The Greek historian affirms, in effect, that the Egyptians were unfamiliar with certain Greek gods, among them Poseidon, the Dioscuri (gods often invoked by seafarers) and the Nereids (2. 43 and 2. 50). Plutarch (De Is. 32), and moreover Lydus (Mens. 4. 45), put forward an explanation of this observation: if the Egyptians hated the sea, it was because it would in fact have been Seth-Typhon, the very principle of violence and negative forces in the Osirian myth that was prominent in Egypt during the first millennium BCE. In the words of Plutarch (Quaest. conv. 8. 2), the Egyptians, and their priests in particular, despised, rejected and hated all that came from the sea, from fish to sailors. This rejection of the sea, which seems to have made such an impact on certain ancient authors, is somewhat exaggerated, and must be partly called into question. 6  Quack 2016. 7  In the Delta, at least, the sea was probably very much a part of the Egyptian landscape. Already in the middle of the second millennium BCE, the city of Avaris functioned as a major port for Mediterranean commerce. This function subsequently was taken on by Qantir-Piramesse, and later by the cities of Tanis and Bubastis. Therefore, already from the Ramesside periods onwards Egypt had what one could call “Mediterranean ports.” We should also consider, for example, the goddess of Mendes, Hatmehyt, whose name means “The first among the fish,” and who in her animal form took on that of a silver catfish, an Egyptian fish known for its leaps above the water’s surface. At certain times of the year, Hatmehyt would take on the appearance of a female dolphin, the form in which Isis went out in her search for the body of her husband, according to the legend reported by Plutarch in his On Isis and Osiris (Meeks 1973, 215–216). For Hatmehyt, Gamer-Wallert 1977.    More generally, for the relationship between Egypt and the marine world, a subject of much controversy, Vandersleyen 1999; Fabre 2004; Vandersleyen 2008; and the numerous reviews of these works. 8  Broodbank 2010; see also Ward 2010; Ward 2014. 9  Creasman & Doyle 2010.

The Origins of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

13

had as its function dominion over the waves, and, in turn, the protection of humans who would venture upon them. However, a certain number of documents indicate that two divinities were able, perhaps as a secondary function, to assume this role: Amon and Hathor. From the time of the New Kingdom, Amon was sometimes called “Pilot who knows the water,”10 the one who was to be invoked before a maritime voyage because he “saves the one whom he loves in a tempest, he discovers sand banks and he brings a favorable wind to the one who has his favor.”11 When one “invokes his name in anger on the Very Green, one reaches land in peace.”12 In the great Leiden hymn he is a “charm against the sea,” at whose name “the winds turn, the opposing wind beats a retreat”; he is also “a gentle breeze for the one who calls upon him, the one who saves the drowned.”13 As zš n ṯ3w (“origin of the wind”) and ít ṯ3w (“father of the wind”),14 master of the element of wind, he could thus protect sailors. At the Hibis temple, he is “the one who controls the winds (…). He makes the sky angry, he brings the sea to turmoil. They are peaceful when he is peaceful.”15 He still possessed this role of protector of navigation due to his power over the winds, notably if not primarily on the Nile and the waters of the Delta, up to Roman times. Several dedications at Akôris addressed to Amon came from navarchs and trierarchs.16 The latter must have been part of the Alexandrian fleet (classis Alexandrina),17 stationed at Akôris in order to ensure the policing of the river (ποταμοφυλακία).18 One might object that since Amon was the principal 10  P.Anastasi II, 9, 2. Assmann 1975, no. 177; Quack 2016, 397–399. 11  Drioton 1927, 38 n. 343; Sethe 1929, 93–94; Müller 1961, 66; Gutbub 1973, 151–153; Derchain-Urtel 1984, 754–756. 12  In a hymn to Amon from the mammisis of Edfou (47, 18–20) and Dendera (28, 2–3), the latter dated to the times of Nectanebo I; Daumas 1958, 433 and Barucq & Daumas 1980, 346 no. 93. This text is a cultic invocation to “Amon providing the breath of life” on behalf of Hathor in labor. This association of the god of storms and the breath given to those in labor is also found in the Hymn to Amon, Lord of Hibis II, 31, 38–39 (= Barucq & Daumas 1980, 317 no. 88). See Vandersleyen 2008, 79–80. Compare an Imperial-Period dedication from Iasos to Isis Pelagia and Isis Boubastis, infra p. 153. 13  Gardiner 1905, 28–29; Assmann 1975, 396; Barucq & Daumas 1980, 220 no. 72. 14  At the Edfou mammisi; Chassinat 1910, 24, 11.14. 15   Cruz-Uribe 1988, 123; Klotz 2006, 59–61. 16  I.Akôris nos. 16.3, 18, and 19. 17  On the classis Augusta Alexandrina, Reddé 1986, 241–244. 18  Modrzejewski & Zawadzki 1970 (on I.Akôris no. 12); Kruse 2013. The very active port of Akôris was used for the loading of grain and locally quarried stones bound for Alexandria (I.Akôris no. 3). Since it was essential that the security for these convoys be assured, the port had to serve as an office for the statio of the riverine police overseen by the officers of the classis Augusta Alexandrina.

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divinity of the place, it is not surprising to see sailors invoking him as any other individual might, regardless of profession. However, a dedication probably dating to the 2nd cent. CE bears the following text:19 θεῷ Ἄμμωνι μεγίστ[ῳ] / Διοσκούρους σωτῆρας / Χαρικλῆς ναύαρχος / στόλου Σεβ(αστοῦ) Ἀλεξανδρίνου // ὑπὲρ τοῦ τέκνου / καὶ τῆς συμβίου / εὐξάμενος / ἀνέθηκεν, / [(ἔτους)] ηʹ, Μεχεὶρ ιθʹ. To the greatest god Amon, Chariklês, navarch of the Alexandrian imperial fleet, on behalf of his son and wife, in fulfillment of a vow consecrated (a statue or statues of) the Dioscuri, saviors, [in year] 8, Mecheir 19. One learns thanks to this document that the Dioscuri were here associated with the cult of Amon, all probably as protectors of navigation (at least riverine navigation, since nothing indicates that the dedicant had ventured upon the sea).20 For her part, Hathor appears as early as the Middle Kingdom in Coffin Texts as the “Mistress of Byblos [who] holds the rudders of barques.”21 It is also Hathor’s barque that would lead the procession of Sokar.22 Pictured in her solar barque, she would often play the role of pilot or helmsman.23 In the small temple of Hathor at Deir el Medineh, one of the aspects of Hathor’s Four Faces is identified with the North Wind (mḥyt).24 Several texts, notably at Dendera,

19  I.Akôris, no. 19. Compare with I.Akôris no. 13. 20  On this aspect of Amon, Malaise & Winand 1993, 24–25. Several sources reveal to us that at Heracleion (the Egyptian Thônis), located at the mouth of the Nile’s Canopic branch, there was a temple of Amon-grb. To these two scholars, the principal sense of the epiclesis grb is one of disclosure and revelation. They thus suggest recognizing in this Amon of Heracleion an Amon who reveals to navigators approaching the coast the presence of a shallow sea bed hidden from view and likely to cause a shipwreck. The importance of the site of Heracleion, especially for sailors, has been revealed in recent years by numerous underwater archaeological excavations; Fabre 2006. According to P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 61–62, Isis at Heracleion is also called πελάγους κυρία (“mistress of the sea”). For Yoyotte 2001, 30–31, this Amon-grb at Heracleion is rather the god “who conveys to the sovereign the written title which confirms universal sovereignty.” This meaning, evoked by Malaise & Winand (1993, 21), has not been retained by those scholars. 21  Barguet 1986, 200, Spell 61; Derchain 1972, 38; Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 31–38. 22  As Gaballa & Kitchen 1969, 62–63, have demonstrated well; see also Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 36. 23  Derchain 1972, 38–44, with numerous references. 24  Derchain 1972, 5, and n. 11. Hathor is an ancient goddess of wind. Allam 1963, 132 n. 4; Borghouts 1971, n. 395.

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refer to her as ḥnwt-mḥyt, the Mistress of the North Wind, sometimes in connection with her title of Mistress of Byblos.25 This prerogative in Greco-Roman times seems to have become a constituent element of the personality of other gods, such as Khnum, for example.26 A hymn from Esna dating to the reign of Domitian invites those who are upon the waves to fear Khnum, “because it is he, the good pilot of the one who has placed him in his heart; all those who exalt him reach port safe and sound!”27 In another hymn, from Trajan’s era,28 he is the good guardian, who ensures voyages without harm, who governs the boats on the Very Green, in order to guarantee, both for the departing voyage and the return, successful crossings; should a man invoke him in order to keep his boat from capsizing, he comes to him, like a calm wind that permits the man to reach port. However, these texts date to the 1st–2nd cents. CE and this evolution is probably to be interpreted as an extension, through contamination, of the new functions of the Hellenistic Isis to the other Egyptian divinities. 1.2

Isis, Navigation, and the Aquatic Element during the Pharaonic Period

During the Pharaonic Period, Isis’s links to the aquatic element and navigation, both in the names she was given and in actions attributed to her, were thin and quite vague.29 Of course, following the example of Hathor, from whom she seems to have borrowed this role,30 Isis is able to pilot the solar barque

25  Dendera III, 54.2–4. Laisney 2009, 241–242; Richter 2016, 277. 26  On this aspect of Amon assumed by Khnum Derchain-Urtel 1984, 753–761; Müller 1972, col. 127–128. 27  Esna 277, 23–24 (trans. adapted from Sauneron 1962 [Esna V, 163]). 28  Esna 378, 20–21 (trans. adapted from Sauneron 1962 [Esna V, 168]). Compare with Esna 326B. Vandersleyen 2008, 73 and 201. 29  See the elements collected in Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 34–38. See also the pages devoted to Isis in the Chicago Demotic Dictionary (23 August 2002), Vol. 3, 68–80 [https://oi.uchicago. edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/CDD_3.pdf]. 30  Derchain 1972, 22, and 36–37. On the ancient associations unifying Hathor and Isis, Münster 1968, 119–124; Žabkar 1980, 130 n. 22; Žabkar 1983, Hymn I, 116–122 dedicated to Isis-Hathor (= Žabkar 1988, Hymn I); Preys 2002a.

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(the barque of the gods);31 to give orders in the barque of the King;32 to appear on the prow of a barque during the conflict between Horus and Seth;33 and, in her role as sister-spouse of Osiris, she can even accompany the deceased in his journey to the Underworld, and appear there, moreover, on a barque, often in the company of her sister Nephthys.34 Therefore, the hymns at her Philae temple celebrate her as “she who commands the barque of the millions” (nb(.t) nmtt m wí3 n ḥḥ), “who governs the divine barque” (Ἰr(.t) sḫrw m dpt-nṯr),35 while, as one is able to read in a text at her Aswan sanctuary, she was the one “who holds the rudder.”36 In addition, she is sometimes shown on such barques. But, given all of this, can one connect these images to any domination of the marine world? Undoubtedly not.37 There are a number of representations of divinities on watercraft, but this can be explained by the reality of life in Egypt, which, being centered around a river, could only reproduce the space in which its creator moves. To form these images, painters and writers would borrow from scenes of daily life, placing both Isis and other gods on vessels circulating upon the Nile.38 Several divine epithets appear to connect Isis to the sea. In a Theban graffito from the end of the Ptolemaic Period or the Roman Period, the goddess is invoked as “lady of the mountain, lady of the sea” (nb.t n p3 ym).39 The epithet ta p3 ym which Isis bears in a Demotic onomasticon of the Ptolemaic Period appears to be similar,40 although it is not possible to decide with certainty

31  For Bergman 1968, 198–202, one finds there the origin of maritime Isis, since he writes (p. 202); “Her role as ‘Mistress of sailing’ (Ἶσις εὔπλοια, etc.) and as helper in times of need upon the sea naturally came to her due to her function at the front of the solar barque.”. 32  Žabkar 1988, 58, Hymn V.18. The prerogative is explained by the role of protector assumed by Isis vis-à-vis Horus and the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. 33  So she appears in Edfou IV 18, 11 = VI 59, 6–7, and furthermore Edfou IV 212, 14–213, 1. During the festivals honoring the victory of Horus over Seth, she was represented on the prow of the combat vessel, protecting her son as he fought his foes; Gutbub 1962, 62. 34  See the examples cited by Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 34–35, and 45; see also infra pp. 95–96 for a Memphite shroud showing Isis velificans in such a context. 35  Žabkar 1988, 107, Hymn VII, 11–12, and 179–180 (notes). 36  Bresciani 1978, 103. 37  Bergman 1968, 198–200 and 202, has given primacy to this role of Isis on the prow of Rê’s barque, but this hypothesis was justifiably criticized by Müller 1972, col. 128. 38  Sarapis can also be found represented in this manner; see infra p. 233sqq. 39  Theban Graffito 3445. Jasnow 1984, 97–100; Kockelmann 2008, 29 and 58. 40  pCairo CG 31169 ro col. X, 9; see also de Cénival & Yoyotte 2012, where there is however no discussion of the epithet that interests us.

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whether ym here refers to the sea41 or, rather, the Fayoum.42 At Dendera, Isis is also called “lady of the w3ḏ-wr,” the last part of which is a term that as in the present case can designate the sea,43 but also the Nile, and indeed other bodies of water.44 Finally, Isis sometimes bears the epithets of “mistress of the ocean, regent and mistress of the Great Black, feminine solar disk, mistress of the circular sea” (nbt šn-wr, nbt km-wr, ítnt nbt pẖr-wr).45 This refers to the “three seas,” which one finds in the royal phraseology,46 and evokes distant lands not corresponding to geographic reality and not under any maritime jurisdiction. The same generic character can be found in an enumeration of the titles that at Dendera render Isis the “lady of the sky, the Earth, the underworld, the water, the mountains and Nun” (i.e., the primordial ocean).47 These divine epithets, the analysis of which must on the one hand focus on their being presented in a series but on the other hand look at their specific natures and individual contexts, are interpreted with difficulty because of the imprecise character of the area over which Isis is said to be mistress or lady. What is more, the date of the texts which feature these epithets is clearly after the establishment of the Hellenistic Isis’s marine and maritime prerogatives within a Greek milieu, and one must ask to what extent these were influenced by Greek terminology, rather than the reverse.48 In fact, it seems that if one wishes to find definitively in Egypt a strong connection between Isis and the aquatic element earlier than the arrival of the Greeks, one must look in another direction. Identified as Sothis in the Pyramid Texts,49 she had power over the Nile, which itself was considered a part of Nun.50 Mistress of the inundation, Isis was responsible for the fertility of the whole land.51 She is “the one who provokes the inundation,”52 “Sothis the great, who brings the inundation in her time to give life to men,”53 “Sothis who draws 41  T  a p3 ym means “She of the sea” according to Müller 1961, 66, followed by Dunand 1973, I, 95. 42  Jasnow 1984, 99 n. R; Malaise 1994a, 362. 43  Dendera VII, 70, 13: “lady (nbt) of the sea (w3ḏ-wr) and the shore (cb-r3)”; LGG IV, 38a. 44  Vandersleyen 1999; Quack 2002; Vandersleyen 2008; Quack 2010; Vandersleyen 2011. 45  Cauville 1999, 54, 4–5; LGG IV, 143 and 58. 46  Kôm Ombo I, 93; Gutbub 1973, 202; Traunecker 1992, 220. 47  Dendera III, 103, 10–11. 48  Coulon 2010, esp. 135–136. 49  Pyr. 632; Clerc 1978. 50  Müller 1961, 62. In Roman times, Servius (Ad Aen. VIII, 696) would explain that the sistrum she holds in her right hand symbolizes the flooding and receding of the Nile. 51  Bergman 1974, 104–105; Desroches-Noblecourt 1979, 108–117. 52  Žabkar 1988, Hymn IV, 2. 53  Opet 136; see likewise Edfou I, 115.

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the inundation out from her cavern,”54 or moreover, “the one who, under the name of Sothis, makes the Nile overflow until it inundates the Two Lands.”55 The same theme is developed in the first two hymns of Isidorus of Narmouthis and the Oxyrhynchus litany.56 At Dendera, representations of Isis surrounded by the Isheru (the sacred lake), in the Per-wer and Crypt South 1,57 are to be placed in relation with the festival for navigation that lasted sixteen days, from 19 Tybi to 4 Mechir.58 The rites performed on this occasion had as their goal the appeasement of the furious goddess (i.e., Hathor) returning from Nubia, and the celebration of her return at the same time as the inundation of which she was the guarantor. Even if the role of Isis is secondary, the goddess is nevertheless directly associated with the festival that is known to have been celebrated likewise at Thebes,59 Boubastis,60 and Esna.61 Just like Hathor, she is also “the beautiful wind of the North,”62 who makes grasslands live,63 and by means of the summer winds blowing towards the South prolongs the inundation by keeping the Nile’s water from flowing into the Mediterranean.64 Mistress of the river, she is also among those who travel upon its waters. But the fact that one could attribute to her the return of the Nile flood does not suggest that one should view her as having power over waters in general, as her role in this sphere was primarily associated with Osirian theology, even if the aretalogical texts attributed to Isis underline the link established between these diverse elements, presenting the goddess in a synthetic manner as “the sovereign of rivers, winds and the sea.”65

54  Dendera II, 13; Edfou VII, 115; Opet 24. At Aswan (117 F 16d), assimilated with Satis, she plays the same role, in a manner in which she is the one “who makes the inundation exit from the two caverns.” 55  Aswan 55, 5. 56  Hymns of Isidorus I, 11–13 and II, 17–20 (= I. Métriques no. 175), as well as P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 125–126: τὴν καὶ τὸν Nῖλoν ἐπὶ π[ᾶσ]αν χώραν / ἐπανάγoυσαν (“the one also who makes the Nile overflow throughout the whole of Egypt”). See infra pp. 49–51. 57  Dendera II 84, 16–17 (Per-wer) and V 147, 1 (crypt). 58  On this festival, Gessler-Löhr 1983, 401–424; Cauville 1993, 161–167; Preys 1999, 259–268. The number of days corresponds to the number of vases offered to the goddess of Per-Nou (16). It is thus probable, as written by Preys 2002b, 563–564, that one “every day would offer a vase in order to reach the ideal height of sixteen cubits at the end of the celebrations.” 59  Sauneron 1983, 22–23; Gessler-Löhr 1983, 416–419; Spalinger 1993, 173. 60   Gessler-Löhr 1983, 405–408. 61  Sauneron 1962, 17–18; Gessler-Löhr 1983, 419–420. 62  Dendara II, 13; VII 46, 1; 84, 4. Malaise 1994a, 362, n. 64. 63  Dendera II 154, 6; Preys 2002a. 64  Servajean 2009, 409–410. 65  R ICIS 302/0204, verse 39; see infra pp. 35 and 49–51.

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1.3

19

Isis, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks

It is with difficulty that one can distinguish certain tenuous links between the Egyptian Isis of the Pharaonic Period and the aquatic element, whether riverine or maritime. Should we therefore conclude that this major role of the Hellenized and Romanized goddess was a Greek trait? It would indeed seem logical, and one immediately thinks of Alexandria under the Ptolemies. This, however, is to forget a bit too quickly that the Egyptians were in contact quite early with certain populations of the ancient Near East who were much more receptive to the idea of traveling the seas, and also that the Greeks were present in substantial numbers in Egypt from the beginning of the 7th cent. BC at least. The Egyptians had established at Byblos, in Phoenicia, a commercial trading post from the time of the Old Kingdom. The native Asherah, consort of the creator god El, was there associated with Hathor,66 and the latter naturally found a place in the sanctuary of Asherah, where she seems, nevertheless, to have remained a foreign goddess.67 However, the identification of Hathor with Isis starting in the New Kingdom ensured the continuity of her cult, even after the Egyptians’ departure,68 with Isis then succeeding Hathor in the temple of Asherah.69 This should probably be identified with the Isieion mentioned by Plutarch,70 a temple at the heart of which there was preserved an ancient, hollow trunk that still remained in his time (the beginning of the 2nd cent. CE) an object of veneration for the inhabitants of Byblos. Its origin is reported by the Chaeronaean writer in the version of the Osirian myth that he provides. As he relates, when the body of Osiris, having been placed in a coffin, was abandoned on the waves it was carried as far as the area of Byblos and deposited at the site of an ἐρείκη, a type of tree that Pierre Koemoth and Frédéric Servajean proposed should be identified with a tamarisk and Anne-Sophie Dalix a cedar.71 66  Bonnet 1996, 20–22; Mettinger 2001, 211, for whom the “mistress of Byblos” is a manifestation of Hathor. 67  Stadelmann 1967, 6–13; Du Mesnil du Buisson 1983, 74; Volokhine 1995, 216. 68  Du Mesnil du Buisson 1983, 96–97. During the first millennium BCE, Egyptian influence over Phoenician culture and art intensified due to new commercial and military connections. Phoenician inscriptions attest to this evolution and the continuation of Egyptian cults in the Near East. Thus, Isis is present in Phoenician onomastics at Ur in the 7th cent. BCE, Sidon and Amrit in the 5th cent BCE, Byblos in the 3rd and 2nd cents. BCE, and Umm el-Awamid in the 2nd cent. BCE; Ribichini 1975, 7–14. 69  Du Mesnil du Buisson 1983, 58–59. 70  De Is. 16. 71   Koemoth 1994, 275–276; Dalix 2005, 38; Servajean 2016, 700–702, with previous bibliography.

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In a short time, the tree grew so much that the coffin disappeared inside the trunk. One day, the king of Byblos, passing by, decided to cut down the trunk concealing the coffin in order to make a column supporting the roof of his palace. After many adventures, Isis reached Byblos and ended up finding the coffin and freeing it from the trunk that had enveloped it. She put aside the pieces of wood, placing them in perfumed linen and entrusting them to the king, who deposited them in the temple.72 Many scholars have pondered this singular and rather complex passage,73 which finds no echo among the classical sources that have been preserved.74 Without doubt it is necessary to distinguish in this episode two stories that could have no connection between them at the beginning: on the one hand the presence of Osiris at Byblos,75 and on the other hand Isis’s quest.76 This is not the place to attempt to untangle this problem, to discuss the existing hypotheses, or indeed to propose a new one.77 What is important here is the relationship established between the two stories. Desiring to justify the cult of this old tree trunk in the temple of Isis, Plutarch – or, rather, his sources – tells a story explaining at once the presence of Isis at Byblos and the trunk’s raison d’être.78 This two-part tale, which could pertain

72  De Is. 15–16. 73  On this episode, Gwyn Griffiths 1970, 319–324; Soyez 1977, 67–72; Gwyn Griffiths 1980², 28–34; Du Mesnil du Buisson 1983, 98–99; Beinlich 1983, 53–66; Koemoth 1994, 275–279; Vandersleyen 2004, 97–112; Koemoth 2005, 37–40; Koemoth 2010. One will find the earlier bibliography among these works. 74  And without doubt, little more among the Egyptian sources. However, let us recall the hypothesis of Brunner 1975, for whom Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, according to a speculative interpretation, in reality would allude to the voyage of a mystēs in the region of Byblos so as to seek two parts of Osiris’s body. But as he himself recognizes, we do not know the exact situation of “the lands of Fenekhu” during the New Kingdom, even if, in a more ancient period, the term designated the region of Byblos; Green 1983, 40; Silver 1991, 195. Moreover, Brunner does not specify if the two parts of Osiris were found in this area. The Egyptian text simply states that the “mystēs” had seen the clamor in the lands of Fenekhu (t3w fnḫw). 75  See the hypotheses rejected or advanced by Koemoth 1994, 278–279 and 298, and Koemoth 2005, 37–38. Certain associations between the myth of Adonis and that of Osiris probably facilitated the existence of an Osirian cult at Byblos; Bonnet 2015, 171–188. 76  Vandersleyen 2004. For this scholar, the episode in question has been poorly understood due to a misinterpretation, perhaps dating back to Plutarch himself or else his source, of the word βύβλος, which should designate “the region of papyri” in the Delta and not the Phoenician city of Byblos, a conclusion which leads Vandersleyen to reject the “Gebalite” (i.e., from Byblos) version of the mythological episode, and to relocate it to the Delta. The accuracy of the “Gebalite” version, however, is not in doubt; Dalix 2005. 77  Dalix 2005; Bonnet 2015, 169–171; Servajean 2016 on the hybridity of Plutarch’s version. 78   P lut. De Is. 13–17.

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to an ancient Phoenician background,79 must date back to the Hellenistic period and have been formulated at Alexandria.80 Moreover, it is tempting to place this version of the Osiris myth in relation to the appearance of coinage at Byblos during the reign of Antiochus IV (between 175 and 164 BCE) featuring the “Isis-with-a-sail” type.81 The city will undoubtedly have attempted – with success – to take advantage of this connection and claim for itself the prestige of the myth,82 all while highlighting the image of an Isis navigans.83 The Gebalite equation of Asherah-Hathor-Isis-Astarte,84 which preceded the Ptolemaic Period, therefore could also have played a role in the acceptance

79  Dalix 2005, 43: “If Plutarch at first appears to convey a somewhat stereotypical image of Byblos as a religious metropolis dominated by the cult of Isis, he in fact reports to us equally the elements of an etiological narrative with an origin that could only have been Gebalite. This transmission, in all likelihood, occurred in an indirect manner and passed through a source in Aramaic dating to the 4th century B.C.” 80  If this episode has as its background the ancient associations formed between Byblos and Egypt, on the one hand the quest of Isis in the Osirian myth and on the other hand the interpretatio graeca transmitted by Plutarch, it also borrows much from the legend of Demeter, whom Herodotus (2. 41) already identifies as Isis in the 5th cent. BCE. Hani 1976, 62–79. One should simply recall as examples the well-known parallels between Isis’s quest for Osiris’s body leading her to Byblos and Demeter’s quest for Kore leading her to Eleusis (see, among others, Herrmann 1957, 48–55; Vandersleyen 2004), or the a priori contradictory episode which sees the goddess Isis serving for a time as nurse in the royal court of Byblos, a perfect calque evoking Demeter’s time in the palace at Eleusis (Honti 1945, 163-165; Lévy 1951). 81  See infra pp. 79–80. 82  The same comment appears in Koemoth 2005, 39–40. 83  Sinope would later do the same in repeatedly employing the image of Sarapis on its coinage beginning in Flavian times, when the story of the god’s Sinopean origin was spreading; Bricault 2019 (forthcoming 1). 84  The assimilation of Isis with Astarte is ancient and dates back at least to the New Kingdom; Leclant 1960, 3–4. A statuette of Isis from Memphis, on which is inscribed a dedication in Phoenician addressing Astarte, is dated to the 4th cent. BCE (RES 535). A stele of the 2nd or 1st cent. BCE, also from Memphis, bears a dedication to Isis-Astarte (KAI 48). The Phoenician goddess therefore would have had a temple there; Leclant 1960, 4; Stadelmann 1967, 96–110, esp. 104–105. See also the first hymn of Isidorus, inscribed on the entrance columns of the vestibule of the main sanctuary of Medinet Madi (Narmouthis) in the Fayoum, which indicates that the Syrians call Isis Astarte (I.Métriques, 643 no. 175 I, 18; Vanderlip 1972, 28); a dedication made in 130/129 BCE at Delos’s Sarapieion C for Isis-Mother of Gods-Astarte by one Dionysius, son of Democles, of Sidon (CE 82 = ID 2101 = RICIS 202/0242); and another Delian dedication made soon after 140 BCE addressing Ἴσιδι Σωτείραι Ἀστάρτει Ἀφροδίτηι εὐπλοίαι ἐπ[ηκόωι] (CE 194 = ID 2132 = RICIS 202/0365). For this divine equation, Budin 2004, 131; Bonnet 2015, 506–508. For the iconography of Astarte-Aphrodite-Isis, Krug 2004.

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of Isis as a maritime goddess, a function long attested for the divinities of the Levant with whom she was sometimes identified.85 In Egypt, the accession of Psammetichus in 663 BCE marks the opening of the country to the Hellenic world and the establishment of Greek trading colonies in the Nile valley (Elephantine, Daphnae, Memphis, and of course Naucratis). Archaeological discoveries of recent decades have in effect shown that there were Greeks at Naucratis well before Amasis, with their presence having been attested back to 615–610 BCE by the discovery at the site of Corinthian and Attic ceramics from the end of the 7th cent. BCE.86 A number of these Greeks were traders whose affairs, if not lives, were intimately connected with the marine world. It appears that it was to Aphrodite that thanksgiving rituals would be directed, motivated by the hope of being protected during their voyages.87 According to an anecdote of the early Ptolemaic writer Polycharmos of Naucratis recounted by Athenaeus,88 during the time of the 23rd Olympiad89 one Herostratos, a trader from Naucratis, had purchased a statuette of Aphrodite at Paphos, on the island of Cyprus. Saved from a shipwreck during his voyage back to Egypt, he gave thanks to the goddess at her temple in Naucratis upon arriving at the city, making her an offering of the statuette and sprigs of green myrtle.90 A fragmentary Greek inscription from Naucratis, a limestone disc found in close proximity to her temenos, seems to indicate that a certain Caicus during the 6th cent. BCE(?) “came to Naucratis” and while there had inscribed a dedication to Aphrodite.91 Even if it is not possible to confirm that he arrived in the city by sea and, a fortiori, that he undertook a thanksgiving ritual comparable to that of Herostratus, this hypothesis seems the most likely.92 It is, in fact, virtually assured that at Naucratis 85  Baslez 1986, 300–302; Lipiński 1995, 72 and 131; Bonnet 1996, 36, 46 and 79; Giuffrida 1996, 342 and n. 5; Bonnet 2015, 158, 167–174. 86  Austin 1970, 22–33; Helck 1979, 233; Höckmann & Kreikenbom 2001; Vittmann 2003, 212–223. 87  On the links among cultic practices, diplomacy and commerce at Naucratis, Bowden 1996, 31–36. On Aphrodite and the sea, Demetriou 2010. 88   Ath. 15.18. (675f–676c). 89  This date, which corresponds to the years 688–685 BCE, is too early: the Aphrodision, without doubt the most ancient sanctuary at the site, was not built until the end of the 7th cent. Coulson & Leonard Jr. 1982, 372; Scholtz 2002–2003, 236. 90  Bernand 1966, 34–35; I.Delta II, 599–600 (text and trans.); Cassimatis 1984, 33–38; Demetriou 2010, 78–79. 91  Gardner 1988, 66 no. 795; I.Delta II, 744–745 no. 5. On the Aphrodision, Möller 2000, 102–104. 92  As is written in Scholtz 2002–2003, 239, “While none of the surviving dedications explicitly cites Aphrodite in her otherwise well-attested role as protector of seafarers, we do know of one statuette that was offered by its dedicator upon arrival in Naukratis, and it

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Aphrodite, whose temenos lay in close proximity to the wharf located on the Canopic branch of the Nile, had assumed among others the functions of protectress of navigation and sailors.93 However, it does not appear that Isis possessed a cult site there earlier than the Ptolemaic era. This being the case, a certain number of people were not without the knowledge that such a role had been allotted to Aphrodite, a goddess identified with Hathor/Isis in several parts of the eastern Mediterranean. 1.4

Arsinoe, Aphrodite, Isis and the Marine Element

The first verifiably dated document associating Isis and the marine world directly concerns the Ptolemies and comes from Nymphaion in the Crimea, 17 km. to the southwest of Kertch, the ancient Pantikapaion, capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. A large polychromatic fresco painted on stucco, known as a “scraffito,” that was discovered in a shrine of Aphrodite situated near the port features several drawings of ships and graffiti in Greek pertaining to the sea.94 On one of the ships there appears the name ISIS. The identification of this ship, the significance of the name, the meaning to be given to this pictorial ensemble and its date have raised a number of questions and hypotheses that it is useful to survey here, given the importance of this work for our purpose:95 Nonna L. Grač, quickly publishing the results of her excavation, identified the ship Isis as a trireme,96 which she supposed was probably of Egyptian origin. The presence of the names Parisades and Satyros, inscribed nearby, would suggest that it was a ship that had transported an ambassador sent by is likely that that dedication, along with others [Gardner 1988, 63 no. 717, perhaps by the same Kaikos], will have been presented to the goddess in gratitude for, or hopes of, a safe and successful voyage [Gardner 1988, 65 no. 776–777 for two ex-votos to Aphrodite].” I cite as well the example of the Samian sculptor Rhoecus, who visited Naucratis towards 575 BCE and there carved an altar for the temple of Aphrodite; SB I 2250; Davis 1981, 73. 93  For marine Aphrodite, Miranda 1989, with the chronological remarks of Pugliese Carratelli 1992, 59; Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 433–437; Budin 2003, with the earlier bibliography. 94  This exceptional discovery, made in 1982 by an expedition of the Hermitage Museum, has inspired an abundant literature. See the numerous publications of the director of the excavations, N. L. Grač (Grač 1984; Grač 1987; Grač 1987–1988, 11–12, 125 and 143 no. 177 fig.; Grač 1989); see also Basch 1985; Höckmann 1985, 106–110; Semenov 1995; Morrison 1996, 207–214 no. 13; Nowicka 1999; Vinogradov 1999; Höckmann 1999; Vinogradov & Zolotarev 1999; Murray 2001 and 2002; Burgunder & Semenzato 2012; Fenet 2016, 404–407; Braund 2018, 160–181 on the “Bosporan Isis.” For a presentation of the sanctuary, Sokolova 2000. 95  Murray 2001, 250–252; Murray 2002, 540–542. 96  R ICIS 115/0401.

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Ptolemy II to King Parisades II (who reigned between 284/3 and 245 BCE), comparable to the one sent by Parisades to Egypt in 254 BCE and mentioned in the Archive of Zenon.97 But Grač’s would not be the only opinion. Within a few years, Lucien Basch, interested solely in the ship, instead recognized it as one of the super-galleys of Ptolemy II.98 A decade later, John S. Morrison, in his study of warships, took a position opposite to that of previous scholars. To him, the ship is not called “Isis,” and the names of ships were not written on their hulls, but suggested by the figureheads carved on their prows.99 The image of one of the Dioscuri, clearly visible on the fresco, would indicate the name of the ship, which would not been Egyptian but rather from the royal fleet of the Bosporan Kingdom. Designed according to Phoenician standards, its name would refer to the port of Dioskourias where it would have been constructed.100 Olaf Höckmann, describing and analyzing the representation in great detail, has confirmed the imposing size of the ship (58 m. long, according to him).101 He emphasizes that the vessel is represented in port and not in action, while remarking that one must not place too much confidence in the technical details painted by an artist without much concern for realism.102 Yuri Vinogradov, in turn, has proposed a broad explanation of the scene, in which the ship Isis is only an element.103 This fresco would represent the Ptolemaic state visit led by the diokêtês Apollonios in spring of 254 BCE, intimately connected to the one evoked in the Zenon papyri. The Isis, a supergalley, would have been the flagship of the fleet of Ptolemy II sent as part of an embassy to the king of Bosporus in order to strengthen the dominant situation of the Ptolemaic thalassocracy.104 This visit would have provided the opportunity to introduce the Isiac cults to the Crimea, as may be demonstrated by a dedication from the Chersonese,105 apparently from the same period, which seems to confirm the favorable reception to the Isiac triad among the prominent inhabitants. William Murray, taking up the problem, concluded that the ship would have been a trireme named Isis, perhaps consecrated to the goddess, but that its 97  Grač 1987. The embassy is mentioned in P.Lond VII, 1973 (= Skeat 1974). 98  Basch 1985, 148–149. 99  Morrison 1996, 209. 100  Ibid., 214. 101  Höckmann 1999, 321. 102  Ibid., 305. 103  Vinogradov 1999, 271–302. 104  Ibid., 293, 299–300. 105  See the editio princeps of the dedication and commentary by Vinogradov & Zolotarev 1999, 358–364, as well as RICIS 115/0302.

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representation is earlier than the inscribing of the name Parisades.106 This would certainly be a warship, but also a sacred vessel. It is thus more the religious symbolism of his pictorial representation than the desire for technical accuracy that would have interested the artist. The ship’s function would have been to escort to Crimea, as well as elsewhere, images and objects intended to introduce and celebrate the cult of Isis. Murray wishes to identify in this scene representations of canopic vases and a goose, an animal sacred to Isis.107 The presence of this representation in a sanctuary of Aphrodite may be explained by the fact that the priests of Aphrodite would have perceived a certain shared identity between their goddess and Isis, notably with respect to their maritime functions. Most recently, Pascal Burgunder and Camille Semenzato have suggested two possible reasons for the graffiti, excluding the ship’s Egyptian identity.108 According to them, this perhaps may be a case of a votive graffito, one dedicated to the sanctuary’s divinity, Isis the protectress of sailors, in recognition of a successful journey by sea. But the graffito’s notably visible position on the painted wall and its a fresco execution might also make one think of a sacred ship represented on the wall of a sanctuary dedicated to a marine divinity such as Isis-Aphrodite. As one can see, there is no lack of proposed explanations for the Nymphaion fresco, from the most simple to the most ingenious. And yet, not one is fully satisfying, being either too flawed or too tenuous, if not outright mistaken. It is therefore necessary for the first time attempt to determine what is certain or probable, rather than merely possible. The fresco in question covers a surface of 15 m.2, with the ship that is of interest to us occupying only a small area (fig. 2). There several representations of ships and a certain number of graffiti are to be found mixed together. On the side that is visible there appears the image of one of the Dioscuri on the prow, holding a horse by the reins. A bit higher up and above the prow is inscribed the name “Isis,” in well-fashioned letters with serifs. This is all that is known for certain. The presence of the names of Parisades and a certain Satyros, perhaps a previously unknown brother of the king, calls for this ensemble to be dated to the reign of Parisades II (c. 284–245 BCE). Without doubt, along with Murray, one

106  Murray 2002, 543. 107  Ibid., 549–550. On the connections between Isis and geese, Bodson 1987; Koemoth 2008. 108  Burgunder & Semenzato 2012.

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Fresco from Nymphaion. Detail

can consider the fresco to predate the inscription of this ruler’s name.109 But this predating could be a matter of just a day or a month, or of several years. This is all that should be considered probable. We come now to what is possible. First, the ship itself. Estimates of its size made by experts on ancient sailing vary considerably, from trireme to supergalley. I am not competent to settle this debate on a technical level. The difficulty in identifying the type of ship seems to be caused by the artist’s lack of rigor in the rendering of this vessel, which he may or may not have ever seen himself. Perhaps this was not what was of primary interest to him, as Höckmann and Murray suggest.110 Second, the ship’s name. With the exception of Morrison, its being “Isis” appears to have had unanimous support. But then, how is the image of one of the Dioscurion the right side of the prow to be understood? There are three possibilities available to us. Either the name “Isis” and the figurehead are both original, or the ship originally bore the name “Isis” but the image of one (or two) of the Dioscuri is later, or the figurehead is original and it is the name “Isis” that was a later addition. A graphic element, though certainly not decisive, may permit us to accept this third

109  Murray 2002, 544. 110  Höckmann 1999, 305; Murray 2002, 548.

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hypothesis, since the initial iota of the name IΣIΣ overlaps a little the upper part of the sgraffito. Whichever it may be, what interests us is the association of Isis’s name and the image of one of the Dioscuri on the same vessel in the middle of the 3rd cent. BCE.111 But how is this to be explained? Without answering this question, it is quite hypothetical to wish to reconstruct the introduction of the Isiac cults in the Crimea based on this one fresco and a single inscription from the Chersonese, more than 200 km. away. I therefore do not follow Vinogradov in his ingenious, but indemonstrable, hypothesis. It is in Alexandria that one finds probably the answer to this complicated situation. When Ptolemy Philadelphus married his sister, the widow of Lysimachus and of Ptolemy Keraunos, the power of the Ptolemies was genuine, but not dominant on the international scene.112 As has been well emphasized by Hans Hauben,113 it was during these years (279/4–270 BCE) that profound changes in the interstate relations of the eastern Mediterranean were established, some of which would last for quite a long time. The height of the Ptolemaic thalassocracy is perhaps the most significant development. The role of Arsinoe II 111  Despite P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 235, which addresses Isis with σ[ὺ] Διoσκoύ[ρoυς σ]ω[τῆ]ρ[ας] ἐπoίησας (“you have made the Dioscuri saviors”), the goddess is rarely associated with these twin gods, unlike Sarapis. However, this association can be seen on Cyprus, at Soloi, Amathous and Paphos; Queyrel 1988, 82–83. It is tempting to imagine that Arsinoe II, who was identified with Isis, according to Callimachus in his poem on the deification of the queen (fr. 228 Pf.), escorted by the two gods after her death, was able to serve here as an intermediary as well. A dedication from Delos (CE 110 = ID 2123 = RICIS 202/0273) dating to 118/7 BCE, which was made by Roman negotiatores, associates the twins with the Isiac tetrad: Πόπλιος [καὶ ---] / Τουτώρ[ιος ---] / ὑπὲρ [ἑαυ]τῶν κα[ὶ] / τῶ[ν ἰδ]ίων, Σαράπ[ιδι], // Ἴσιδι, Ἀνούβιδι, Ἁρπ[ο]/χράτει, Διοσκούροις, / ἐπὶ ἱερέως / Στασέου τοῦ Φιλο/ κλέους Κολωνῆθεν (“Publius [and …] Toutorius […], for themselves and theirs, to Sarapis, Isis, Anubis, Harpocrates (and) to the Dioscuri, during the priesthood of Staseas, son of Philocles, (from the deme) of Kolonai”).    One may exclude from the dossier certain Alexandrian coins with reverses that have been poorly identified. R. S. Poole described the reverse of a coin from the reign of Trajan thusly (BMC, 54 no. 451): “Isis Pharia, facing, wears usual headdress, holds columnar sceptre in r.; between Dioskouri turned towards her.” If the identification of the Dioscuri is assured, that of Isis is not. The date, Year 15 of Trajan according to Poole, is quite uncertain. One would do better to include as an example a coin from the Dattari collection (no. 844, Year 12 of Trajan) that might show, according to this Italian collector (p. 54), “Demeter ? di fronte, porta in testa luna bicorne e stella,” or even Selene (see RPC III 4290.2). This does not suggest in any case a veiled Isis. For the association between an Isis – supposedly assimilated to Helen – and the Dioscuri, Chapouthier 1935, 248–249; Schefold 1962b, 176; see also Hadjari et al. 2007 on the numerous inscriptions carved on the rocks by sailors in modern Albania’s Grammata Bay, most of them dedicated to the Dioscuri, and some to Isis (383–384 nos. A8 and M3 = RICIS Suppl. I, 111/0301–0302). 112  See the contributions to McKechnie & Guillaume 2008. 113  Hauben 1983, 99–127.

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with regard to her brother-husband has long remained the subject of debate. Some have considered her the true mistress of the kingdom during her sojourn in Alexandria,114 while others have felt the need to minimize her role.115 The diverse studies of this queen by Jan Quaegebeur have since settled the matter.116 Arsinoe II, nsw-bítj (“Queen of Both Lands”), was sovereign over the whole,117 and adorned with her own crown, as later Cleopatra VII would be.118 The date of the death of Arsinoe II today seems to be established with some amount of certainty.119 This also appears to be true of her entry into the world if the gods, provided that it does not confuse two phenomena. The divinization of the royal couple along with the introduction of the cult of the Adelphoi occurred in 272/1 BCE, during the queen’s lifetime.120 Her deification as a full goddess is to be dated immediately after her death, leading to the establishment of her own cult.121 Philippe Collombert’s convincing analysis of the Stele of Saïs suggests that one can distinguish two stages in the establishment of this queen’s cult:122 first at Alexandria, a place close to power and the Greek population of the city and its surroundings; and second, in the chôra, with 114  Thus Longega 1968; Hauben 1983; Carney 2013. 115  Will 1979, 149–150 and 221–222; Burstein 1982. 116   Quaegebeur 1970; Quaegebeur 1971a and b; Quaegebeur 1978; Quaegebeur 1983; Quaegebeur 1998. See also Albersmeier & Minas 1998. 117  On this title, Quaegebeur 1970, 204–206; Quaegebeur 1985, 76 and n. 13. 118  Hauben 1983, 109–110. On this crown, Dils 1998; Nilsson 2012. 119  Debating the date of her death has used up a good deal of ink. Traditionally, it has been assigned to July 270 BCE, but Hazzard 1987, Grzybek 1990, 103–112, Hazzard 2000, 31, and van Oppen de Ruiter 2010 have proposed the 1st or 2nd of July 268 (1st Loios), a hypothesis not retained here. See on this point the critical comments of L. Criscuolo in his review of the work of E. Grzybek in Aegyptus 71 (1991), 286–288; Hauben 1992; Minas 1994, 207–209; Cadell 1998; Caneva 2016a, 135–141. Based on P.Sorb. inv. 2440, H. Cadell confirms the date of July 270 for her death (Cadell et al. 2011, 12–21, and 28–36 no. 71). Dated to the month of Audnaios in the 18th Year (268/7), the papyrus gives the name of a previously unknown canephoros, Berenice daughter of Andromachus, so that goes back a year to the establishment of this priesthood. 120  P.Hibeh II, 199. 121  Sauneron 1960, 91–97; Longega 1968, 109–122; Hauben 1970, 41–42; Quaegebeur 1971b, 242– 243; Burr Thompson 1973, 74, 121 and n. 5; Quaegebeur 1978, 249; Quaegebeur 1998; Cadell et al. 2011, 20. For Fraser 1972, I, 238–239, certain identifications of Arsinoe with particular divinities were made during the queen’s lifetime, notably with Aphrodite Zephyritis, since two epigrams of Posidippus confer upon Arsinoe the title of basilissa, which was reserved for living queens. To the extent that this involves poems and not dedications, the argument cannot be retained; Hauben 1970, 45, n. 2. Moreover, the term basilissa could once more be employed immediately after a ruler’s death, as Burr Thompson 1973, 56 reminds. 122  Collombert 2008.

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the erection of statues of the divinized queen in several Egyptian sanctuaries, close to the elites and, incidentally, the local populations. Several epigrams of Posidippus123 inform us that a sanctuary was constructed for Arsinoe Cypris “whom one invokes as Aphrodite of Zephyrion” on the order of the famous admiral Callicrates of Samos, at the extreme end of Cape Zephyrion, near Canopus.124 Does the construction of this sanctuary correspond to the establishment of the cult of Arsinoe-Aphrodite?125 It is quite probable, but not certain. The connection between Arsinoe and Aphrodite at this cult site, which Posidippus mentions in an epigram,126 is confirmed by Strabo, who writes of a naïskos of Arsinoe-Aphrodite.127 Some other sources of diverse natures confirm this direct link established between the queen and the goddess, notably by court poets at first, but then relayed by a larger segment of the population.128 The (literary) epithets and (cultic) invocations attributed in this context to the queen (Eὔπλοια,129 Zεφυρῖτις,130 123  Two have been known for a long time: the first (Posidipp. 12 G.-P. = Gow & Page 1965) is preserved in the Didot papyrus and the second (Posidipp. 13 G.-P.) by Ath. 7. 318d (G.-P., I, 169–170 and II, 491); see also Obbink 2004. At least one other (Posidipp. 39 A.-B.) has been revealed by P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 (Bastianini, Gallazzi & Austin 2001 for the editio princeps [abbreviated as B.-G.]; Austin & Bastianini 2002 for the editio minor [abbreviated as A.-B.]). One can perhaps add the two epigrams Posidipp. 36 and 37 A.-B. On these, Bing 2002–2003. On Posidipp. 36 A.-B., Luppe 2003; Luppe 2004; Angiò 2004; see also Renberg 2017, 217, with previous literature. On Posidipp. 37 A.-B., see infra n. 130. 124  On this sanctuary and the cult celebrated there, see the Lock of Berenice (Callim. Aetia IV, Fr. 110 = Catull. 66. 54–58), with the commentary of Nachtergael 1980; Str. 17. 1. 16; Steph. Byz., s.v. Zεφύριον. See likewise the commentaries of Hauben 1970, 42–46 and 66–67, with earlier bibliography, including Robert 1966; see also Fraser 1972, I, 239– 240 and II, 388–390; Abel 1972; Gwyn Griffiths 1979, 64; Gutzwiller 1992b; Koenen 1994; Malaise 1994a, 356–357; Virgilio 1999, 95; Rossi 2000; Lelli 2002; Demetriou 2010, 72–74. 125  As suggested by Hauben 1983, 111. 126   Posidipp. 12 G.-P. 127   S tr. 17. 1. 16. 128  Müller 2009, 238–242, 266–280; Caneva 2014b, 36–42, with previous bibliography. 129   Posidipp. 39 A.-B.: καὶ μέλλω̣ ν ἅλα νηῒ περᾶν καὶ πεῖσμα καθάπτειν / χερσόθεν, Εὐπλοίαι ‘χαῖρε’ δὸς Ἀρσινόηι, / [πό]τνιαν ἐ‹ κ › νηοῦ καλέων θεόν, ἣν ὁ Βοΐσκου / ναυαρχῶν Σάμιος θήκατο Καλλικράτης, / ναυτίλε, σοὶ τὰ μάλιστα· κατ’ εὔπλοιαν δὲ διώκει / τῆσδε θ̣εοῦ χρήιζων πολλὰ καὶ ἄλλος ἀνήρ· /εἵνεκα καὶ χερσαῖα καὶ εἰς ἅλα δῖαν ἀφιεὶς / εὐχὰς εὑρήσεις τὴν ἐπακουσομένην. (“Both when you are about to cross the sea by ship and fasten the ropes from the land, greet Arsinoe Euploia, invoking the lady from the temple, which the son of Boescus, the Samian admiral Callicrates built especially for you, o sailor. Another man, wishing good passage, invokes this goddess, or whether on land or the divine sea, you’ll find her attentive to your prayers.” Translated by E. Kosmetatou and B. Acosta-Hughes.) 130   Posidipp. 12 G.-P. and Callim. Epigr. 14 G.-P., an epigram preserved by Ath. 7. 318b–c, which recalls the offering of a sailor to Arsinoe Zephyritis by one Selenaia of Smyrna; on this text, Robert 1960, 153–155 and Gutzwiller 1992a. One now can associate this text with

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Φιλοζέφυρος,131 Kύπρις,132 Ἀκραῖα133 and Ἀκταίαk134) all are more or less oriented towards the marine world.135 For Louis Robert, it is by her assimilation with Aphrodite Euploia that Arsinoe II herself became a “protectress of the fleets and of the Ptolemies’ maritime empire,”136 an opinion put into perspective by Hauben, to whom the religious aspect of the presumed association of Arsinoe with the sea should not cause us to forget the political, military and economic dimensions of the problem. As for Michel Malaise, he wonders if “at least in the land of Egypt, Arsinoe is not assigned the prerogatives of Isis Euploia or Pelagia.”137 It seems possible to make allowances for these three viewpoints that are divergent, if not contradictory. It appears assured now that Arsinoe was the creator or at least the inspiration for a naval authority that was general, permanent, and entrusted to her protégé Callicrates of Samos, and that the thalassocratic politics of the court at Alexandria were mainly her own domain, with Callicrates serving as executioner.138 The growth in foundations of coastal cities bearing her name, the spread of her cult in the cities – the overwhelming majority harbor cities where the Alexandrian fleet had a strong influence even

Posidipp. 37 A.-B., which is lacunose, but records the dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphia by her temple guardian (ναοπόλος) of a lyre deposited on the shore by a dolphin. Without doubt, the temple in question is that of Cape Zephyrion, as suggested in Bing 2002–2003, 261–264. On this epigram, Angiò 2004. On the functions attributed to Arsinoe in this corpus of poetry, Stephens 2004. 131   H edyl. 4 G.-P. = Ath. 11. 497d. The epigram evokes the offering to Arsinoe Φιλοζέφυρος of a rhyton fashioned in the form of the Egyptian god Bes, designed and dedicated by the engineer Ctesibius. 132   P osidipp. 12–13 G.-P. and Callim. Epigr. 14 G.-P. The epithet is commonly attributed to Cypriot Aphrodite, beginning with Iliad 5. 330. 133  S B V 7785 = SEG VIII (1937), 361: dedication to Aphrodite Akraia Arsinoe; Fraser 1972, I, 240. On Aphrodite Ἀκραῖα, Miranda 1989, 130–131, with previous bibliography. 134  P.Enteux 26, in which there is mention of a temple of Arsinoe Aktia, situated not far from Alexandria. See the status quaestionis by Malaise 1994a, 356 n. 22, for whom this temple was undoubtedly constructed after the death of Arsinoe II. 135  Caneva 2015, 106–110 and 114 (table). Among the texts comprising P.Lit.Goodspeed 2 there is a hymn to Aphrodite in which the goddess is celebrated essentially as mistress of the sea and goddess of conjugal love. For Barbantani 2005, the hymn may have been connected to a Cypriot cult of Arsinoe Philadelphus assimilated to Aphrodite, a thesis rejected by Meliadò 2008, 24–27, who does not see the queen in this text, but rather a city named Arsinoe. 136  Robert 1960, 154 n. 2; Robert 1966, 200–201 and n. 155. 137  Malaise 1994a, 358. 138  Longega 1968, 106–108; Hauben 1970, 64–67; Hauben 1983, 113–114; Miranda 1989, 139–141; Hauben 2013.

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without actual bases139 – these were likely linked to this situation. Only in the Aegean world, Lesbos, Paros, Ios, Thera, Amorgos, Delos, Eretria, and Miletos,140 not to mention Cyprus,141 have dedications to Arsinoe Philadelphus been produced, which for the most part belong to the private sphere.142 Strabo143 also reports that on Cyprus the queen had three eponymous port towns, one of which was situated near Cape Zephyria, between Paphos and Palaiapaphos, along the processional route employed by pilgrims heading to Aphrodite’s sanctuary. It is tempting to attribute the sanctuary mentioned by this writer to the cult of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Euploia.144 Finally, one must recall that the base of a statue of the admiral Callicrates was recovered in the sanctuary mentioned above at Palaiapaphos itself.145 Undoubtedly, it is therefore not overbold to suppose 139  Robert 1960, 156–157. 140   I G XII, 2, 513 (Lesbos, Methymna); IG XII, 5, 264–266 (Paros); IG XII, 5, 16 (Ios); IG XII, 3, 462 and 1386, XII Suppl. 156 (Thera); IG XII, 7, 99 (Amorgos, Arkesine); IG XII, 7, 263–264; Marangou 1994, 376 fig. 5 (Amorgos, Minoa); IG XI, 4, 1303 (Delos); SEG XL (1990), 783 (Eretria); I.Milet I, 7 no. 288–289 (Miletos). 141  To date, more than twenty altars for the domestic cult of Arsinoe Philadelphia have been identified at Cyprus; Młynarczyk 1990, 115–120; Nicolaou 1992–1993, 226–228; Anastassiades 1998. A good number of these Cypriot dedications were found at Soloi, Amathous and especially Palaiapaphos, all renowned places associated with the cult of Aphrodite (Anastassiades 1998, no. 5–9 [Palaiapaphos], 15–17 [Soloi] and 18–20 [Amathous]); see also Fulińska 2012a and 2012b. 142  On the inscriptions concerning the cult of Arsinoe II in Greek cities, Segre 1936–1937; Mitford 1938, 31; Fraser 1960, 24; Caneva 2014a. These dedications, often inscribed on plaques intended to be embedded in small, individual altars, were studied by Robert 1966, 202–210; Brun 1991, 101–102; Caneva 2014a. See I.Cos ED 61 (= IG XII 4, 1, 290) for a decree from Cos establishing the cult of Arsinoe. One should also note a dedication inscribed Ἀρσινόης Φιλαδέλφου most likely originating at the Isiac sanctuary on Thera (IG XII 3, 462 = RICIS 202/1201); on this sanctuary, Witschel 1997, 17–23 and 34–37, with earlier bibliography. A stone bearing an identical text was found at Minoa, on the island of Amorgos, at the site that appears to have been the city’s Sarapieion; among the documents found during the excavations, one notes a fragmentary inscription bearing the name of Callicrates, which may well not have been a simple coincidence; L. Marangou, PAE (1989), 285–286 n. 74 with fig. 202b; Marangou 1994, 376. Finally, it is worth mentioning the new reading of ll. 15–16 of a decree from Rhamnous (I.Rhamnous 3) honoring the Athenian strategos Epichares, who was active at the beginning of the Chremonidean War and anxious to benefit from the support of the Ptolemaic fleet, as the text explicitly attests, since it appears to mention a ἱερὸν τῆς [Ἀ]ρσ[ι]νόης; Steinhauer 2009. 143   S tr. 14. 6. 3. 144   Considering the similarity in the names of the two Cypriot and Egyptian capes, Młynarczyk 1990, 118 suggested that the Cypriot sanctuary of Arsinoe inspired Callicrates, a regular visitor, to build the Egyptian temple at Cape Zephyrion. 145  Mitford 1961, 9 no. 18. Two other inscriptions discovered at Kourion also concern Callicrates (Mitford 1971, 87–89 no. 40 and 117–118 no. 58). For Młynarczyk (1990, 147 n. 253), Callicrates may have been responsible for introducing the Isiac cults to Paphos.

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that this political domination of the Ptolemies’ military fleet soon extended to all types of ships, all types of sailors, and all aspects of navigation.146 Last but not least are two well known mosaics from Thmouis,147 in Egypt’s Mendesian nome, which present the idealized portrait of a Ptolemaic queen with naval attributes.148 She is usually identified with Berenice II,149 but may better be identified as Arsinoe II, as Katherine Blouin has proposed and effectively argued (fig. 3).150 At the center of each panel the queen, dressed in a purple tunic and metal cuirass, with her hair coiffed as the prow of a ship, is surrounded by a field of clear faience blue evoking the sea air, in which there floats a ribbon attached to the yard of a mast she is holding. During the process of divinizing the sovereign, the result of these initiatives and prerogatives was the emphasis, at least for the Greek population, of her interaction with Aphrodite Euploia.151 It is undoubtedly in this context that one must situate the construction of the sanctuary of Arsinoe-Aphrodite, who grants “a safe sailing and in the midst of the tempest makes the broad sea as smooth as oil for those who call upon her,” (ἡ δὲ καὶ εὐπλοίην δώσει καὶ χείματι μέσσῳ / τὸ πλατὺ λισσομένοις ἐκλιπανεῖ πέλαγος) according to Posidippus,152 More generally, one can envision with some amount of confidence that the navarch had a role to play in the spread of the cult of Isis on Cyprus; see supra p. 31 n. 145. 146  The only Egyptian site where plaques dedicated to Arsinoe have been found is Athribis, which since the Middle Kingdom was a departure point for marine expeditions: see Scandone Matthiae 1990. 147  Alexandria, formerly Greco-Roman Museum inv. no. 21736 and 21739 (the latter our fig. 3). 148  According to Guimier-Sorbets 1998, 227–229, these two mosaics – of which one (21739), signed by a certain Sophilus, dates to around 200 BCE and the second (21736) c. 175 BCE – must have been based on the same painted original, representing the dynasty’s official imagery of a much earlier date. 149  Daszewski 1985, nos. 38–39 with pls. 32–33. On Berenice II, Clayman 2014 and Carrez Maratray 2014. 150  Blouin 2015. 151  It is quite likely that Callicrates played a major role in the establishment of this cult – he was the first eponymous priest, in 269/8 BCE – and in its spread to Cyprus and elsewhere. Hauben 1970, 41–42. 152   Posidipp. 119 A.-B. Stephens 2010, 52–53. Malaise (1994, 356–357 n. 23) evokes a triad carved from black granite representing Amon placed between Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, and dedicated by Ptolemy II in honor of his divinized wife. According to its editor (Sauneron 1960, 108), this would have come from Canopus, or, as Malaise suggested, from Heracleion, not far from Canopus, a site which featured a cult of Amon-grb; on this, Malaise & Winand 1993 and supra p. 14 n. 20. As Malaise further wrote, there was between Arsinoe and Amon a “cultic association conveying the frequent title that made Arsinoe the ‘daughter of Amon,’ even at the sites unrelated to Amon”; Sauneron 1960, 103–104; Quaegebeur 1969, 207–208. The same scholar (1971, 243 and n. 19) has noted that P.Yale I 46 also attests a joint cult of Amon and Arsinoe and envisaged that this filiation was

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FIGURE 3 Arsinoe II(?). Mosaic from Thmouis (c. 200 BCE)

whereas another of his epigrams explicitly assigns the epithet Euploia to the spouse of Ptolemy II.153 If the association between Arsinoe and Aphrodite was well established in the Alexandrian milieu, and extended to the nearby coastal areas and to the territories across the sea under Ptolemaic control, the same cannot be said of the Egyptian chôra. It was the Egyptian Isis, not the Hellenic Aphrodite, who was privileged by the political authority to serve as an intermediary with the establishment of the deceased sovereign’s cult,154 quite certainly in collaboration with the principal priestly authorities of the kingdom. This was not the inspired by the titulature of Amon’s divine spouses. One can likewise imagine that it was their shared dominion over the marine elements that led to their being associated in this manner in all of these documents; for other explanations, Žabkar 1988, 177 n. 100. 153   Posidipp. 39. Moreover, it is quite probably that Arsinoe the protectress of maritime shipwrecks was equally, following the example of Aphrodite and drawing from a simple metaphor, protectress of those who foundered in love, as can be understood from certain epigrams. On this subject, Lapini 2004, with bibliography. 154  The stele of Mendes (Urk. II, 41, 111; CGC 22181) specifies that one “erects her statue in all of the temples.” A number of decrees from priestly synods would later call for the erection of royal statues in the temples; Thiers 2002.

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first time that the new Greek-speaking masters of Egypt had turned to Isis in order to find a common ground with the Egyptians.155 In selecting the goddess as a spouse of Alexandria’s new tutelary god – Sarapis – while joining the two in a common cult,156 the basileus had opted for a solution able to satisfy everyone: Isis, an anthropomorphized goddess, was not unknown among the Greeks; she also was in good favor among the Egyptians, from the most humble to the most powerful. Had she not benefitted from the particular devotion of Nektanebos I and II, the last indigenous sovereigns, after whose reigns the Greek rulers had sought to model their own? The association of Arsinoe II and Isis undoubtedly occurred rather early, and represents one of the elements of the process that saw the Ptolemies promote the cult of the goddess and the divinities in her circle because of their direct links with the rulers’ royal duties. Arsinoe is named as Isis-Arsinoe Philadelphus on a naos from Saïs dated to 266/5 BCE.157 On the Pithom Stele, which dates to 264 BCE or slightly later, on which Arsinoe is represented as Isis,158 the deceased queen is addressed as the “image of Isis and Hathor.”159 Some other documents can also be mentioned, which attest to this association that could have been facilitated by certain personality traits of Pharaonic Isis.160 King of Lower Egypt, high priestess, and thea Philadelphos, she is the 155  On Richard White’s Middle Ground concept applied to Hellenistic Egypt, Moyer 2011b. 156  See infra pp. 234–235. 157  Paris, Musée du Louvre inv. no. C 123. Quaegebeur 1971a, 212 no. 19; Quaegebeur 1998, 94 no. 41. This text has now been completed; Thiers 1999; Thiers 2001. The same form of address can be read in a hieroglyphic inscription from the quarries at Ma’sara. Quaegebeur 1971a, 212 no. 20; Quaegebeur 1978, 251 (ill.); Malaise 1994a, 359; Quaegebeur 1998, 95 no. 44. 158  For representations of Arsinoe II as Isis, Freyer-Schauenburg 1983, who recognizes in the portraits with horns and diadems that she has collected images of Arsinoe-Isis-Io. It seems preferable to see Arsinoe-Isis-Selene in these, along with Queyrel 1990, 105 no. 43 and Grimm 1990, 35. For other representations, see, among others, Megow 1991; Hamiaux 1996; Plantzos 2011. 159  Urk. II, 82, I, 15 and 84; CGC 22183; Minas 1994; Quaegebeur 1998, 87 no. 8; she is likewise called “image of Isis” on a stele at the Vatican (no. 25): Quaegebeur 1983, 114; Quaegebeur 1988, 47–48 for a color reproduction of the stele; Grenier 1989, 26 fig. 10; Quaegebeur 1998, 86 no. 5. On the stele’s text, Thiers 2007; Schäfer 2011. 160  A stele preserved at the British Museum (no. 379) mentions a prophet of the goddess Arsinoe Philadelphus, Isis, mother of Apis; Quaegebeur 1971b, 246–248 no. 1; Quaegebeur 1998, 97 no. 52. For other documents, Malaise 1994a, 359–360. See likewise the documents collected by Burr Thompson 1973, 57–59 and 165–167 pl. 43–44 no. 122–124, 171–174 pl. 50 no. 142, 144, 146 and 147, oinochoe on which one reads either Ἀγαθῆς Τύχης Ἀρσινόης Φιλαδέλφου Ἴσιος, or simply Ἀγαθῆς Τύχης Ἀρσινόης Φιλαδέλφου, and the remarks of Fraser 1972, 240–241 and 568–569. See also Schorn 2001, esp. 218–219.

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living image of Isis and Hathor. It has been seen above how difficult it is to argue in a reasonable manner for Isis having been a mistress of the sea based on the pre-Ptolemaic documentation. However, it is she who, by the beating of her wings, provoked, among other things, the Nile flood. Mistress of winds, she was able to trigger the storm but also to appease it in order to allow navigation.161 Lucian of Samosata knew this well, writing with the same elan that Isis brings the Nile flood, sends the winds, and saves sailors.162 Three particular areas of activity and authority are conveyed in the goddess’s Aretalogy, which makes her state: “I am the queen of rivers, of winds, and of the sea.”163 It is quite probable that those initiating the association between Aphrodite164 and Arsinoe Zεφυρῖτις “who commands the winds from the west” on the one hand and Isis “the beautiful wind from the north”165 on the other hand would have had these elements in mind. Before concluding on this point, I wish to turn to an intriguing dedication, which records the building at Canopus, on the order of Callicrates of Samos, of a temple for Isis and Anubis in the name of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe:166 ὑπὲρ βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου / καὶ βασιλίσσης Ἀρσινόης, / τὸ ἱερὸν Ἴσει Ἀνούβει Καλλικράτης / Βοίσκου Σάμιος ναυαρχῶν // ἔδωκεν Πασίτι ἱερεῖ. For King Ptolemy (II) and Queen Arsinoe (II), the hieron (was dedicated) to Isis and Anubis by Callicrates, son of Boiscus, of Samos, navarch, (and) was assigned by him to the priest Pasis.

161  See supra p. 18. A prerogative that could equally be that of Shu, as an unedited Demotic papyrus mentioned by Quack 2003, 347 n. 50 appears to indicate (pCarlsberg 585). 162  Dial. deorum, 3. 163  Aretalogy from Cyme in the Aeolid: A. Salač, BCH 51 (1927), 378–383 with pl. 15 = IG XII Suppl., p. 98–99 = I.Kyme no. 41 = RICIS 302/0204, verse 39: Ἐγὼ ποταμῶν καὶ ἀνέμων [κ]αὶ θαλάσσης εἰμὶ κυρία; see infra pp. 47–48. 164   C allim. Epigr. 6, regarding Cypriot Aphrodite. 165  Dendara VII 84, 4. 166  SB I 429 = I.Delta I, 232 no. 2. Hauben 1970, 40–41; Malaise 1994a, 353–355. The inscription is to be dated between Arsinoe’s marriage to Ptolemy II and her death, i.e. between spring 279 and summer 270 BCE. As Fraser 1967, 40 n. 75 and Malaise 1994a, 354 n. 7 have noted, the last three words cannot be assigned to the original text with certainty. The lettering, moreover, is not as fine as would be expected for the dedication of a temple foundation claimed by Callicrates. We are undoubtedly dealing with a copy by the priest Pasis, concerned about establishing his claim on the temple.

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The first thing that strikes one in this dedication is the absence of the god one would expect to find mentioned in a document of this type: Sarapis. The second is the association of Isis and Anubis solely with one another. The absence of Sarapis has been explained in different ways. For Peter M. Fraser,167 the dedication was consecrated in the precinct of the Canopus Sarapieion, the construction of which was earlier than that of this hieron.168 For Malaise,169 the Osireion and Sarapieion at Canopus must have been one and the same, but nothing indicates that the temple dedicated by Callicrates was built in within it. For Evaristo Breccia170 and André Bernand, the two sanctuaries were distinct. A new document to which they did not have access, a silver plaque from a foundation deposit of a temple of Sarapis, enables us to see the situation more clearly. It bears the following text:171

167  Fraser 1972, I, 41. 168  He notes that, following Herakleides of Pontus, Plutarch identifies as that of Sarapis an oracle of Pluto at Canopus (De Is. 27), which would already have existed from the end of the 4th cent. BCE. It is correct that the oracle of Sarapis at Canopus remained famous for centuries, and it is probable that Isis’s future consort had succeeded Pluto in this role. However, nothing enables us to conclude that this was already the case beginning in the late 4th cent. If it were, we would be tempted to associate this oracle with a passage in Macrobius (Sat. 1. 20. 16–17) reporting that an oracle had been given by Sarapis to the Salaminian king Nicocreon, who was forced by Ptolemy Sôter to commit suicide in 311 BCE, assuming that the anecdote is authentic. (Macrobius was writing seven centuries after the events described.) The setting of the consultation has not been established (whether at Cyprus or elsewhere), and the very name of the god, often claimed to support a date earlier than the “creation” of Sarapis, is open to question. Is the name of the oracular divinity (Sarapis) the one that might have been given to him by Nicocreon and his contemporaries, or merely the one assigned by a later author (Macrobius or his source)? See, however, van den Broeck 1978, who accepts the authenticity and historicity of the oracle of Sarapis recorded by Macrobius. For him, the passage can only be understood if one compares it with an orphic text (Kern 1963², 201–202 no. 168), in which the description of Zeus’s face corresponds fully to that of Helios-Sarapis. The text of the oracle of Sarapis was derived from this orphic hymn or a similar text, endorsing the idea of a world conceived as an enormous human body and the pantheistic and monistic conception of the divinity. This conception could be found in the religion of ancient Egypt and, for van den Broeck, the idea of a cosmic god and of the cosmos being represented by a divine makranthropos engulfing the whole world in its body would have been known in Pharaonic Egypt. Sarapis, since his creation, would thus have been perceived as a cosmic god, kosmokrator and pantokrator. While this argument is stimulating, however, it does not enable us to confirm whether Nicocreon consulted an oracle of “Sarapis.” 169  Malaise 1994a, 354 n. 9. 170  Breccia 1926, 22; I.Delta III, 307. 171  Borgeaud & Volokhine 2001. The inscription is now SEG LIV (2004), 1723.

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Βασιλεὺς Πτολεμαῖος Πτολεμαίου καὶ / Ἀρσινόης, θεῶν ἀδελφῶν, Σαράπει / τὸν ναὸν κατὰ πρόσταγμα. King Ptolemy (III), son of Ptolemy (II) and Arsinoe (II), theoi Adelphoi, (has dedicated) to Sarapis this temple, on the order (of the god). This type of foundation plaque (here 12.4 × 5 cm.), made from different metals (gold, silver, bronze), as well as faience, Nile silt, or glass, is known from several similar examples, found for the most part at Alexandria and Canopus.172 In the case of Alexandria, we know from these documents that Ptolemy II was the one who commissioned the great temenos of the main Sarapieion,173 that Ptolemy IV did the same for temples of Isis174 and Harpocrates175 that both stood within the Sarapieion precinct, and finally that an anonymous figure (Philopator himself?) was responsible for commissioning another structure

172  On this practice in pre-Ptolemaic Egypt, Azim 1982, 112–117, with previous literature. 173  Wace 1945, 106 (deposits 1 and 2) and 108 (deposit 3); A. Rowe, Suppl. ASAE 2 (1946), 4–10 (P. Jouguet, CRAI 1946, 680–687; SB VI 9299 [deposits 1 and 2] and 9301 [deposit 3]; I.Alex.Ptol 13. This includes two deposits of 10 bilingual foundation plaques (1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze, 1 faience, 1 silt) and 5 opaque glass for each of the two) discovered in the Sarapieion on August 27, 1943 (deposit 1) and October 28, 1945 (deposit 2), in the southeast and southwest angles of the temenos, respectively. All of these plaques bear the same Greek and hieroglyphic texts (except for the mud plaque, which appears to be anepigraphical). The Greek ones are in “punctured letters” in the case of the metal plaques, and in ink for the others, the hieroglyphic texts are written in ink. Three other plaques made from opaque glass were likewise found in a third deposit on October 30, 1945 (deposit 3). All of these are today preserved in Alexandria’s Graeco-Roman Museum inv. nos. P. 8357– 8366 (deposit 1), P. 9341–9440 (deposit 2) and P. 10052 (deposit 3). The hieroglyphic text states: “The king of Lower and Upper Egypt, heir of the brother-gods, elected by Amon, powerful is the life of Rê. The son of Rê, Ptolemy (III), forever living, beloved of Ptah. He made this temple and the domain of Osiris-Apis.” 174  Gold foundation plaque published by Fraser 1959–1960, 135–136 no. 4 with pl. XXIX.4. 175  Wace 1945, 107–108 with fig. 1 (SB VI 9300); A. Rowe, Suppl. ASAE (1946), 54–55; Drioton 1946; I.Alex.Ptol 21, which has only the Greek text. This includes a deposit of 10 bilingual foundation plaques (1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze, 1 faience, 1 Nile silt and 5 opaque glass) discovered in the Sarapieion on October 28, 1945, in the corner of a small building adjacent to Sarapis’s naos. The Greek ones are in “punctured letters” in the case of the metal plaques, and in ink for the others, the hieroglyphic texts, written in ink, are inscribed beneath the Greek ones. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum inv. nos. 10026–10035; another similar deposit bears inv. nos. 10037–10046. The hieroglyphic cryptographic text states something like: “King Ptolemy (IV), beloved of Isis, son of King Ptolemy and Queen Berenice, (has made the temple) of infant Horus on the order of Osiris-Apis and Isis.” The absence of any mention of Arsinoe might leave us to suppose that Ptolemy IV had built this small temple of Harpocrates just before his marriage.

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for Sarapis and Isis as saviors associated with Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III, a building situated beneath the modern city’s old Bourse:176 Σαράπιδος αὶ Ἴσδος θεῶν Σωτήρων, / καὶ βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου καὶ βασιλίσσης / Ἀρσινόης, θεῶν Φιλοπατόρων. (Sanctuary) of Sarapis and Isis, Saviour gods, and of king Ptolemy (IV) and of queen Arsinoe (III), theoi Philopatores. Similarly, for Canopus we have a gold plaque informing us that Ptolemy III and Berenice II were responsible for the Osireion’s temenos:177 Bασιλεὺς Πτολεμαῖος Πτολεμαίου καὶ Ἀρσινόης, θεῶν Ἀδελφῶν, καὶ βασίλισσα Βερενίκη, ἡ ἀδελφὴ καὶ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ, τὸ τέμενος Ὀσίρει. King Ptolemy (III), son of Ptolemy (II) and Arsinoe (II), theoi Adelphoi, and queen Berenice his sister and wife (have dedicated) the sanctuary to Osiris. Several observations about these are in order. The gold and silver plaques from Alexandria are bilingual. A space is always provided for the two texts that could have been written there, either in “punctured letters” or in ink. In the case of the latter, it is possible that there was erasure. On the other hand, the foundation deposit plaque from the Canopus Osireion bears a single text, in Greek, without space provided for a hieroglyphic text. This is likewise the case for the new plaque. At Alexandria we have foundation deposit plaques from the temenos dedicated to Sarapis, and at Canopus from the temenos dedicated to Osiris. The new document records the dedication of a naos for Sarapis alone, and I am inclined to identify this with a temple of Sarapis at Canopus, perhaps located within the Osireion precinct, but in any case distinct from the main temple of Osiris. These were both established by Ptolemy III. Nothing indicates that Sarapis was present at Canopus, with his own cult site, before this king’s reign, even if this hypothesis is not implausible, with the admiral Callicrates having dedicated temples to Isis and Anubis before the death of Arsinoe II.178 176  SB I 2136; I.Alex.Ptol 18. 177  O GIS I, 60; SB V 8296; I.Delta I, 236 no. 7 with pl. 3.3. 178  Only two dedications, one at Athens (published by P. D. Stavropoullos, AD 20B (1965), p. 97 no.2 with pl. 55b = RICIS 101/0204, 133/2 BCE) and the other at Delos (IG XI 4, 1263 = RICIS 202/0186, before 166 BCE), are addressed to Isis and Anubis alone.

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This Canopic sanctuary is the only one in the whole of the Mediterranean basin that was dedicated to the “couple” Isis/Anubis, which does not fail to intrigue. Would it be too bold to imagine that the name of Isis represented that of Arsinoe, and the name of Anubis (considered as a hêgemôn)179 that of … Callicrates himself, admiral of the fleet? If the reason proposed here is correct, one would have witnessed over several years the following process unfold. First, having been responsible for the establishment of the Ptolemaic thalassocracy, Arsinoe II after her death was associated with marine Aphrodite and venerated as Arsinoe-Aphrodite Euploia among the Greeks. In order to establish and spread the cult of the divinized queen beyond Alexandria, it was to Isis that the political and religious authorities of the kingdom turned. This association led to a reciprocal transfer of areas of jurisdiction between the deceased sovereign and the goddess. Thus, from Arsinoe-Aphrodite Euploia was born Isis Euploia.180 The fresco from Nymphaion at the beginning of this analysis can be explained rather simply in such a context. The boat in question would most likely be a Ptolemaic warship sent on a diplomatic mission to King Parisades by Ptolemy Philadelphus between 270 and 245 BCE. It could have transported cult objects, among which one may well include a statue of Arsinoe-Isis sculpted from black basalt, the upper part of which was found at Pantikapaion.181 As with numerous other harbor towns, Nymphaion would have accommodated a cult site, especially one of modest size, to honor Arsinoe-Aphrodite, on the walls of which was represented, among other images, the embarkation of one of the Ptolemaic fleet’s main ships, the name of which is difficult to determine. Either one accepts the idea that the image of one of the Dioscuri could have been present from the beginning on a ship named “Isis,” or that the ship did not at first bear this name and the twin god serving as figurehead must have originally given the ship its name. In this case, the goddess’s name would have been added later, perhaps at the initiative of the site’s priest, but not just anywhere: 179  See RICIS 101/0402 (Teithras, mid-1st cent. CE); Bricault 2001–2002. 180  Such has already been the conclusion of Malaise 1994a, 364. The dedication of a temple at Halicarnassus was made in the name of Ptolemy Philadelphus for Sarapis, Isis (and) Arsinoe Philadelphia (RICIS 305/1702). The text is to be dated between 270 and 246 BCE. The commentators have always considered that in this text the divinized Arsinoe was the synnaos of Sarapis and Isis. Malaise, for his part (1994a, 359–360 and n. 44), has proposed to drop a comma and read Ἴσι Ἀρσινόηι (rather than Ἴσι, Ἀρσινόηι). In RICIS, I have opted for an association, without indicating rejection of the idea of total assimilation; see also Dunand 1973, III, 33–34; Caneva & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming). 181  Touraev 1911, 27 fig. 14; Korostovtsev 1957, 973–974; Lapis & Matie 1969, 127 no. 143 fig. 90; Vinogradov & Zolotarev 1999, 365 with fig. 2. On the contacts between the Bosporus Kingdom and Ptolemaic Egypt, Archibald 2004, with bibliography.

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it would have gone, precisely where it was written, upon the ptychê,182 where the names of ships are usually written. Whatever the case, this document probably represents the first known attestation, in the Hellenistic Period, of Isis’s marine aspect. The first, though not the last. One later finds in the eastern Mediterranean diverse pieces of evidence for this function shared between Isis and marine Aphrodite.183 A Delian dedication from the second half of the 2nd cent. BCE expresses the gratitude of a certain Andromachus, son of Phanomachus (Ἴσιδι Σωτείραι Ἀστάρτει Ἀφροδίτηι εὐπλοίαι ἐπ[ηκόωι]),184 undoubtedly for the success of a sea voyage.185 In the preceding century at Perinthus, located on the Sea of Marmara, a priest named Artemidorus dedicated a statue (but of whom?) Ἴσιδι Ἀφροδίτηι.186 The date assigned to this document has varied significantly depending on its commentators.187 The Ptolemies gained possession of this city in 245 BCE. Over several centuries, multiple local coin issues represented Isis and Sarapis, but also Anubis, Apis and Harpocrates,188 indicating that a sanctuary of the Isiac divinities must have existed during the entire period.189 182  πτυχίς or πτυχή: Poll. 1. 86 and Schol. Apoll. Arg. 1. 1089a. 183  It is tempting to add to this collection an Athenian decree from 333/2 BCE authorizing merchants from Kition to acquire in Peiraeus land on which they could establish a sanctuary of Aphrodite, following the example of the Egyptians who had already done so for Isis: IG II/III3 1, 337 = SIRIS 1 = F. Sokolowski, LSCG, no. 34 = RICIS 101/0101. On this text, see, among others, Schwenk 1985, 141–146; Habermann 1986; Simms 1988–1989; Le Guen-Pollet 1991, 216–219 no. 81; Grijalvo 2009, 329–330; Matricon-Thomas 2012, 43–44. It is, however, rather bold to make too direct a connection between the two requests, or otherwise to see in the mention of the Egyptians a clever reminder of a precedent that could only lead to the granting of the Cypriots’ demand, and lead us to consider that, in both cases, this impetus came from maritime traders concerned with paying honor to their favorite goddess, specifically in her guise as protectress of navigation. 184  For Budin 2004, 131, he would “likely” be a Cypriot. See also Bonnet 2015, 506–508. 185   C E 194 = ID 2132 = RICIS 202/0365: Delos, Sarapieion C, undoubtedly before 140 BCE. Compare an epigram by Philip of Thessalonica (AP 6. 231 ). On the cults of Aphrodite and Isis Euploiai, Miranda 1989. 186  E. Kalinka, JÖAI 12 (1926), Beibl. 193 no. 152 = SIRIS 128 = Tacheva-Hitova 1983, 27–28 no. I, 47 = Sayar 1998, 225 no. 42 = RICIS 114/0601. 187  4th–3rd cents. BCE for Kalinka, Fraser and Vidman; second half of 3rd cent. BCE for Tacheva; 3rd–2nd cents. BCE for Sayar. 188  S NRIS, 203–206. 189  Pausanias (2. 32. 6) reports that at Troizen the temples of Isis and Aphrodite Akraia were very close to each other: ναὸν ἴδοις Ἴσιδος καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτὸν Ἀφροδίτης Ἀκραίας· τὸν μὲν ἅτε ἐν μητροπόλει τῇ Τροιζῆνι Ἁλικαρνασσεῖς ἐποίησαν, τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα τῆς Ἴσιδος ἀνέθηκε Τροιζηνίων δῆμος. (“(After having passed the sanctuary of Pan Lyterios), you are able to see a temple of Isis, and above it another of Aphrodite Akraia. While the temple of Isis was built in Troizen by the people of Halicarnassus because this was their mother-city, the statue of Isis was dedicated by the people of Troizen.”)

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I am tempted to connect this early identification of Isis with Aphrodite to their shared maritime function, and even to the existence of a cult site of Arsinoe II, of which this Artemidorus could have been the priest. This document, then, should be dated to the second half of the 3rd cent. BCE.190 At the end of the 1st cent. CE, the author (or authors) of the Isiac litany from Oxyrhynchus, a lengthy but incomplete Greek aretalogical hymn to Isis that lists the places in and ouside Egypt associated with her and the powers for which she was venerated at each, stated that:191 τὴν ἐν Ἀφρoδίτης πό/[λει τo]ῦ Πρoσωπ[ί]τoυ στoλαρχεί/[δα], πoλύμoρφoν, Ἀφρoδίτην At Aphroditopolis of the Prosopite (nome),192 [Isis is] commander of the fleet, of many forms,193 Aphrodite. In the present case, the name of Aphrodite masks that of Hathor.194 There is quite certainly an allusion here to the protection provided by Isis-Hathor for the multiple boats that, according to Herodotus (2.41), would go off to seek all over for the bones of male cattle destined to be buried in a single place in the Delta.195 Finally, it is necessary to cite an inscription from Epidaurus or its vicinity – the stele bearing the inscription was found on the island of Kyra – indicating that during the 2nd–3rd cents. CE, though perhaps already a bit earlier, Aphrodite and Isis shared a common sanctuary, since the ceremonies it refers

190  However, I will not go so far as to claim Thrace, on the basis of this document, as the original place from which the assimilation between Aphrodite and Isis would spread across mainland Greece, the Greek islands, and Ptolemaic Egypt, as proposed by Kleibl 2009, 113; on Isis-Aphrodite, Kunst 2012. 191  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 7–8. The litany is preserved in a 2nd cent. CE copy of a work probably dating originally to the Flavian era. 192  On this town, HDT. 2. 41; Str. 17. 1. 20; Plin. Nat. 5. 64; Pietschmann, PWRE II.2 (1896), col. 1896; Dizionario I, 2 (1966), 290–292. This is none other than Herodotus’s Ἁτάρβηχις. 193  Hathor is the feminine archetype of divinities that were polyonymous and polymorphic. See the hymn to Hathor preserved in the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus, published by Faulkner 1933, 38ff., and the assimilation of Hathor with the polymorphic goddess at El-Kâb; Derchain 1971, I, 63, n. 73–75. 194  B GU VI, 1216, in which Isis is called Ἁθερνεβθφηι, “Hathor, lady of Atfih (i.e. Aphroditopolis)”; compare the epiclesis nbt tp-ih: Philä I 119, 10; LGG IV, 37 at Edfu and Kom Ombo). 195  Lloyd 1976, 189.

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to were practiced in the Aphrodisideion (ἐν Ἀφροδισιδείωι),196 though it is unknown which shared characteristics had been assimilated between them. It thus appears, at the conclusion of these investigations, that it is in the wake of the cult devoted to Arsinoe Euploia that the idea of Isis as a true mistress of the sea is born. Even so, it remained for this new function – a quite surprising one for an Egyptian deity – to be firmly established. The place that was reserved for it in the goddess’s Aretalogy played an important role in this aspect. 196   I G IV2 1, 742 = RICIS 102/0405.

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The Canonization of a New Prerogative Scholars during the 20th century began to apply the name Aretalogy of Isis, often with a capital “A,” to a Greek text of roughly fifty verses that is known from six nearly identical examples found in the eastern Mediterranean and partially reproduced by Diodorus Siculus in his Library of History during the middle of the 1st cent. BCE. This text, one version of which, seemingly complete, was discovered among the ruins of a temple of Isis at Cyme, in the Aeolid,1 appears to be an active and somewhat innovative shaping of an Egyptian literary tradition, the self-laudatory autobiography, here concentrated on the figure of the goddess Isis. This literary approach enables the goddess to present her genealogy, to identify herself by means of the attribution of certain names and qualificatives, to reveal her areas of activity, and to enumerate her virtues (aretê). The crystallization of the varied elements that one reads there certainly correspond to a rhetorical strategy conditioned by specific issues and objectives: accompanying and reinforcing the first steps of Isis and her cult ex Aegypto, in the context of the competition in which Alexander’s ruling successors engaged in the eastern Mediterranean during the 3rd and 2nd cents. BCE. The six exemplars of this text that have been found thus far, for the most part fragmentary, date between the end of the 1st cent. BCE and 3rd cent. CE.2 However, it is clear that the urtext that produced them appeared much earlier, since already at the end of the 2nd and during the 1st cent. BCE there are known adaptations of this aretalogy, found at Maroneia in Thrace and on the island of Andros, 1  The “original” text of the Aretalogy was reconstructed by Harder 1943–1944, 20–21, drawing from the presumably complete version preserved on a large stele of white marble found in 1925 in the Isieion of Cyme by Antonin Salač, and published by him in BCH 51 (1927), 378–383 with pl. 15; see also Roussel 1927; IG XII Suppl., p. 98–99; I.Kyme 97–108 no. 41 with pl. XI; Totti 1985, 1–4 no. 1; RICIS 302/0204; Muñiz Grijalvo 2006, 73–98. 2  In addition to the document from Cyme, which one can date to the 1st or 2nd cent. CE, at least four other copies of the text are known, all fragmentary: one that was discovered on the island of Ios, from the 2nd–3rd cents. CE, which provides the first half of the Aretalogy (IG XII 5, 14 = RICIS 202/1101); a badly damaged text from the Isiac sanctuary in Thessalonica (IG X 2, 1, 254 = RICIS 113/0545: 1st–2nd cents. CE); another, of which eighteen lines are preserved, that was discovered at Kassandreia in Macedonia (Veligianni & Kousoulakou 2008; RICIS Suppl. I, 113/1201: 2nd cent. CE); and, finally, a fragment from Telmessos in Lycia, dating to the Roman era (unedited; see RICIS 306/0201), preserving the first lines of the Aretalogy. The excerpt from Diodorus of Sicily (1. 27), very close to the original, has to be dated between 43 and 36 BCE.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_004

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respectively, that were composed in verse and are generally more Hellenized than the six related texts.3 The origin of this inscribed text and of the others linked to it was for a long time the subject of debate regarding which culture, Egyptian or Greek, was the source of greater inspiration in terms of both form and content.4 This is not the place for taking up this question, which, incidentally, is certainly a false problem.5 One should simply keep in mind that the original work common to these different documents was probably created at Memphis,6 at the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 2nd cent. BCE, when the Memphite priests succeeded at regaining authority from the Theban priests of Amon.7 The reappearance of the high priesthood of Ptah during the course of the first part of the 3rd cent. BCE clothed the monarchy in the Pharaonic attire it sought as a means of more firmly establishing its legitimacy.8 The establishment of this new ruling family at the head of the Egyptian temples appears to have been directly connected with the dynastic cult, active from 272/1 BCE, and to the royal willingness not to depend on the elites already in place.9 The first to gain the title of high priest was undoubtedly Esisout-Petobastis (310–250 BCE), at the end of his career, becoming also the “first prophet and leader of the priests of all temples of Egypt.” His son and direct successor Annôs was in charge of 3  A long verse work (nearly 200 lines) was found on the island of Andros, perhaps from the Augustan era, presenting a rather poeticized and elaborated version (IG XII 5, 739 = RICIS 202/1801). Beside the very Hellenized aretalogy from Maroneia that dates c. 120 BCE (Grandjean 1975, 17–21 = Totti 1985, 60–61 no. 19 = RICIS 114/0202), one should also cite a text from Cyrene, the only one that has been dated precisely (103 CE), which is quite close in terms of contents (SEG IX [1944/46] 192 = Totti 1985, 13 no. 4 = RICIS 701/0103). 4  Among the imposing volume of literature devoted to these texts, in addition to Harder 1943– 1944, see the fundamental analysis of Müller 1961; Festugière 1949; Bergman 1968, with the response of Müller 1972; Henrichs 1984; Veligianni-Terzi 1986b; Trombley 1989; Mora 1990, II, 47–71; Beck 1996; González Blanco 2006; Martzavou 2012; Jördens 2013a. 5  Schulz 2000; Nagel 2015; Stadler 2017. 6  Several recent studies have sought to find in various Egyptian Demotic sources the aretalogies’ origins, claiming a supposed Memphite prototype, and even to reconstruct a model of the original Demotic text. Dousa 2002; Quack 2003; Kockelmann 2008; Dousa 2010. 7  For the replacement of Amon with Sarapis and Isis in the coinage of Ptolemy Philopator, Bricault 1999, 342–343. On the relations between the Ptolemies and the high priests of Memphis, Thompson 2012², which demonstrates well the growing power of the Memphite clergy from the very beginning of the 2nd cent. BCE; see also Quaegebeur 1980; Thompson 1990; Huß 2000; Gorre 2003, 33–34; Gorre 2009, 605–622; Ritner 2011, 100–101 and n. 31; Gorre 2013, 104–105. 8  Agut-Labordère & Gorre 2014, 41–44. 9  This creation was also contemporary to the gatherings of national synods at Memphis, Canopus, etc. See Pfeiffer 2004 on the meanings and religious implications of the Canopus decree.

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the royal insignia, and so was probably responsible for the Pharaonic coronation of the king. He also had responsibility for the Apis cult at Memphis.10 In this context, the Aretalogy appears to have been a genuine work of propaganda: it was written in the Greek language but for the most part dependent on Egyptian realities and intended to popularize Isis in a Greek milieu outside Egypt that was mostly ignorant of who she was,11 and this was done with the more or less assertive support of sovereigns who were concerned with encouraging the diffusion of the cult of this goddess who conveyed legitimacy to their regime. In the hieroglyphic hymns of the temples of Philae and Aswan, beside following traditional Egyptian patterns, Isis opened herself to perspectives in accord with the cultural and religious climate of the era: emphasis on celestial and cosmic traits, and powers benefitting fertility.12 In Philae’s Hymn VII,13 Isis is assimilated with a number of local goddesses, thus opening the way to her future cosmopolitanism. At Aswan, on the other hand, Ptolemy IV presented her as a supreme divinity of the Egyptian pantheon,14 a prerogative that can equally be recognized in her treatment in the Greek version of The Dream of Nektanebo (first half of 2nd cent. BCE).15 The principal difficulty for the authors of the original text entailed making this fundamentally new religious identity of Isis, overseer of all aspects of human life, coexist with those of divinities from the Greco-Roman pantheon who already each possessed their own sphere (or spheres) of competence. To develop this text, it was necessary to combine at the same time the distinctive elements stemming from the long evolution of Isis’s abilities in the Nile valley while in contact with Egyptian and foreign divinities, but also the innovative elements representing a break, which appear for the first time in this text. The Aretalogy thus appears as a hybrid product which mixes, in a structure that is sometimes surprising for a Cartesian sensibility, traditional Egyptian characteristics (her genealogy), powers translated for a Greek audience (her power 10  The introduction of the cult of Sarapis to the island of Delos was brought about by a priest named Apollonios, whose Memphite origin is clearly affirmed, indeed emphasized, in an inscription, whether or not it is true; RICIS 202/0101; Moyer 2011, 142–207. 11  The fact that a half-dozen versions of the same text have been discovered in the whole of the eastern Mediterranean confirms the propagandist, if not proselytic, nature of the Aretalogy. This moreover raises the question of whether connections could have existed between a particular Egyptian clergy, probably Memphite, and the Isiac sanctuaries of the Greco-Roman world. These connections are still far from being clearly defined. Eidinow 2011 on networks and narratives; Bricault (forthcoming). 12  Sfameni Gasparro 2007, 66–72. 13  Žabkar 1988, 103–114, Hymn VII. 14  Bresciani 1978, 63: B. 13. 15  On this text, Koenen 1985; Gauger 2002; Ryholt 2002; Matthey 2011.

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over Fate), and additional abilities that would appeal to new populations (the elimination of tyrants, the invention of sailing). All in all, the Aretalogy provides a digest of the multiple powers of Isis both ancient and new: she is a sovereign goddess, solar, demiurge, mistress of the elements, legislator, inventor of numerous benefits for humanity (writing, languages, temples, mysteries), goddess of women and incarnation of the maternal function, protectress of childbirth and crops, mistress of destiny. Nor should one forget, although the Aretalogy does not say it, that Isis is also a healing goddess.16 In contrast to Sarapis, then, who right away was presented as a Hellenistic god if not a Hellenized one, Isis appeared more as a typically Egyptian divinity who, in order to be accepted in the Hellenic world,17 had to undergo at the same time an adaptatio graeca and an interpretatio graeca, of which the Aretalogy offers a perfect example.18 This multifaceted interpretatio, a function of diverse processes (adaptation, transposition, translation, transfer, juxtaposition),19 is all the more interesting since it originated in an Egyptian sacerdotal milieu which must have known the potential expectations of non-Egyptian populations, so that the aretalogical text attained its goal: to establish a quasi-official, canonical image of the goddess, sufficiently attractive so that the Others (Greeks, Romans, Nabataeans, etc.), i.e. those who did not yet know her, or at least not sufficiently, would have an urge or even a need to adopt her. The Aretalogy thus developed is composed in three sections: introduction of the divinity (parentage, identifications), description of her role in the divine and human worlds, and finally manifestations of her universal power. It is in the second section, though only in a single verse, and especially in the third that the goddess’s domination over the marine elements is invoked. Five of the fifty-three verses of the Aretalogy confirm Isis’s dominion over the marine elements.20 In it, the goddess says:

16  Renberg 2017, esp. 363–364. 17  And, later, by the Greco-Roman world: Nagel 2013; Nagel 2015; Nagel 2019 with previous bibliography. 18  On the meaning(s) of the concept of interpretatio, Ando 2005; Versluys 2013; Colin et al. 2015; Bettini 2016. 19  See for example Pfeiffer 2015 about the processes of interpretatio in Greco-Roman Egypt. 20  Verses 15, 39, 43, 49 and 50; Muñiz Grijalvo 2012, 148.

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Ἐγὼ θαλάσσια ἔργα εὗρον (v. 15), Ἐγὼ ποταμῶν καὶ ἀνέμων καὶ θαλάσσης εἰμὶ κυρία (v. 39), Ἐγὼ πραϋνω καὶ κυμαίνω θάλασσαν (v. 43), and Ἐγὼ ναυτιλίας εἰμὶ κυρία. Ἐγὼ τὰ πλωτὰ ἄπλωτα ποι[ῶ ὅ]ταν ἐμοὶ δόξῃ (vv. 49–50). She is thus the one who “discovered maritime activities” (v. 15),21 “the sovereign of the rivers, the winds and the sea” (v. 39), the one who “calms the sea and unleashes the storm” (v. 43), and “the sovereign of navigation [who] renders navigable waters impassable to ships when it pleases [her]” (vv. 49– 50).22 These elements express, it seems to me, the shift taking place between

21  This verse is also found in the copies from Ios and Thessalonica; the others must have had it in parts that have not survived. In the Andros hymn, v. 15 of the Aretalogy corresponds to vv. 34–35: Ἅδε θαλάσσας πρᾶτον ἐν ἀνθρώποισι περάσιμον ἤνεσα μόχθον (“I am the one who, as the first among men, accomplished the dangerous crossing of the sea”); v. 39 corresponds to a lacuna in the Andros text; v. 43 seems to correspond to the rather lacunose vv. 127–132; vv. 49–50 finally are transposed to vv. 145–157: Πλωτὰ δὲ φιλεύδιος Ἀμφιτρίτα / νηυσὶ μελαμπρώροισιν ὑπαὶ παχνώδεος αὐχμῶ, / ἁνίκα μειδάμων ἱλαρὰν ἐρύθοισα παρείαν / ἀμπετάσω Τηθὺν γλαυκώλενον· ἐν δὲ περητοῖς / βένθεσιν ἀστιβέα πλαγκτὰν ὁδὸν, εὖτέ με θυμός // κορθύσηι, κλονέω, παντᾶι δὲ μελανθέι ῥοίζωι / σπερχόμενος βαρὺ Πόντος ἐνὶ σπήλυγξι βαθείαις / μυκᾶτ´ ἐξ ἀδύτων· πράτα δ´ ἐπὶ σέλματι δούρων / κολπωτὰν ὀθόναισι θοὰν τρόπιν ἰθύνεσκον / οἶδμα καθιππεύοισα, δαμαζομένας δὲ θαλάσσας // ὠκυπόροις ἐλάταις ἑλικὰν ἔστασε χορείαν / Δωρίδος εὐλοχία, περιπάλλετο δ´ ἐν φρεσὶ θάμβος / εἰρεσίαν ἀδάητον ἐτ´ ὄθμασι παπταινοίσαις. (“Amphitrite, loving good weather, advances across the water in her ship with a black prow beneath the frozen salt spray, when, smiling, I redden my cheerful cheek and deploy Tethys of the sea-gray arms. In the navigable deep, when the desire stirs my heart, I rush down the tortuous road to render it desert, and, bring with me everywhere a gloomy precipitation; Pontos in its deep grottoes roars silently from the depth of his sanctuary. At first, on the deck of the ship, I led the agile skiff with sails swelling, riding on the stream while the seas were tamed by the rapid naves, the glorious offspring of Doris made a whirling chorus. And my spirit trembled in bewilderment, resting my eyes fixedly on the previously unknown beating of oars.”)    I cannot follow Bergman 1968, 98 and 282, when he places verse 15 of the Aretalogy in relation with the primordial ocean, in order to propose a cosmogonic interpretation. 22  This aspect of Isis does not appear in the significantly Hellenized aretalogy from Maroneia, at least in the initial section that alone has been recovered; one therefore cannot conclude anything regarding this absence because the text’s arrangement leads one to suppose that it was in the concluding section that maritime and riverine Isis was (or would have been) invoked.

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what one might consider an Egyptian conception of the art of navigation, in which piloting skills would be celebrated above all other forms of technical mastery,23 and a more Hellenic vision of things, in which navigation is no longer only an art which the divinity taught to men, but a human activity, essentially commercial, placed under the protection of the goddess who invented it and made it possible by her genius, notably realized in the invention of sails.24 The author of the Andros hymn, moreover, developed that original crossing, which occurred under the astounded eyes of the Nereids.25 The protection given by Isis to sailors likewise can be read in the first of the four hymns composed by a certain Isidorus and inscribed on the pilasters of the entrance of the vestibule at the main sanctuary of Medinet Madi (ancient Narmouthis) in the Fayoum,26 undoubtedly during the course of the 1st cent. BCE:27 ὅσοι ἐμ πελάγει μεγάλωι χειμῶνι πλέουσι / ἀνδρῶν ὀλλυμένων νηῶν κατὰ ἀγνυμενάων, / σώζονθ’ οὗτοι ἅπαντες, ἐπευξάμενοί σε παρεῖναι All those who sail on the sea, when by a great storm men are perishing, hurtled from breaking ships, they are all saved, when they invoke your help.

23  In the Oxyrhynchus litany preserved in P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 186–189, Isis is saluted for having conducted the barque of Osiris to a good port: σὺ τὸν ἀδελ/φόν σo[υ ἐπα]νή[γ]αγες μόνη κυβερ/νήσασα καλῶς καὶ εὐαρμόστως / θάψασα (“you alone have rowed your brother (in a barque) that you have steered well, and you have given him a worthy burial”). 24  Mora 1990, II, 57. See infra pp. 52–53. 25  R ICIS 202/1801,152–157; see now Prêtre (forthcoming), for a fascinating semantic analysis of these verses. 26  These four hymns were discovered and published by Vogliano (1936 and 1937); see also I.Métriques, no. 175, with pl. CV–CVIII; Vanderlip 1972; Alonge 2011, esp. 229; Faraone 2012. 27  The dedications inscribed in 96 BCE at the vestibule’s entrance provide a terminus post quem for the hymns. The late writing and certain historical allusions led Vogliano to decide upon the 1st cent. BCE. According to Vanderlip, these hymns were not later than 80 BCE, the year of Ptolemy IX Sôter’s death. On this problem of dating, see the comments of É. Bernand in his review of Vanderlip’s work, published in BiOr XXXI (Jan.-March 1974), 81–84. The thesis of Bollók 1974, who proposed a date between 217 and 206 BCE based on an allusion made in the third hymn to a king of the Golden Age, one likewise invoked in the Oracle of the Potter, in which he found analogies with the titulature of Ptolemy IV Philopator, is untenable.

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One finds these themes in the Oxyrhynchus litany, written in the last third of the 1st cent. CE, which returns to them and develops them. The goddess there is presented in ll. 121–123 as ἐπίτρo/πoν καὶ ὀδηγὸν, θαλασίων καὶ πoτα/μίων στoμάτων κυρίαν protectress and pilot,28 sovereign of the seas and the mouths of rivers.29 The mention of rivers, in the litany as in the Aretalogy, is significant and unquestionably reveals an Egyptian influence, since it recognized that even if maritime traffic, which was essentially trans-Mediterranean, had become important for the Ptolemaic kingdom, the Nile remained vital to Egypt. Vital because it constituted the main artery, but also because it was the source of the flood, which came under Isis’s authority, as the author of the Oxyrhynchus litany also states:30 [σ]ὺ τῆ[ς] γῆ[ς κυ]ρία / ἀ[γ]ρ[oῖς πλή]μμυραν πoταμῶν / π[άντων ἐπα]νάγεις· καὶ τoῦ ἐν Aἰ//γύπτῳ Nε[ίλo]υ, ἐ[ν δ]ὲ Τριπόλι Ἐλευθέ/ρoυ, ἐν δὲ τῇ Ἰνδικῇ Γάγγoυ It is you, mistress of the land, who provokes the overflowing of all rivers into the fields, including that of the Nile in Egypt, the Eleutheros at Tripolis, and the Ganges in India. Mistress of the flood,31 Isis is also, according to the same author, mistress of all the wet elements creators of life:

28  ὁδηγός, literally “guide, pilot” (LSJ p. 1198a). Compare the expression ὁδηγὰ πλοῖα, pilot of ship (SB III 7173,16). 29  On the mouths of rivers, Albright 1919, 170 and 174–175. 30  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 222–226. This power of Isis was extended to two other rivers in particular, the Eleutheros in Syria and the Ganges in India, probably with the hope of creating a real effect, rather than remaining at the level of generalities. Regarding the precise choice of these two rivers, it could stem from a familiarity that the author had with rivers known for important seasonal flooding, including these, to which one might add the fact that he was especially well informed regarding Syrian geography, as is demonstrated by the number of Syrian towns in the litany’s geographical list relative to those of other lands. 31  See supra p. 35.

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καὶ {τo} / δι’ ἣν τὸ πᾶν κ[αὶ τ]ὸ ἓν κ⌐α¬ίρ[ιο]ν ἐστιν διὰ παν/τὸς ὄμβρoυ32 καὶ πά[σ]ης πηγῆς καὶ πά/[ση]ς δρόσoυ33 κα[ὶ χι]όνoς34 καὶ πά//σης λ[ύ]σε[ω]ς κρ[ήν]ης35 καὶ θαλάσσης.36  32  If this word in Greek generally had the sense of rain (LSJ p. 1221a), that is not the case here. The term, in Egypt, seems rather to have designated the water of the Nile’s inundation (for example P.Tebt. I, 61(b),133; III, 768,26; III, 826,33 and 51; P.Cair. Zenon 383,13 or even P.Lond.Lit 239,30 and 36). On the short hymn to the Nile in which Isis is responsible for the flood, according to the new reading given by Lewis 1982, 76, see Bonneau 1987, 90. Several scholars, among them Müller 1961, 67–69, P. Derchain, BiOr XXVII no. 1/2 (Jan.-March 1970), 22–23, and Zivie 1983, sought to show that the whole relationship between Isis and rain should be rejected, at least in Egypt. The Oxyrhynchite litany does not weaken this viewpoint. However, rain could appear as a substitute for the inundation for those peoples who would not benefit from the flood and could be presented as a celestial Nile River (hcpy m pt); Zivie 1983, col. 204. Moreover, the parallel between rain and the Nile is a common subject among Greek and Latin authors; see the texts collected by Sauneron 1952, and those added by Wild 1981, 63–65 and 222–223 n. 37–40 (esp. n. 38). A hymn to Isis from Philae (Žabkar 1988, Hymn III, 9) calls the goddess a “cloud that renders the fields green when descending,” an expression that appears to associate Isis with beneficial rain, which could, if need be, compensate for the inadequacy of the flood; Žabkar 1988, 147–149. It is perhaps necessary to see in the text of P.Oxy. XI, 1380 some wordplay regarding the ambiguity in the meaning of the term ὄμβρος, being both the water of the inundation for the Egyptians and rainfall for the Greeks, which would not be a surprise given the author’s likely Greco-Egyptian roots. Compare with the Aretalogy, in which Isis is “mistress of the rain” (ὄμβρων κυρία v. 54), just as she is “mistress of thunder” (κεραυνοῦ κυρία v. 42), which is to say assuming certain prerogatives of Zeus. 33  The term δρόσος, which I translate with “dew,” corresponds to the Egyptian j3dt, but the Greek word refers to some different realities, according to what one finds in Egypt or, for example, in Greece. For the meaning of j3dt, Wb I, 36, 1; A. H. Gardiner, AEO, Oxford 1947, I,6* no. 18; Vandier 1961, 204, n. 621; Derchain 1965, 25; Derchain 1971, I, 58, n. 36; Assmann 1969, 249; Meeks 1972, 124, n. 262; van der Plas 1986, 71–76. J3dt comes from the sky, as is indicated by the great hymn to the Nile flood, “that which descends from the sky is his (i. e. Hapy) dew.” As such, j3dt appears to be a variant for rain. But along the length of the Nile, it was not the rain that expressed the word j3dt. In effect, as is indicated by a text from Kom Ombo, “you (i. e. Souchos) are the great Hapy who makes grain grow and whose dew submerges the Two Lands (?)” (trans. J. Yoyotte, BIFAO 61 [1962], 107), the word “dew” having been placed directly in relationship with the flood. The verb δροσίζειν, according to him, must indicate the humidification of the sun at the beginning of the flood (P.Mil. Vogl. II 60,4 mid-2nd cent. CE; Bonneau 1964, 257–258), which leads one to think that the dew (δρόσος) is the portentous sign of the Nile’s overflow. The flood’s arrival would occur in two stages: moisture would spread at first in the soil and among the trees, as animals would perceive it (P.Oxy. XV, 1796); next the inundation proper would occur. It is this first stage that prayers for the Nile would render with “dew.” Coinciding with the date of Isis’s birth, the fourth epagomenal day, this moisturization of the ground could have had a link to the Amesysia festival; Bonneau 1974; Bonneau 1985. Moreover, Isis is assimilated to that overflowing water (PGM IV, 2892 and PGM XII, 234, in which Osiris is the water of the Nile in its bed whereas Isis is the water that spreads over the lands). 34  I translate the word χιών with “snowfall” rather than “frozen water,” although I could not find a trace of an Isis who was mistress of snow in the Egyptian texts. The word is used

The Canonization of a New Prerogative

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(You) by whom all exists through every flood, every spring, every dew and (every) snowfall, every fountain that flows and (every) well. One finds this omnipotence referred to once more in Apuleius, when Lucius is saying:37 Tuo nutu spirant flamina, nutriunt nubila, germinant semina, crescunt germina. At a sign on your part, the winds begin to blow, the clouds feed, the seeds sprout, and the sprouts grow. One thus finds stated in this litany, as in the aretalogical text, certain elements which already in Egypt itself define Amon and, to a lesser extent, Isis as divinities with powers over the sea. Isis in Egypt is mistress of the winds;38 she can thus control the waves at will, whether they be riverine or marine, and, consequently, she protects (or opts not to) humans who venture forth on the waters.39   again in the Oxyrhynchus litany at l. 239: σὺ ἀνέμων / κα[ὶ βρ]oντῶν καὶ ἀστραπῶν καὶ / χειόνων τὸ κράτoς ἔχεις (“you have the command of the winds, of the thunder, of the lightning, and the falling snow”), a sequence in which Isis takes on certain functions of supreme divinities such as Zeus, in order to become the mistress of all the elements – a theme which reappeared in Apul. Met. 11. 25. One can also comprehend “fall of hail,” as P. Koemoth has suggested to me. 35  The reading of this passage is difficult, the letters at the beginning of the line having been badly damaged. The restorations of previous editors greatly varied: λ[.]σε[ω]ς κα[ὶ γ]ῆς for Grenfell and Hunt in the editio princeps; λ[ύ]σε[ω]ς κα[ὶ γ]ῆς for Lafaye 1916, 89; ἄ[λ]σε[ω]ς κα[ὶ γ]ῆς for K. F. W. Schmidt, GGA 180.3–4 (1918), 83, and Manteuffel 1928, 165–166; φ[ύ]σε[ω]ς κα[ὶ γ]ῆς for Totti 1985, 73. None of these, however, is fully satisfying. One can, in effect, ask what the land is able to do in the middle of this fresh water. Thus, my proposal, that the word κρήνης is contrasting with the term πηγή, while completing it. 36  All of the translators and commentators have understood that this refers to the sea, which I greatly doubt, as the presence of salt water among all this fresh water is suspect. If the restoration of the word κρήνης is correct, I would prefer to translate θάλασσα as “well” – a term attested in Coptic in order to designate the fresh water in a well; Grossmann 2004. In a rather different context, Ginouvès 1962, 341–342, 355–357 suggested that θάλασσα may have designed a basin; see the discussion in Renberg 2017, 185–186 n. 167. 37   A pul. Met. 11. 25. 4. 38  Winds that she had created, as the 1st hymn at Medinet Madi states (vv. 10–11); that she commands, as the Aretalogy affirms (v. 39); or, that she dominates, as Plutarch suggests (De Is. 16), when he tells of how the goddess, irritated, had dried up the course of the Phaidros River. 39  Compare P.Tebt.Tait 14, where it is written that Isis is “she who is in the rivers (or the canals).” When one would call upon her, she “brings [her suppliants healthy and safe] to the shore.”

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But her capabilities do not stop there, since her power extends to all the watery elements, thus making her a goddess who gives life. The two functions of pelagia and frugifera therefore would always be directly linked. One of the most original claims spread by the aretalogical narrative seems to be Isis’s invention of maritime activities. I would be tempted to link it to the Gebalite episode of her quest and to its insertion into the Osirian myth40 – an insertion that could perhaps be contemporary to the redaction of the Aretalogy, and could play a role in the development of the goddess’s marine nature. The materialization of one specific trait associated with the goddess permits us to visualize by means of her iconography, undoubtedly a posteriori, this particular aretê: the invention of the sail that permitted difficult crossings, an invention that was soon made more appealing by a brilliant artistic innovation, the fashioning of a sail from her mantle in representations of the goddess. Moreover, this is how the trait is interpreted by ancient commentators, even if they create some confusion, also found elsewhere,41 between Harpocrates and Osiris, clearly certainly finds its source in an unfortunate reading of the Osirian myth that mixes various episodes. Thus, according to Hyginus:42 Velificia primum invenit Isis, nam dum quaerit Harpocratem filium suum rate velificavit Isis first invented sailing; in effect, while searching for her son Harpocrates, she placed sails on her raft. Cassiodorus developed an explanation several centuries later:43 Hoc (= velum) Isis rati prima suspendit, cum per maria Harpocratem filium suum audaci femina pietate perquireret. Ita dum materna caritas suum desiderium festinat explerere, mundi visa est ignota reserare 40  See supra pp. 19–22. 41  See, for example, Lactant. Div. inst. 1. 17. 6: Isis filium perdidit, Ceres filiam (“Isis lost her son, Ceres her daughter”), and 1. 21. 24: Isidis Aegyptiae sacra sunt, quatenus filium paruulum uel perdiderit uel inuenerit (“There are ceremonies in honor of Egyptian Isis, sometimes because she lost her very young son, sometimes because she found him”). This Christian author’s confusion probably finds its origin in the reading of Min. Fel. 22. 1: Isis perditum filium cum Cynocephalo suo et calvis sacerdotibus luget plangit inquirit (“Isis with her Cynocephalus one “[i.e., Anubis]” and her priests with shaved heads laments for herself, weeps and seeks her lost son”). 42   H yg. Fab. 277 (c. 190 CE). 43   C assiod. Var. 5. 17 (middle of 6th cent. CE).

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Isis, was first in suspending this (a sail) on her barque, when upon the seas she searched for her son Harpocrates with the courageous dutifulness of a woman. Thus, while maternal tenderness was pushing her on to fulfill her desire, she was seen to be revealing something previously unknown to the world. But, in the meantime, this unique iconography spread widely in the Mediterranean world, according to processes that it is now necessary to attempt to identify.

CHAPTER 3

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas I have already used, pertaining to the image associated with Isis navigans, the expression Isis-with-a-sail.1 This singular iconography of the goddess velificans sua manu has inspired much writing and debate.2 A half-century after the publication of the most important of these studies, a fundamental one by Bruneau devoted to the subject,3 it would undoubtedly be useful to review this phenomenon, our knowledge of which has been enriched since then by a number of important sources, some casting new light on the topic. This is also an opportunity to examine the evolution of the figure of Isis, goddess of the seas after the 3rd cent. BCE and to ask if Isis-with-a-sail is indeed the only possible image for representing her. 3.1 The Isis-with-a-Sail Type 3.1.1 Origin and Definition The collection of sources concerning Isis-with-a-sail is rich, the type having appeared on coins, intaglios, seals, lamps, engraved glass, reliefs, and undoubtedly statues. But before presenting the catalog and attempting to separate the certain from the probable and the probable from the possible, it is necessary to comment upon the iconographic units which, grouped together, define the theme of Isis-with-a-sail.4 An artifact found during the excavations of the

1  This descriptive term, a translation of the expression “Isis à la voile” employed in the edition of 2006, is without doubt the most applicable for expressing the function or functions of the pertinent images, without directly imposing on them a modern, and sometimes anachronistic, label; see also Fontana 2010, 74–86. 2  Velificatio, a term borrowed from the vocabulary of the sea, was overseen by a number of divine, mythological and historical figures. Aphrodite, Europa, and the Nereids were velificantes, holding a drapery in their two hands that had inflated above their head, like the sail of a ship; Babelon 1942–1943. The expression is found again in Pliny (Nat. 36. 29), who employs it in reference to works visible in Curia Octavia: duaeque Aurae velificantes sua veste “and the Two Breezes, who are spreading their cloaks like sails.” In the case of Isis, it would be in front of her that she would hold a swelling sail at the height of her two hands, pinned at the bottom to the ship’s deck by one of her feet. 3  Bruneau 1961; and also Bruneau 1963; Bruneau 1974; Bruneau 1978. 4  On this question of themes and iconographic schemes relating to marine Isis, Bérard 1985.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_005

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

FIGURE 4

55

Matrix. Athenian Agora (End 2nd–1st half 3rd cent. CE)

South Stoa of the Athenian Agora can serve as a point of departure. It is a fragment of dark blue marble, probably a matrix for creating patterns of jewelry (fig. 4).5 Its editor, Ellen Reeder Williams, described it as follows:6 Within a square field is a circle formed by closely set drill holes. Inside this frame and standing upon a short ridge for a ground line is a female in right profile, left leg advanced and knees slightly bent. Concentric ridges between and behind the legs suggest windblown drapery; in front of the left leg and extending from thigh to ankle is another ridge terminating in an oval boss. The figure’s elbows are bent with the forearms elevated. Each hand grasps the edge of a long piece of inflated fabric that is fringed 5  Athens, Agora Museum inv. no. ST 527. Dimensions: ht. 13.2 cm., l. 10 cm. Williams 1985. For the meaning of this object, see infra p. 186. 6  Williams 1985, 110 with pl. 21. For the inscription, RICIS 101/0213.

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along its front contour. A loop rises from the maiden’s right hand. In the field between sail and frame, and echoing the curve of the punched border, are the letters ΕΙϹΙϹ. It is, up to the present, the only object explicitly associating Isis’s name and an image of a divinity with a sail. The right part of the matrix was not recovered, and therefore it is not possible to tell if the goddess was wearing a crown, a fortiori an Isiac one. In any case, she is not holding a sistrum, and the outline of the fold of her garment does not allow one to conclude that the “Isiac knot” was present. It is equally impossible to tell if she was wearing a mantle floating from her back. Regarding the disposition of the inscription, the absence of half of the stone permits one to suppose that an epiclesis related to the name of the goddess was present, on the opposite side from the figural representation of Isis-with-a-sail. Still, despite these losses, real or assumed, the identity of the divinity represented is not in doubt. One can link to this matrix a fragment of molded terracotta discovered during the excavation of a potter’s workshop, in the garden of István Paulovics in Szombathely (ancient Savaria, in Pannonia) (fig. 5).7 This fragment presents the lower part of a representation of Isis-with-a-sail, behind whom one can make out a palm tree. The complete object would have measured around 14 cm. in diameter, a little more than that of the Athenian matrix. The stratigraphy permits a date for this Pannonian object between the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd cents. CE. It is a bit older than the matrix from Athens, since a comparison of it with the evolution of representations of Isis-with-a-sail on coins permits Williams to reasonably date the Athenian fragment to the second half of the 2nd or the beginning of the 3rd cent. CE.8 The local (Attic?) artist, who rather poorly engraved the matrix, was clearly inspired by a coin, perhaps Corinthian, the details of which he did not fully understand or reproduce.9 It is indeed numismatic sources that provide the most elaborate representations of this visual theme. On a large number of coins there is represented a standing female figure, generally facing to the right, who is dressed in a chiton and himation that reaches up to the ankles, the left foot positioned forward and resting on the

7  Szombathely, Savaria Museum inv. no. 66.1.2283. Buocz 2012; Podvin 2014a, 122 with pl. I.3. 8  Williams 1985, 112–113. 9  This is the closest city to Athens that had issued coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type; Bricault & Veymiers 2007.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

FIGURE 5

57

Stamp and molded terracotta. Savaria (End 1st-early 2nd cent. CE)

back of an inflated sail,10 the top of which she holds with her two hands. This foot might also be positioned on a prow,11 which is sometimes just a sketch formed from a simple line. On some issues, the hull, generally that of a galley, is entirely represented.12 On the majority of examples, the female figure is either wearing a basileion13 or holding a sistrum in her right hand,14 or both,15 which identifies her as Isis. She is occasionally wearing a calathos.16 Her long mantle can, in defiance of all likelihood, be inflated by a breeze (or by the speeding ship) blowing from the direction opposite that of the breeze filling the ship’s sail. On coins from Ephesus and Alexandria, a lighthouse is figured in front of her17 or behind.18 10  This is not always the case elsewhere. On the matrix from Athens, nothing seems to preserve the sail at the bottom. On a carnelian from the von Stosch collection today preserved at Berlin’s Ägyptisches Museum (see infra pp. 67–68 fig. 19), it is some cords that link the sail to the deck of the ship; Kaiser 1967, 114 no. 1061 with fig.; Bruneau 1974, 344 with fig. 7. 11  S NRIS Byblus 5 and 10. 12  For example, SNRIS Cyme 5–6; SNRIS Roma for all issues of the Vota publica of the Isis-with-a-sail type. It is perhaps not necessary to seek to elaborate an explanation of these variants of the representation of the ship (complete, simplified, or suggested), but simply to keep in mind that it is more the attitude of the goddess that is the question to focus on. 13  S NRIS Anchialus 15, Nicaea 8, and Phocaea 2. 14  S NRIS Aspendus 18. 15  S NRIS Byzantium 1, Nicomedia 2, and Philippopolis 3. 16  S NRIS Callatis 4. 17  S NRIS Alexandria 199 and Ephesus 4. 18  S NRIS Alexandria 103 and Ephesus 5.

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  TABLE 1 Isis-with-a-sail: a typology

Isis standing, on a prow, one foot in advance, holding a sail with both hands (with one exception [21]), the    Her mantle floating behind her Head turned forward

Head turned backwards

Head facing

Wearing a basileion

Wearing a basileion

Wearing a basileion

With sistrum in right hand A1r A1l B1r B1l

Bare head

Without With Without With Without sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum in right in right hand hand A2r A3r A5r A6r A2l B2r B5r B2l B5l B6l

Bare head

Bare head

With Without With Without With Without sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum in right in right in right hand hand hand A9r A10r A10l

3.1.2 A Typology Considering the common iconographic traits present in the images of Isis-with-a-sail, it is possible to establish the following as a fixed typology (Table 1).19 The general study of ancient coins with Isiac types published in the Sylloge Nummorum Religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae and its supplement, in addition to a catalogue – undoubtedly not an exhaustive one – of different objects belonging to the Isis-with-a-sail type, made it possible to recognize the following types:20 19  In order to avoid ending up with a table containing 96 boxes on its final line, and to attempt to render this typology as little uncomplex as possible, while counting on the reader’s indulgence, I have opted for the following classification system: the letter A indicates that we are dealing with an Isis-with-a-sail but lacking the lighthouse; the letter B indicates that Isis-with-a-sail is represented with the lighthouse; next comes a number, between 1 and 24, corresponding to the typological table; finally, the letter r indicates that Isis advances towards the right, while l indicates the opposite. Exceptions are the types A2r´ and A2r´´, in which the goddess is wearing a calathos. The boxes with the codes presented correspond to those types that are proven to exist. 20  For convenience and in order to avoid the body of the text and footnotes becoming too bloated, for coins, I point the reader solely to the published RPC volumes (1992–2018), SNRIS (published in 2008) and its supplement (published in 2014), where one will find the older references.    However, certain items have remained altogether inaccessible, and the older descriptions do not always provide the details necessary for a confident integration of this or

59

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

    ship being represented or drawn with a line No mantle behind her Head turned forward

Head turned backwards

Head facing

Wearing a basileion

Wearing a basileion

Wearing a basileion

Bare head

With Without With Without With Without sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum in right in right in right hand hand hand A14r A14l A18l

Bare head

Bare head

With Without With Without With Without sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum sistrum in right in right in right hand hand hand A21r

Type A1r: Isis standing r., head r. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 2).

that exemplar in a particular typology. This may have resulted in certain errors of detail in the classification of certain coins, especially those coming from the Alexandrian mint. The same is true for items that have been poorly preserved, or minted off-center, which did not always permit examination of the details that interest us here (sistrum, basileion, orientation of the head, and even date). When it was not possible to include a specimen in a series, and as a result to classify it in that typology, I have preferred to ignore it. This is the case, for example, with a coin dated to the fourth year of Hadrian’s reign that is cited in Mionnet 6, 149–150 no. 870, and with another published in Mionnet 6, 155 no. 917 and dated to the seventh year of the same principate. Outside of Alexandria, one can cite two issues from Ephesos for Valerian (253–260 CE) and Gallienus (253–268 CE) (SNRIS Ephesus 28–29), two from Nikomedeia for Marcus Aurelius (161–180 CE) and Commodus (166–177 CE) (SNRIS Nicomedia 3 and 5).    Since the publication of SNRIS, investigations conducted in collaboration with the teams working on Roman Provincial Coinage have permitted me to discover a rich number of new specimens. This has enabled me to correct, emend and clarify several previous descriptions, including some in the French 2006 edition of this book. I have not thought it useful to detail one by one all of these modifications in the present work. Moreover, the integration of numerous new specimens has made the tables presented in Isis, Dame des flots change considerably, so that henceforth it should be considered obsolete.

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FIGURE 6

Hadrian (133/4 CE)

FIGURE 7

Antoninus (144/5 CE)

TABLE 2 Type A1r: the coins

Alexandria Emp./Year

2 3

4

5 6

8

9

10

Corinth

11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 27

Domitian Xa Trajan Xb Xc Hadrian Xd Xe Xf X(?)g Xh Xi Xj Xk Xl Xm Sabina Xn Antoninus Xo Xp Xq Xr Xs Xt Xu Xv Xw Xx Xy Faustina II Xz Xaa Xab Marcus Aurelius Caesar Lucius Verus Xac Xad Marcus Aurelius Augustus Commodus Xae Septimius Xaf Severus Aurelian Xag a RPC II 2613–2615, 2639; SNRIS Alexandria 45b (Year 11 = 91/2 CE). b RPC III, p. 609b; SNRIS Alexandria 143a (Year 14 = 110/1 CE). Known only from Mionnet, the existence of this issue requires confirmation. In addition, Emmett 2001, nos. 528(16) and (631) signals two unedited coins in Berlin of this type, without specifying if the goddess is wearing a basileion or holds a sistrum, or both. The date of the first (Year 16[?] of Trajan = 112/3 CE) is not assured; that of the second, attributable to the same reign, is not readable; see SNRIS Alexandria 102.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag

61

RPC III 4841; SNRIS Alexandria 143b (Year 18 = 114/5 CE). RPC III 5330; SNRIS Alexandria 168aa and 168ca (Year 6 = 121/2 CE). RPC III 5422; SNRIS Alexandria 168ab (Year 8 = 123/4 CE). RPC III 5506; SNRIS Alexandria 168ac (Year 9 = 124/5 CE). The existence of the series SNRIS Alexandria 168ad and 168cb (Year 10 = 125/6 CE) needs confirmation; see RPC III, p. 696b. RPC III 5748; SNRIS Alexandria 168cc (Year 14 = 129/30 CE); head r. and not l. as indicated in the RPC. RPC III 5783; SNRIS Alexandria 168cd (Year 15 = 130/1 CE). RPC III 5799; SNRIS Alexandria 168ce (Year 16 = 131/2 CE). RPC III 5837; SNRIS Alexandria 168ba (Year 17 = 132/3 CE). RPC III 5893–5894; SNRIS Alexandria 168bb (Year 18 = 133/4 CE) (fig. 6). RPC III 6180; SNRIS Alexandria 168bc (Year 21 = 136/7 CE). RPC III 5805; SNRIS Alexandria 239 (Year 16 = 131/2 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248ba (Year 2 = 138/9 CE). Naville Numismatics 37 (28 January 2018) 387 (Year 3 = 139/40 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248ca (Year 4 = 140/1 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248bb and 248cb (Year 5 = 141/2 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248bc (Year 8 = 144/5 CE) (fig. 7). SNRIS Alexandria 248cc (Year 9 = 145/6 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248bd (Year 10 = 146/7 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248be and 248cd (Year 11 = 147/8 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248bf (Year 12 = 148/9 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248ce (Year 14 = 150/1 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248bg (Year 21 = 157/8 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 332a (Year 17 = 153/4 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 332b (Year 21 = 157/8 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 316 (Year 17 = 153/4 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 442a (Year 4 = 163/4 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 397 (Year 19 = 178/9 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 475 (Year 27 = 186/7 CE). The inclusion of this unique exemplar, known only from Mionnet, in type A1r is not entirely assured. SNRIS Corinthus 9 (193–211 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 678 (Year 4 = 272/3 CE).

FIGURE 8 Clay seal. Palmyra

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Clay seal, Palmyra (fig. 8)21 Type A1l: Isis standing l., head l. wearing a basileion, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 3).

FIGURE 9 Iasos. Lucius Verus (161–169 CE) TABLE 3 Type A1l: the coins

Alexandria Emperor / Year

5

Hadrian Antoninus Marcus Aurelius Lucius Verus

Xa

a b c d e

6

Iasos 7

17

21

Xb

Xc

Xd

Xf

Xe Xg

RPC III 5274. SNRIS Alexandria 248aa (Year 7 = 143/4 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248ab (Year 17 = 153/4 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248ac (Year 21 = 157/8 CE). SNRIS Iasus 4A (161–180 CE).

21  Damascus, National Museum inv. no. D’Andurain 115. Terracotta. 1.3 x 1.8 cm. Ingholt et al. 1955, 127 with pl. XLVI no. 1024.    An unpublished carnelian at the American Numismatic Society in New York inv. no. 0000.999.33833, which I was not able to see, is described thusly in the ANS online database: “Isis Pharia stdg. r., holding billowing sail to r.”; http://numismatics.org/ collection/0000.999.33833.

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63

f SNRIS Alexandria 442b (Year 6 = 165/6 CE). For the Alexandrian issues corresponding to type A1l I was only able to see two specimens (the first preserved at Cologne, the second having belong to G. Dattari), both poorly preserved, regrettably. g SNRIS Iasus 4 (161–169 CE) (fig. 9).

Type A2r: Isis standing r., head r. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is entirely drawn (Cyme, Rome) or suggested by a line (Alexandria, Byblos, Callatis, Corinth, Ephesus, Phocaea) (Table 4).

FIGURE 10 Alexandria. Hadrian (124/5 CE)

FIGURE 11 Cyme. Antoninus (138–161 CE)

FIGURE 12 Cyme. Faustina II (161–175 CE)

FIGURE 13 Cyme. Anonymous (253–260 CE)

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FIGURE 14 Corinth. Antoninus (138–161 CE)

FIGURE 15 Byblos. Commodus (180–192 CE)

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Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

FIGURE 16 Phocaea. Maximinus (235–238 CE) TABLE 4 Type A2r: the coins

Alexandria Argos Byblos Callatis Corinth Ephesus Cyme Phocaea Rome Emperor / Year

9 10 11

Domitian Hadrian Antoninus Marcus Aurelius Faustina II Lucius Verus Commodus Plautilla Maximinus Gordian III Anonymous

Xa Xb Xc Xd Xe

Xf

Xg Xj

Xi

Xm

Xn

Xh

Xk

Xl Xo

a RPC II 2574; SNRIS Alexandria 045a (Year 10 = 90/1 CE). b RPC II 2612–2615; SNRIS Alexandria 045b (Year 11 = 91/2 CE).

Xq

Xp Xr

Xs

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c SNRIS Alexandria 168ac (Year 9 = 124/5 CE) (fig. 10). d RPC III 5588 and 5605 (Year 10 = 125/6 CE). I do not see any sistrum on RPC pl. 276, nos. 5605/1 and 5605/3. e RPC III 5671 (Year 11 = 126/7 CE). I do not see any sistrum on RPC pl. 279, no. 5671 nor the Pharos coin. f Georgiopoulos 2008–2009; SNRIS Suppl. I, Argos 3A (138–161 CE). g SNRIS Corinthus 3 (138–161 CE) (fig. 14). h SNRIS Cyme 5 (138–161 CE) (fig. 11). i SNRIS Byblus 23 (attributed to Elagabalus); the editors of RPC IV proposed that Marcus Aurelius should be identified on the obverse. j SNRIS Corinthus 7 (161–180 CE). k SNRIS Cyme 6 (161–175 CE) (fig. 12). l SNRIS Corinthus 6 (161–169 CE). m SNRIS Byblus 16 (177–192 CE) (fig. 15). For the coin issues SNRIS Byblus 17–20 (Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, Geta and Caracalla), I was unable to see a specimen of the first two, while the specimen of the third is too poorly preserved to see on it a possible sistrum. n SNRIS Callatis 2 (177–192 CE). o SNRIS Corinthus 10 (202–205 CE). p SNRIS Phocaea 2 (235–238 CE) (fig. 16). q RPC VII 412.1–9; SNRIS Ephesus 6 (238–244 CE). r SNRIS Cyme 9 (241–244 CE); 9A (244–249 CE); 10 (253–260 CE) (fig. 13); 15 (253–268 CE). s Alföldi 1937, 396 with pl. VII.24; SNRIS Roma V193aa (end of 4th cent. CE).

Type A2l: Isis standing l., head l. wearing a hathoric crown (Byblos) or a basileion (Rome), r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is suggested by a line (Byblos) or fully represented (Rome) (Table 5).

FIGURE 17 Byblos. Claudius (41–54 CE)

FIGURE 18 Rome. Constantine (317–326 CE)

67

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas Table 5 Type A2l: the coins

Emperor / City

Byblos

Claudius Severus Alexander Constantine Constantius Contorniate

Xa

Perinthus

Xb

Rome

Xc Xd Xe

a RPC I 4528; SNRIS Byblus 15c (fig. 17). b SNRIS Perinthus 15 (231 CE). Here, Isis is to be seen in a more complex composition: the goddess is standing at the bow, with Sarapis at the stern crowning the emperor and holding the rudder; three dolphins are swimming alongside (see infra p. 263 fig. 160). c Alföldi 1937, 10 with pl. I.13; SNRIS Roma V009b; Alföldi 1937, 20 with pl. I.23; SNRIS Roma V015b (317–326 CE) (fig. 18). d Bricault & Drost (forthcoming) (337–361 CE). e Alföldi 1976, no. 112.1–4 with pl. 38.5–7 and 215.3 (4th cent. CE).

FIGURE 19 Carnelian (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

FIGURE 20 Ring with intaglio

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Ochre-yellow carnelian22 (fig. 19) Silver ring with intaglio23 (fig. 20) Type A2r´: Isis standing r., head r. wearing a calathos, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 6).

FIGURE 21 Callatis. Septimius Severus (193–211 CE) TABLE 6 Type A2r´: the coins

Emperor / City

Callatis

Septimius Severus

Xa

a SNRIS Callatis 4 (193–211 CE) (fig. 21).

Type A2r´´: Isis standing r., head r. wearing a calathos(?), l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The deck of the ship is represented by a vaguely rectangular base.

22  Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum inv. no. 9827 (originally from the von Stosch collection). Winckelmann 1760, 16 no. 62; Tölken 1835, 16 no. 38; Kaiser 1967, 114 no. 1061; Bruneau 1974, 344 with fig. 7; Philipp 1986, 63 no. 73 with pl. 17. 23  Ricci 1912, 88 no. 783 with pl. XII.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

69

FIGURE 22 Altar. Pylaia (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

Marble altar with relief, Pylaia (Macedonia)24

24  Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum inv. no. 6976. Blanchaud 1984; Adam-Veleni 2002, 82–83 no. 164 with pl. 98. The relief is sculpted on the front face of a white marble altar discovered in 1963 at Pylaia, 2 km. to the east of ancient Thessalonica. The fact that it is an altar shows the cultic nature of this representation of Isis-with-a-sail. See infra p. 181.

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Type A3r: Isis standing r., bare head r.,25 l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail.26 Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 7).

FIGURES 23–24

Byblos. Macrinus/Diadumenian

TABLE 7 Type A3r: the coins

Emperor / City

Byblos

Macrinus Diadumenian

Xa Xb

a SNRIS Byblus 21 (217–218 CE) (fig. 23). b SNRIS Byblus 22 (217–218 CE) (fig. 24).

Type A5r: Isis standing r., head l. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 8).

FIGURES 25–26

Alexandria. Antoninus (141/2 and 157/8 CE)

FIGURE 27 Aspendos. Maximinus (235–238 CE)

25  The exemplars preserved under the names of Macrinus and Diadumenian do not show any traces of a basileion or crown of Hathor, in contrast to the other issues of this type struck at Byblos during the Imperial Period (see supra pp. 59–61 type A1r). Some specimens in the name of Macrinus, from the same dies, feature a small protrusion (fig. 23) above the goddess’s hair, which, if it represents a crown, is unusually atrophied. 26  The left hand appears to hold the sail by means of a rope.

71

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas Table 8 Type A5r: the coins

Alexandria Emperor / Year Hadrian Antoninus Macrinus Diadumenian Julia Mamaea Maximinus a b c d e f g

Aspendos

5

21

Xb

Xa Xc

Xd Xe Xf Xg

RPC III 6178; SNRIS Alexandria 168bc (Year 21 = 136/7 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 248cb (Year 5 = 141/2 CE) (fig. 25). SNRIS Alexandria 248ac (Year 21 = 157/8 CE) (fig. 26). SNRIS Aspendus 5 (217–218 CE). SNRIS Aspendus 7 (217–218 CE). SNRIS Aspendus 12 (222–235 CE). SNRIS Aspendus 16 (235–238 CE) (fig. 27).

Type A6r: Isis standing r., head l. wearing a basileion,27 l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is fully represented (Table 9). Rome

FIGURE 28 Constantius II (353–355 CE)

FIGURE 29 Jovian (363–364 CE)

27  This is often difficult to discern; however, one may recognize it on some good specimens, that are well centered and preserved (fig. 30).

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FIGURE 30 Anonymous (379–394 CE) TABLE 9 Type A6r: the coins

Emperor / City

Rome

Constantine Constantius II Magnentius Constantius Gallus Jovian Anonymous

Xa Xb Xc Xd Xe Xf

a Alföldi 1937, 8 with pl. I.6; SNRIS Roma V008 (317–326 CE). b Alföldi 1937, 52 with pl. II.8–9; RIC VIII 481; SNRIS Roma V027bd (353–355 CE) (fig. 28). c Alföldi 1937, 60; RIC VIII 476; SNRIS Roma V031 (350 CE). Alföldi provided as titulature CAE MAGNENTIVS AVG, which was corrected by Bastien 1964, 52 and 207 no. 449 and accepted in RIC VIII. d Alföldi 1937, 58 with pl. II.10; RIC VIII 482; SNRIS Roma V033 (352–354 CE). e Alföldi 1937, 87 with pl. II.30–31 and XIX.40; RIC VIII 512–513; Alföldi 1937, 78; SNRIS Roma V053 (364 CE) (fig. 29). f SNRIS 199–201, in anticipation of Bricault & Drost (forthcoming) (end of 4th cent. CE).

Type A6l: Isis standing l., head r. wearing a basileion, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail (a fringed one for Callatis). Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is fully represented (Rome) or suggested by a line (Callatis) (Table 10).

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

FIGURE 31 Rome. Constantine (317–326 CE)

FIGURE 32 Callatis. Gordian III (238–244 CE) TABLE 10 Type A6l: the coins

Emperor / City

Callatis

Gordian III Constantine Crispus Constantine II Constantius II Constans Anonymous

Xa

Rome

Xb Xc Xd Xe Xf Xg

73

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a SNRIS Callatis 8 (238–244 CE) (fig. 32). b Alföldi 1937, 9 with pl. I.7; SNRIS Roma V009a. Alföldi 1937, 19 with pl. I.22; SNRIS Roma V015a and c (317–326 CE) (fig. 31). c Alföldi 1937, 28 with pl. I.26, 30 with pl. I.28; SNRIS Rome V019 (317–326 CE). d Alföldi 1937, 41 with pl. I.38, 42 with pl. I.39; SNRIS Rome V025 (317–337 CE). e Alföldi 1937, 48 with pl. I.42; SNRIS Roma V027a (324–337 CE); Alföldi 1937, 51 with pl. II.7; RIC VIII 475; SNRIS Roma V027ba (337–340 CE); Alföldi 1937, 49 with pl. II.2; RIC VIII 480; SNRIS Roma V027bb. Alföldi 1937, 50 with pl. XIX.37; RIC VIII 479; SNRIS Roma V027bc (353–355 CE). f Alföldi 1937, 43; RIC VIII 475A; SNRIS Roma V029 (348–350 CE). g End of 4th cent. CE.

Type A9r: Isis standing r., head facing wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 11).

FIGURE 33 Nicomedia. Antoninus (138–161 CE)

FIGURE 34 Philippopolis. Commodus (180–192 CE)

75

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas TABLE 11 Type A9r: the coins

Amastris Byzantium Nicaea Nicomedia Antoninus Faustina II Commodus Caracalla Severus Alexander Gordian III Salonina

Xb

Xc Xf

Xi

Xg

Philippopolis

Xa Xd

Xe

Xh Xj

a b c d e f g h

SNRIS Nicomedia 2 (138–161 CE) (fig. 33). SNRIS Amastris 7 (147–176 CE). SNRIS Nicaea 8 (161–176 CE). SNRIS Nicomedia 5 (177–192 CE). SNRIS Philippopolis 3 (177–192 CE) (fig. 34). SNRIS Byzantium 1 (198–217 CE). SNRIS Nicaea 27 (222–235 CE). SNRIS Nicomedia 14 (222–235 CE). Known solely from old publications, the existence of this coin is uncertain. The position of the face is not specified; however, the other coin issues from Nicomedia of the Isis-with-a-sail type represent the goddess head facing, so I have classified it under this variant. i SNRIS Amastris 15 (238–244 CE). j SNRIS Nicomedia 27 (253–268 CE).

Type A10r: Isis standing r., head facing wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 12).

FIGURE 35 Anchialus (Beginning 3rd cent. CE)

FIGURE 36 Perinthus. Faustina II (161–175 CE)

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TABLE 12 Type A10r: the coins

Anchialus Faustina II Anonymous

Xb

Perinthus Xa

a SNRIS Perinthus 9; Agora Coins 15 (19 August 2014) 67 (161–175 CE) (fig. 36). b SNRIS Anchialus 15 (beginning 3rd cent. CE) (fig. 35).

FIGURES 37–38

Lamps (2nd cent. CE)

FIGURES 39–40

Lamps (1st–2nd cents. CE)

77

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

Lamps Alexandrian, found in Alexandria28 (fig. 37) Found in Egypt29 (fig. 38) Alexandrian, found in Tell Atrib30 (fig. 39) Alexandrian lamp reflector31 (fig. 40) Type A10l: Isis standing l., head facing wearing a basileion, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is suggested by a line.

FIGURE 41 Carnelian. Cyrene (end of 1st cent. BCE– beginning 1st cent. CE)

FIGURE 42 Cretula. Cyrene. (beginning 1st cent. BCE– beginning 2nd cent. CE)

28  Athens, Benaki Museum inv. no. Mπ 364. Bruneau 1963, 302–303 with fig. 2; Tran tam Tinh 1990, 782 no. 273. Six-holed lamp, in red clay. 29  London, British Museum. Bailey 1996, 131 no. Q2028bis with pl. 172. 30  This broken lamp was found at the site of Tell Atrib, the ancient Athribis of the Delta region, in a residential area, inside Room 66; Młynarczyk 2001, 333, fig. 1. 31  Neuchâtel, private collection. Podvin 2011, 39 fig. 14; http://artefacts.mom.fr no. LMP-4479.

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Ring with a red-brown carnelian32 (fig. 41) Cretula33 (fig. 42) Type A14r: Isis standing r., head r. probably wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle does not float behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line (Table 13).

FIGURE 43 Byblos. Anonymous (62/1 BCE) TABLE 13 Type A14r: the coins

Byblos Anonymous Claudius

Xa Xb

a SNRIS Byblus 11 (62/1 BCE) (fig. 43). See Alföldi 1976, pl. 249.6, for the reverse of a coin from Byblos of the type “Isis-with-a-sail,” attributed by the scholars to Antiochus V and dated by them to 164–162 BCE. But the reverse die is the same one used for the issue of 62/1 BCE, and it is hardly thinkable that it could have served both in 164–162 and 62/1. This alleged coin of Antiochus V is therefore poorly attributed. No coin of this type is known for this ruler. b RPC I 4528; SNRIS Byblus 15b (45/6 CE).

32  Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum inv. no. IX B 138; Zwierlein-Diehl 1973, I, 144 no. 453 with pl. 75. One may note the presence, behind Isis, of a small Harpocrates standing to the right, raising his finger to his mouth and holding a cornucopia in his left hand. Beneath, a dedication to Hermes: Ἑρμεῖ. See infra p. 89. 33  Maddoli 1963–1964, 84 no. 262. The line possibly forming the ship is not visible, the lower half of the cretula having broken off. Cretulas are small objects of clay having a vaguely pyramidal form, the faces of which bear impressions of seals. They would be used to close papyrus rolls tied with wire. In general, each cretula bears several impressions, each representing a different subject.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

79

Type A14l: Isis standing l., head l. wearing hathoric crown, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail with her right hand (Byblos) or with her two hands (Delos). Her mantle does not float behind her. She seems to hold a sistrum in her right hand. On the coins from Byblos, she operates a rudder with her left hand. The ship is represented crudely (Table 14).

FIGURES 44–46

Byblos. Antiochus IV, VI(?) and VII or VIII

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FIGURE 47 Seal. Delos. (175–164, c. 144–141 and 139–196 BCE). (End of 2nd–beginning of 1st cent. BCE)

TABLE 14

Type A14l: the coins

Byblos Antiochus IV Antiochus VI Antiochus VII or VIII

Xa Xb Xc

a SNRIS Byblus 1; Hoover 2007, nos. 346–347 (175–164 BCE) (fig. 44). b SNRIS Byblus 6 (145–129 BCE); according to Hoover 2007, no. 560 and Houghton et al. 2008, 330 no. 2021 with pl. 82, this series should be attributed to Antiochus VI (c. 144–141 BCE), contra SNRIS, which attributes it to Antiochus VII (fig. 45). c Private collection, with a slightly different reverse legend (AΝT BAΣIΛE), denomination and type from the previous ones. It should probably be attributed to Antiochus VII or VIII (fig. 46).

Clay seal from Delos34 (fig. 47) Type A18l: Isis standing l., head r. wearing a basileion, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle does not float behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. A rudder behind her. The ship is suggested by a line. 34  Boussac 1988, 331 no. 54.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

81

FIGURE 48 Intaglio. Carthage (1st–3rd cents. CE)

Bluish-gray intaglio from Carthage35 (fig. 48) Type A21r: Isis standing facing, head r. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. The orientation of the body does not permit the representation of a mantle possibly floating from her back. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line.

FIGURE 49 Lamp. Cyprus (2nd cent. CE?)

Clay lamp from Cyprus36 (fig. 49)

35  London, British Museum inv. no. AF 329/EC 247. Baratte et al. 2002, 85–86 with pl. II.5. This octagonal intaglio with a beveled edge, which presents to the left and right of Isis’s head the retrograde inscription NAVI/GA FELIX, must have been used in a seal ring. 36  Nicosia, Cyprus Museum inv. no. Nic. 1946/XI-30/11. Oziol 1977, 192–193 no. 567 with pl. 32; Podvin 2011, 208 no. Idf.m(1) with pl. 1.

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Type B1r: Isis standing r., head r. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line. In front of her stands the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, which is surmounted by a statue and two Tritons (Table 15).

FIGURES 50–52

Alexandria. Hadrian (133/4 CE). Antoninus (148/9 CE). Faustina II (148/9 CE)

Table 15 Type B1r: the coins

Alexandria Emperor / Year Hadrian Antoninus Marcus Aurelius Caesar Faustina II a b c d e f g h i j

2

3

5

Xf

Xg

Xh

6

7

X(?)a X(?)b

8

10

11

12 17 18 21

Xi

Xj

Xk

Xl Xn

Xo

Xp

Xc Xd Xe Xm

The existence of the series SNRIS Alexandria 199aa (Year 6 = 121/2 CE) needs confirmation. The existence of the series SNRIS Alexandria 199ab (Year 7 = 122/3 CE) needs confirmation. RPC III 5838; SNRIS Alexandria 199ad (Year 17 = 132/3 CE). RPC III 5895 and 5896/1; SNRIS Alexandria 199ae (Year 18 = 133/4 CE) (fig. 50). RPC III 6182; SNRIS Alexandria 199af (Year 21 = 136/7 CE). The specimen Demetrio 1279bis (= SNRIS Alexandria 199ac) is from Year 21 and not 11; see RPC III, p. 710b. SNRIS Alexandria 273a (Year 2 = 138/9 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 273b (Year 3 = 139/40 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 273c (Year 5 = 141/2 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 273d (Year 8 = 144/5 CE). SNRIS Alexandria 273e (Year 10 = 146/7 CE).

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

83

k SNRIS Alexandria 273f (Year 11 = 147/8 CE). l SNRIS Alexandria 273g (Year 12 = 148/9 CE) (fig. 51). One notes, atop the stretched sail, the presence of an uraeus. m SNRIS Alexandria 273h (Year 18 = 154/5 CE). n SNRIS Alexandria 327 (Year 12 = 148/9 CE). o SNRIS Alexandria 342a (Year 11 = 147/8 CE). p SNRIS Alexandria 342b (Year 12 = 148/9 CE) (fig. 52).

Type B2r: Isis standing r., head r. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is suggested by a line. In front of her (Alexandria) or behind her (Ephesus) stands the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, which is surmounted by a statue and two Tritons (Table 16).

FIGURE 53 Alexandria. Hadrian (133/4 CE)

FIGURE 54 Ephesus. Gordian III (238–244 CE)

Table 16 Type B2r: the coins

Alexandria Year 18 Hadrian Gordian III

Xa

Ephesus

Xb

a RPC III 5896/1; SNRIS Alexandria 199b (Year 18 = 133/4 CE) (fig. 53). On an issue from Alexandria dating to Antoninus Year 12 (= 148/9 CE), Isis does not hold the sistrum. This, at least, is what the descriptions given for the three known exemplars of this “variant” indicate: Milne 2001; Geissen 1608; sale catalog of the Classical Numismatic Group 41 (1997), 1286 (= SNRIS Alexandria 273g). But perhaps it only indicates a used die, since it does seem possible to distinguish the sistrum on the coin in the CNG catalog. b RPC VII 412.10–23; SNRIS Ephesus 5 (238–244 CE) (fig. 54).

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Type B2l: Isis standing l., head l. wearing a basileion(?), r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum. The ship is suggested by a line. In front of her stands the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, which is surmounted by a statue and two Tritons (Table 17).

FIGURE 55 Alexandria. Hadrian (118/9? CE) TABLE 17 Type B2l: the coins

Alexandria Year 3 Hadrian

Xa

a RPC III 5165 (year uncertain, but there seems to be a Γ in front of Isis’ face) (fig. 55).

Type B5r: Isis standing r., head l. wearing a basileion, l. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line. Behind her stands the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, which is surmounted by a statue and two Tritons (Table 18).

FIGURE 56 Alexandria. Hadrian (136/7 CE)

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

85

TABLE 18 Type B5r: the coins

Alexandria Year 21 Hadrian

Xa

a RPC III 6181; SNRIS Alexandria 199af (Year 21 = 136/7 CE) (fig. 56).

Type B5l: Isis standing l., head r. wearing a basileion, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She holds a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line. Behind her stands the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, which is surmounted by a statue and two Tritons.

FIGURE 57 Carnelian impression (2nd cent. CE)

Carnelian37 (fig. 57) Type B6l: Isis standing l., head r. wearing a basileion, r. foot forward, holding a billowing sail. Her mantle floats behind her. She does not hold a sistrum in her right hand. The ship is suggested by a line. Behind her stands the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, which is surmounted by a statue and two Tritons (Table 19).

37  Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Lewis coll. inv. no. B 176. Henig 1975, 34 no. 113. Bought in Smyrna in 1890.

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FIGURES 58–59

Alexandria. Trajan (111/2 and 112/3 CE)

TABLE 19 Type B6l: the coins

Alexandria Emperor / Year

5

6

Trajan Hadrian

Xd

Xe

a b c d e

15

16

18

Xa

Xb

X(?)c

RPC III 4618; SNRIS Alexandria 103a (Year 15 = 111/2 CE) (fig. 58). RPC III 4678, 4736; SNRIS Alexandria 103b (Year 16 = 112/3 CE) (fig. 59). The series SNRIS Alexandria 103c (Year 18 = 114/5 CE) needs confirmation. RPC III 5282. RPC III 5355. I am unable to see any sistrum on RPC pl. 263, nos. 5355/1 and 2.

After the presentation of the complete catalog of types, one can propose the following table which arranges, alphabetically and chronologically, the cities that minted coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type (Table 20). 3.1.3 Evolution and Questions of Identification As Bruneau wrote, “the complexity of classification at least places in evidence the variety of representations that seem to proceed from the free inspiration of the artists,”38 if not of those who had ordered this or that work. Of the 38  Bruneau 1963, 441.

87

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas TABLE 20

Cities issuing coins with the Isis-with-a-sail type

Ant. Ant. 1st Cl D Tr H Sb A MA LV F Co S ID C Pl Ge M Di E II IV VI cent. BCE x x x x

Alexandria Amastris Anchialos Byblos x Byzantium Callatis Cleonae Corinth Cyme Iasos Nicaea Nicomedia Perinthus Philippopolis

x

X

x x

x

x x

x

x x x x x x?

x x

x x

x x x

x x x x x x x x x x x

x x x x x

x x

IM SA Im MT Go P V G Sa Aur Dio MH Ci Cri Cii Cce Cs Ma CoG Jo 4th cent. CE Alexandria Amastris Aspendos Byblos Callatis Cyme Ephesus Nicaea Nicomedia Perinthus Phocaea Rome

x

x x x

x

x

x

x x x

x x x x x x

x

x

x

x x

x

x

x x

x

x x

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preceding typology, it appears that almost all of the variants existed nearly simultaneously during the 2nd–4th cents. CE, with the exception of type A14. The items belonging to this type were unquestionably the most ancient to feature a representation of Isis-with-a-sail, the goddess being clearly identifiable by a hathoric crown.39 The majority were coins struck at Byblos, ranging from the reign of Antiochus IV to Claudius’s principate, while one is a seal found at Delos in a house destroyed by fire in 69 BCE. These also have in common the fact that they present an Isis-with-a-sail without a mantle floating behind her back.40 As was strongly suggested by Bruneau,41 this detail must be explained by the fact that originally it was her mantle that Isis used as a sail, even if no text from antiquity appears to confirm this hypothesis.42 Only a passage of Moschus describing the abduction of Europa by Zeus presents a comparable situation,43 even if the position of the peplos transformed into a sail is clearly different here from the arrangement adopted by artists for Isis velificans. Crossing the sea on the back of her kidnapper now transformed into a bull, she raises the bottom of her robe so as not to get wet, while Κολπώθη δ’ ὤμοισι πέπλος βαθὺς Εὐρωπέιης ἱστίον οἷά τε νηός, ἐλαφρίζεσκε δὲ κούρην. At the shoulders, the peplos of Europa swelled up into a deep pocket, like the sail of a ship, lightening the weight of the young girl.44

39  The presence of the sistrum needs to be confirmed by the discovery of a better preserved specimen of Gebalite coinage. 40  To these it is necessary to add a unique representative of our type A18l (supra p. 81 fig. 48), an intaglio from Carthage on which Isis, wearing a basileion and turned towards the left, holds a sail in her two hands. No mantle floats behind her back, but behind her is located a rudder. Baratte et al. 2002, 85–86 with pl. II.5. No date has been proposed for this object. On the oldest of these coins, issued during the reign of Antiochus IV, the goddess, sailing towards the left, holds the sail in her right hand and in her left hand a rudder positioned behind her. 41  This rational hypothesis, to which I subscribe, was advanced in Bruneau 1961, 442–444, and developed by him in Bruneau 1974, 347–348. 42   H yg. Fab. 277, and Cassiod. Var. 5. 17 simply report that Isis was the inventor of the sail. 43  Europa, 129–130. Moschus wrote during the 2nd cent. BCE. Wattel-de Croizant 2001; Cusset 2001, esp. 79. 44  Europa next turns into the mast of this wondrous ship.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

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It is probable that this text was inspired by a painting, or else by a sculpture.45 During the Imperial Period, on a coin from Callatis46 as on the matrix from Athens,47 the sail of Isis is fringed, which indicates that it represents a mantle. The addition of a garment inflated by the wind at the back of the goddess must have responded to an esthetic concern, the representation in this way appearing much more balanced. The first representation of the Isis velificans type was certainly carved or painted, before spreading to other media. However, it is probably best not to abandon the idea of a potential influence of the iconography of Aphrodite Euploia, who was sometimes represented in this manner, albeit very seldomly, with a piece of clothing floating from her back.48 The most ancient object dated with precision that represents Isis holding a sail before her and wearing an inflated mantle behind her is an Alexandrian coin struck in the tenth year of Domitian’s reign (= 90/1 CE).49 To my knowledge, only a carnelian from the Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum dated by specialists to the end of the 1st cent. BCE or beginning of the 1st cent. CE may have been older.50 Overall, it was probably during the course of the 1st cent. CE that this type appeared, lasting until the end of the 4th cent. In the overwhelming majority of sources detailed above, the presence of a sistrum or basileion, and often both, ensured the identification as Isis. The matter is less certain in the absence of these unifying iconographic features. The identification as Isis or another divinity must then be based on comparison or contextualization. The coins belonging to the A4r type all belong to issues from the city of Cyme, in the Aeolid.51 In addition to the six issues of coins mentioned here, it has been possible to identify sixteen others from this city unquestionably presenting Isiac types (Isis and Harpocrates, Isis standing, Sarapis in bust form), dating from the reign of Trajan to that of Gallienus.52 45  See, for example, a mosaic from Stabiae, found in the nymphaeum at the Villa San Marco and datable c. 60–70 CE, on which Europa, sitting en amazone on the rear of a bull swimming towards the right, uses her mantle, inflated behind her by the sea winds, as a sail; on this panel, Wattel-de Croizant 1999 with earlier bibliography, to which should be added Laugier 2002, 93–95 no. 129. More generally on this theme, Wattel-de Croizant 1995. For Merkelbach 1963, 329–332, this work of Moschus also functioned as an allegorical poem to be understood in reference to the cult of Isis. 46  S NRIS Callatis 8 supra p. 73 fig. 32. 47  Williams 1985, 114 with pl. 21, and supra p. 55 fig. 4. 48  Metzger 1951, 67–68; Bérard 1985, 165–166. 49  R PC II 2574; SNRIS Alexandria 045a. 50  See supra pp. 77–78 with fig. 41. 51  See supra p. 63 with fig. 11–13. 52  S NRIS Cyme 1–19.

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This city – like many others, no doubt – had an Isieion, in the precinct of which was discovered the most complete copy of the Isis’ Aretalogy. One thus can reasonably consider that the goddess with a sail on Cyme’s currency is indeed Isis.53 The image decorating the fragment of a lamp found in 1909 on Delos in Sarapieion C and published by Bruneau (fig. 60) presents the same problem of identification.54 This case is more difficult because there is no perfect parallel surviving intact that can serve as an aid.55 On this object, datable to the 2nd cent. CE, the divinity has neither basileion nor sistrum. However, the fragment is broken in such a way that nothing prevents one from presuming that they were represented on the lamp’s disk. But two other elements can argue in favor of an identification of Isis, as its editor has already emphasized. On the one hand, this object was found in Sarapieion C, and on the other hand it is of Corinthian manufacture, dating to the 2nd cent. CE. Corinth, which had a temple of Isis Pelagia,56 had struck a great number of coins belonging to the Isis-with-a-sail type, which closely resembled the figure on the lamp (fig. 61). It is therefore a strong possibility that we have here a representation of Isis-with-a-sail, even if it is difficult to be certain in the absence of any parallels. Much more problematic is the case of two reliefs also edited by Bruneau. In his first article on Isis Pelagia at Delos, this scholar had published a relief representing essentially the same motif and dating to the first half of the 1st cent. BCE. This stele with tenon was unearthed in 1904 in a shop (no. 106) at the Agora of the Italians on Delos, which must have been the workshop of a marble-worker (fig. 62).57 In the stele’s recessed field, carved in the form of a naïskos without pediment, there is represented the image of a female figure, standing right on the deck of a ship, holding in her two hands and with her left foot a sail inflated by the wind. She neither holds a sistrum nor wears a basileion, and no “Isiac knot” is visible between her breasts. The stele bears no inscription, probably an indication that it was unfinished. The absence of any distinctive trait, or even

53  Bricault 2019. 54  Delos Museum inv. no. B 2984. Bruneau 1961, 435–436 with fig. 1; Bruneau 1974, 342–343 with fig. 5; Podvin 2011, 208 no. Idg1.m with pl. 1. 55  The three other lamps known to me with Isis-with-a-sail (figs. 39, 40 and 49) differ a lot. 56   Paus. 2. 4. 6. See infra pp. 154–155. 57  Delos Museum inv. no. A 3187. Bruneau 1961, 437–438 with fig. 3; Bruneau 1974, 342–343 with fig. 4; Marcadé 1996, 186–187 no. 83.

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FIGURE 60 Corinthian lamp from Delos (2nd cent. CE)

FIGURE 61 Coin from Corinth. Lucius Verus (161–169 CE)

an exclusive one, permits a polysemic reading of the image.58 One can see here Isis, Aphrodite, or any other female divinity associated with navigation. Sure, the Isiac cults were well established on Delos, but nothing permits us to say with certainty that this object must be associated with them. For this marbleworker, it could have been a method of adapting production for a broader clientele, either by later specifying the identity of the divinity by means of an inscription, or by preserving in the image a pluralistic maritime character. 58  The bareness, this undifferentiated representation suggested to Bérard 1985, 169, reveals the deliberate wish of the artist not to be too precise, and to operate according to a “return to a common denominator.”

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FIGURE 62 Relief. Delos (Beginning 1st cent. BCE)

The same uncertainty is caused by a fragment of a relief of unknown provenance that is preserved at the Archaeological Museum of Thasos (fig. 63),59 on which one can see the lower portion of a representation of a female figure standing on the bow of a schematized ship and facing right, probably in the act of holding with her left foot the bottom part of a sail inflated by the wind. However, no element permits us to recognize with certainty, here either, an Isis-with-a-sail. Just as delicate is the case of a relief that in 1959 was discovered being reused in a wall of ancient Aquincum, in Pannonia (fig. 64). On the front face of a rather damaged base or, rather, three-sided candelabrum, which bears on its right side traces of an illegible Latin inscription,60 one can see the image of 59  Thasos, Archaeological Museum inv. no. 2220. Published by Bruneau 1963, 301–303 with fig. 1. According to Rolley 1968, 198, the surface, carefully polished, makes one think of the 2nd cent. CE. 60  Budapest, Aquincum Museum inv. no. 64.10.187. Kovács & Szabó 2010, no. 900.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

FIGURE 63 Relief. Thasos (2nd cent. CE?)

FIGURES 64A–B

Candelabrum. Aquincum (1st–3rd cent. CE)

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a female figure who is standing towards the right upon a ship’s bow, holding with her two hands and left foot a sail inflated by the wind. She is dressed in a long chiton and a himation. Her mantle floats behind her back, in the opposite direction from the sail, as always. Her head has disappeared, as is also true of the upper part of her right hand, depriving us of information regarding her hair style and the possible presence of a sistrum. Identified initially as Victory by the object’s editor, Klara Póczy,61 she was later interpreted by this same scholar as Isis Pharia.62 This is not impossible, but neither is it assured. The Isiac sources found at Aquincum, originally a legionary camp, and its vicinity are numerous,63 but they alone are not enough to render this female figure an Isis, even if the hypothesis is rather seductive. The possible presence of an image of Isis-with-a-sail on the banks of the Danube would then establish a parallel with coins presenting the same iconography struck by the city of Philippopolis, in the Thracian interior, located nearly 200 km. from the Thracian Sea but serving as a river port on the Hebros,64 as well as with a mold from Savaria, also in Pannonia, that was used to form medallions bearing the image of Isis-with-a-sail.65 We should also note the case of a poorly preserved sardonyx from the Southesk collection (fig. 65), purchased in 1880 at Constantinople and treated by its editor as an Isis Pharia.66 The absence of a basileion (the figure is wearing a curious head covering, difficult to identify, but with no Isiac element), sistrum, or mantle on her back prevents us from recognizing an Isis-with-a-sail, and a fortiori an Isis Pharia.67

61  Póczy 1959, 152–153. 62  Póczy 1991; Póczy 2002, 166 with pl. 30 fig. 2. 63  Even if two inscriptions from the city that are generally considered Isiac may not be: RICIS *614/0301-*0302. On the presence of Egyptian cult in northern Pannonia Inferior, Bricault 2001, 124–129. 64  On the navigability of the Hebros suggested by this coin issue from Philippopolis, Peter 2005. 65  See supra pp. 56–57 with fig. 5. 66  Carnegie 1908, 120 no. K 4 with pl. 11. Bruneau 1961, 440, considered the identification doubtful. 67  On a Trajanic coin, Dattari 1901 (p. 61 no. 936 with pl. XVII) wished to recognize “Isis Pharia in piede a d. sopra biga tirata da hippocampi, tiene vela gonflata dal vento; sotto, acqua con delfini.” This identification is followed by Tran tam Tinh 1990, 783 no. 281. In fact, it is Poseidon, as is shown, for example, by a coin in London (BMC, 49 no. 406 = RPC III 4318; Year 12 of Trajan’s principate) or one in Paris (SNG France 1171 = RPC III 4747; Year 16 of Trajan).

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FIGURE 65 Southesk sardonyx

FIGURES 66A–B

Painted shroud. Memphis (3rd cent. AD)

A final source, an especially interesting one, was recently brought to light by Jónatan Ortiz-García.68 The painted decoration of a 3rd-cent. AD shroud from Memphis shows, along with a woman’s portrait, multiple funeral scenes, one of them including the representation of a woman velificans (fig. 66). If this female figure does not a priori feature any characteristic trait of Isis, the “with-a-sail” type and iconographical scheme constructed about the Osirian barque nevertheless invite one to identy her as the sister-spouse of Osiris. As Ortiz-García very justifiably has written, this scene “reveals a hitherto unknown aspect of this version [i.e. the navigans-type] of the Egyptian goddess, related to the voyage between the worlds of the living and the dead and the protection of 68   Ortiz-García 2017.

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funerary navigation.”69 This shroud’s designers clearly chose to adapt the iconography of Isis velificans that at the time had spread widely, providing a new context and giving Isis psychopompos an image recognizable to all. 3.1.4 Attempts at Contextualization In the representations of Isis and a lighthouse that have been noted, as with those that will be discussed below, this aspect of the monument has been subject to a certain number of variants (figs. 67–69) that need not be described at too much length here.70 Most often, the lighthouse is represented in the form of a tower of two (or more rarely three) stories, seen from eye level, with an entrance that is sometimes raised above ground level; on the terrace of the lower story one can distinguish a lantern flanked by two (or three) tritons that each blow on a shell; a nude male statue is positioned at the very top.71 In addition to representing itself in ancient images, the lighthouse was also the iconographic representation for the port of Alexandria, with which it was associated at the same time both as a symbol and a well-known marvel. When Antoninus undertook to restore it in the 18th year of his reign, the coin issues representing the lighthouse and the goddess with a sail beside it multiplied. Perhaps it is to this event that one must attribute the striking of a bronze medallion of Faustina II (fig. 70), on which there appear three elements: the Pharos lighthouse, Isis, and a bow. The lighthouse is only partly represented. One finds, however, its three stories. At the center, larger than this structure, there appears Isis, her left foot forwards, both legs flexed. She brandishes a sistrum in her right hand and appears to wear a basileion that is fairly short. She is dressed in a long tunic, its folds quite visible, while the curve of her legs is very distinct. A veil floats from the back of the goddess and all about her head. Before Isis is represented a bow on which is affixed a mast, to which is attached a deployed sail.72

69  Ibid., 37. 70  On representations of a lighthouse in Alexandrian coinage, Handler 1971, 58–61; Tabarroni 1976; Quet 1984, 794 n. 18, and 805; Bakhoum 1998, 71–72; Fragaki 2011, 5–9, 81, and 104–106. 71  The identity of this figure has long been subject for debate, but clearly is not Isis Pharia. Instead, it is preferable to find in this the representation of one of the savior gods to whom the Pharos lighthouse was dedicated, namely Zeus or Poseidon. On this subject one can see, among others, Bernand 1996; Fragaki 2011, 8–9. 72  Gnecchi 1912, III, 34 no. 43 with pl. 151.4; RIC III, 351 no. 1726; Alföldi 1937, pl. XX.1; Bruneau 1974, 351 with fig. 11; Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 783 no. 293; Arslan 1997, 126 and 163 no. IV.7.

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FIGURES 67–69 Alexandria. Hadrian (132/3 and 133/4 CE), and Antoninus (148/9 CE)

Figure 70 Bronze Medallion. Rome. Faustina II (161–175 CE)

One intaglio made of solid blue glass paste (fig. 71), acquired by the Egyptologist François Daumas in the Cairo antiquities market, presents an original scene, quite rich and of great interest.73

73  Daumas & Mathieu 1987; Empereur 1998, 100 no. 59.

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Figure 71 Intaglio. Egypt (Antonine era?)

Isis is shown on it standing and facing towards the right, wearing a slightly misshaped basileion,74 holding with her two hands and forward-positioned left foot a rectangular and square-patterned sail. In her left hand she brandishes a sistrum. Before her stands the Pharos lighthouse, represented as on certain Alexandrian coins of Hadrian and Antoninus. Finally, on the right side of the scene, Poseidon stands facing towards the left, nude, holding a trident in his left hand and without doubt in his right palm a dolphin,75 and resting his right foot on what appears likely to be a mooring bollard.76 As was quite rightly written by Daumas and Bernard Mathieu, “parallel with Isis Pharia granting a favorable wind to the navigator, in the same way as the Pharos lighthouse would guarantee approach to the shore at night, Poseidon assured the arrival at a good port, on solid ground, conforming to his chthonic origin.”77 The symbolism expressed by this intaglio’s motif is to be found also on an engraved glass bezel preserved at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo (fig. 72).78 On the same plane, from left to right are to be seen: Isis standing and facing right, wearing a basileion, holding in her right hand a torch and in her left ears of wheat; next Sarapis of Canopus and Isis of Menouthis79 turned towards each other, separated by Poseidon, who stands nude, holding a trident 74  Instead of three lotus buds, as the object’s two editors proposed. 75  Daumas & Mathieu 1987, 52. 76  The dolphin and mooring bollard appear e.g. on a Hadrianic coin featuring Poseidon: RPC III 5337; Dattari 1449. 77  Daumas & Mathieu 1987, 53. 78  Cairo, Museum of Egyptian Antiquities no inv. no.; El-Khashab 1966, 116–120. 79   On these two divinities, Winand 1994; Bricault 2014a; Laporte & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming).

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Figures 72–73

99

Engraved glass. Cairo

and a dolphin and resting his foot on what is perhaps another mooring bollard;80 finally, at the far right, there is Isis-with-a-sail, standing and facing right, wearing a basileion and holding a sistrum. As one can see here, to the powers over the marine element represented by Isis-with-a-sail and Poseidon, and to the agrarian and fruit-bringing functions of Isis symbolized by attributes borrowed from Demeter, can be added the healing power of the gods of Canopus and Menouthis. A second engraved glass, also preserved at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, presents the image of several divinities on different registers (fig. 73).81 In the upper register one finds Demeter standing and facing right, wearing a calathos while holding a torch and ears of wheat, and Isis standing and facing left, wearing a basileion while holding a scepter in her right hand and a cornucopia82 in her left, with the two of them flanking Sarapis, who is seated on a throne and turned to the left, and extends his right hand over Cerberus. In the lower register, Isis-with-a-sail, standing and facing to the right, wearing a basileion and holding a sistrum in her right hand, is joined by Harpocrates, standing and facing left, nude and wearing the pschent, who raises his right index finger in front of his mouth and holds a cornucopia with his left hand, while another Isis, wearing a basileion, brandishes an uraeus.83 80  Rather than a stone, as the editor had proposed, albeit with a question mark (El-Khashab 1966, 119). 81  Cairo, Museum of Egyptian Antiquities no inv. no. El-Khashab 1966, 111–116; Bruneau 1974, 343–344 no. 5 with fig. 6; Veymiers 2009, 341 no. V.CB 6 with pl. 58. 82  Not a sistrum, as written by Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 783 no. 296a. 83  Veymiers 2009, 126 and 162.

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To the left of the two registers, at mid-level, there stands a serpent wearing a basileion, representing ophiomorphic Isis (i.e., Isermouthis),84 while SarapisAgathodaimon is clearly to be seen positioned symmetrically to the right of the group. Overall, the fruit-bringing and soteriological aspects of the Isiac couple appear clearly, and closely connected, on these two glass objects of the Imperial Period. Several other objects underline the direct connection between the qualities of Isis that earned her the epithets Pelagia and Fortuna.85 A group of seals found in a house on Delos, undoubtedly that of a kind of banker at whose establishment would be stored archives of a generally private nature, have been studied by Marie-Françoise Boussac.86 The fire that destroyed this house in 69 BCE enabled the preservation of clay pellets which were used to seal contracts and transactions deposited there over the course of more than half a century (from 128/7 to 69 BCE).87 Of course, the seals were not employed for a cult-related purpose, but the scenes represented on them undeniably reflect the religious preferences of the individuals involved. The range of subjects matches rather closely what is known of the island’s religious life. While the majority concern Apollo and Tyche, Artemis and Isis are not absent. On one of them, Isis-with-a-sail can be recognized.88 The inscription that accompanies it, designating either the owner or the engraver, regrettably is not completely readable, but as it stands, this small object probably provides just as much information on the beliefs of an individual as on his activities, which can be assumed to have been directly linked to navigation. This, too, can be said of a bronze statuette from Alexandria, today preserved in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (fig. 74), which shows a female divinity, wearing a calathos, standing on an Egyptian barque with symmetrically curved bow and stern to each side of her. This figure, draped in a garment that almost reaches to the feet, holds a cornucopia in the left hand,89 a novel illustration of the link established between agricultural bounty and navigation. The composition that perhaps can best illustrate this duality is more

84  On such representations of Isis assimilated with Rnn.t, the Greeks’ Thermouthis, Dunand 1969; Deschênes 1978; Deschênes 1980; Boninu et al. 1984, 117–120. 85  On relations between Fortuna, Providentia and Annona, Martin 1982, 329–330. 86  Boussac 1988. 87  See infra pp. 136–137. 88  See supra p. 80 fig. 47. 89  Babelon & Blanchet 1895, 273 no. 638; Bruneau 1974, 356 n. 45 and 380, fig. 23.

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Figure 74 Bronze statuette. Alexandria?

complex, and is found on a series of gems.90 It can be described as follows. Sarapis, wearing a calathos and clothed in a chiton and himation, is enthroned and facing right upon the deck of an oared ship, holding a scepter in his right hand. Isis-Tyche,91 wearing a calathos92 or basileion,93 stands behind him at the stern facing right, gripping the rudder with her left hand and a cornucopia in her right. At the bow, standing in front of Sarapis and also facing to the right, is Isis once more, her head bearing a basileion94 more often than a calathos,95 turning back towards the god, and holding a wind-inflated sail with her two hands and her left foot. This scene, more or less finely engraved, is found on several carnelians of the 2nd–3rd cents. CE preserved at Athens,96

90  This increase owes much to three studies of R. Veymiers: Veymiers 2009, esp. 138–142; Veymiers 2011a; Veymiers 2014a. 91  On Isis of Good Fortune, Sfameni Gasparro 1997. 92  As on the carnelian at presented infra p. 103 fig. 76. 93  This is perfectly visible on the gem at Paris (fig. 75). 94  Though stylized, it is, however, identifiable on the gem at Paris (fig. 75). 95  But see infra pp. 104–105 fig. 79 and 81. 96  Athens, Numismatic Museum inv. no. Σ. Τ 85 (previously in the Tzibanopoulos collection). Svoronos 1915, 71 with pl. 7 no. 85; Veymiers 2009, 332 no. V.BBC 4 with pl. XX. One must keep in mind that if the direction of the scene is towards the right, the impression on seals is oriented towards the left, like the compositions shown on Alexandrian coins.

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Berlin,97 Paris (fig. 75),98 Bologna (fig. 76),99 Udine (fig. 77),100 Sibiu (fig. 78),101 and elsewhere.102 Two other carnelians add to the same figural scene elements that are especially evocative: the first, preserved at Dresden, shows in the upper field two stars which can only represent the Dioscuri, both likewise held to be protectors of sailors (fig. 80);103 the second, set in a gold frame and preserved at Florence (fig. 81), inserts between Sarapis and Isis a helmeted bust of Athena facing towards the enthroned god.104

97   Berlin, Staatliche Museen inv. no. FG 2549 (previously in the Wolff collection). Furtwängler 1896, 119 with pl. 23 no. 2549. The scholar identifies the figures as Sarapis placed between Isis and a man looking back. Despite the poor quality of the photograph, one can recognize the same composition as in the intaglio at Athens; see now Veymiers 2009, 332 no. V.BBC 6 with pl. 55. 98  Paris, Cabinet des médailles inv. no. 2027bis. Babelon 1900, 58 no. 2027bis; Hornbostel 1973, 303 n. 1 with pl. 195, fig. 322; Veymiers 2009, 334 no. V.BBC 19 with pl. 55. 99  Bologna, Museo civico archeologico inv. no. Gl. 88. Mandrioli Bizzarri 1987, 95 no. 157; Veymiers 2009, 332–333 no. V.BBC 8 with pl. 55. 100  Udine, Museo civico inv. no. 1277/271. Napolitano 1950, no. 1277 fig. 19; Tomaselli 1993, 46 no. 11; Copulutti 1996, 63 no. 45; Buora 2001, 34 no. 71; Buora & Jobst 2002, 279 no. Vf.2; Veymiers 2009, 335 no. V.BBC 23 with pl. 56. The gem probably originated at Aquileia. 101  Sibiu, Muzeul Brukenthal inv. no. 1178. Ţeposu-David 1965, 98 no. 34 with pl. IV, fig. 7; Veymiers 2009, 335 no. V.BBC 22 with pl. 56. Many thanks to Stefana Cristea for helping me get a better illustration. 102  See also, for more specimens, Veymiers 2009, 333 no. V.BBC 12 with pl. 55; 336 no. V.BBC 26; Veymiers 2011a, 253 no. V.BBC 40 with pl. 12; Veymiers 2014a, 221 no. V.BBC 44–46 with pl. 12–13 (46 = fig. 79); Veymiers 2019 (forthcoming). 103  Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen – Skulpturensammlung inv. no. H2 100/13. Veymiers 2011a, 253 no. V.BBC 37 with pl. 12. Another carnelian, preserved at the Museo civico of Trieste (inv. no. 579M), has a single star and a crescent moon appearing in this field and, beneath the hull of the ship, a dolphin heading towards the left; above the scene, a paleo-Hebraic inscription (Adônai, “my Lord”); Veymiers 2011a, 253 no. V.BBC 39 with pl. 12. 104  Florence, Museo archeologico inv. no. 356. Lafaye 1884, 314 no. 171; Reinach 1895, 33 no. I-57-6 with pl. 29; Hornbostel 1973, 303 n. 1 with pl. 195, fig. 321; Veymiers 2009, 341–342 no. V.CB 7 with pl. 58.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

Figure 75 Paris carnelian

Figure 76 Bologna carnelian

Figure 77 Aquileia(?) carnelian

103

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Figure 78 Jasper

Figure 79 Carnelian

This triad formed by Sarapis and these two aspects of Isis (gubernatrix and sail-bearer) aboard a ship does not appear in the numismatic sources. Instead, a comparable composition is to be found in several examples of Alexandrian coinage. Several issues from the local mint present on the reverse, in effect, the following iconography: Sarapis, wearing a calathos and clothed in a chiton and himation, is enthroned to the left upon the deck of a ship, a scepter in his left hand; Demeter stands behind him facing to the left, leaning against a column at the stern, a torch in her right hand and a cornucopia in her left; at the bow,

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Figure 80 Dresden carnelian

Figure 81 Florence carnelian

standing before Sarapis and facing left, Isis, her head turned back towards the god, holds a wind-inflated sail with both hands and her right foot. This type is attested on issues of Trajan (Years 11(?),105 12,106 13,107 14108 and 15 [fig. 82]109),

105  S NRIS Alexandria 137a (107/8 CE), as seen in two coins (Dattari 1036 and NY 1944.100.55382), but the date, rather illegible, needs to be confirmed; see RPC III, p. 579b. 106  R PC III 4301; SNRIS Alexandria 137b (108/9 CE). 107  R PC III 4393; SNRIS Alexandria 137c (109/10 CE). 108  R PC III 4515; SNRIS Alexandria 137d (110/1 CE). 109  R PC III 4612; SNRIS Alexandria 137e (111/2 CE).

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Figure 82 Alexandria. Trajan (111/2 CE)

Figure 83 Alexandria. Antoninus (157/8 CE)

Hadrian (Year 19110), Antoninus (Years 21111 [fig. 83] and 22112), and Faustina II (Year 21113). An intaglio at the Hermitage Museum (fig. 84) provides a crew that is more complete, since in this case it is composed of four divinities:

110  R PC III 5995; SNRIS Alexandria 219b (134/5 CE). On the reverse, the god visibly extends his right hand above Cerberus, while Isis is clearly wearing a basileion. Another coin, American Numismatic Society in New York inv. no. 1944.100.58424 (= RPC III 5995.2), belongs to the issue of Year 19, and since it is pierced by two regular holes it must have served as an amulet or pendant. The existence of this type for Year 15, indicated in SNRIS based on older publications, needs to be confirmed. 111  S NRIS Alexandria 295a (157/8 CE). 112  S NRIS Alexandria 295b (158/9 CE). 113  S NRIS Alexandria 346 (157/8 CE).

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Figure 84 Intaglio. Hermitage Museum (1st–3rd cents. CE)

Sarapis, enthroned and facing left, wearing a calathos, dressed in a chiton and a himation going over his left shoulder, holds a scepter in his left hand and lowers his right hand. Behind him stands Isis, facing towards the left, wearing a basileion while dressed in a chiton and himation, holding a cornucopia in her left hand and a short scepter in her right hand. Before the god stands Demeter turned three-quarters towards the right, wearing a calathos, veiled and also dressed in a chiton and himation; she carries a long torch in her raised right hand and holds in her lowered left hand what are undoubtedly ears of wheat. On the bow of the ship stands a second representation of Isis, facing left while turning her head towards the right, wearing a basileion and dressed in a chiton and himation, and holding with both hands a sail inflated by the wind. The ship that conveys them is propelled towards the left by a bank of oars. In the upper field there is inscribed a text that is difficult to decipher.114 A coin from Year 21 of Antoninus’s reign115 (fig. 85) adds a particularly significant element to these compositions and is decisive with regard to their interpretation. The coin features Sarapis, wearing a calathos, seated and facing to the left on the deck of a ship, with Isis standing behind him and facing left,

114  St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum inv. no. Ж 6722. Veymiers 2009, 343 no. V.CB 12 with pl. 58, suggesting for the inscription “a palindrome of the Ablanathanalba type.” See infra p. 249 for another intaglio with a quite similar scene, but also an inscription on the reverse. 115  S NRIS Alexandria 295A. Wreathed head of Antoninus, to right (Year 21 = 157/8 CE).

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Figure 85 Alexandria. Antoninus (157/8 CE)

wearing the basileion atop her head, holding a cornucopia in her left hand and a rudder with her right. Before him, Demeter stands facing left, a torch in her left hand and ears of wheat in her right. On the stern, Euthenia is represented in a resting position, wearing a calathos while facing left. Thus allegorical divine personification of agricultural harvest in Egypt, who appeared for the first time on the reverse of Alexandrian coins in 9/10 CE,116 was, in fact, directly linked to the annona, the system supplying Rome, the armies, and some other cities with grain and other foodstuffs.117 From the beginning of the 2nd cent. CE, her iconography borrowed from Isis several traditional attributes,118 such as waved 116  R PC I 5039. 117  On Euthenia, Jentel 1993; on the annona, Pavis d’Escurac 1981. 118  See, for example, a statue of Isis-Euthenia, companion of the god Nile, at the Alexandria National Museum (inv. no. 24124). Wildung & Grimm 1978, no. 144.    Another type of Alexandrian coin, known for the years 12 through 20 of Trajan’s reign (with the exception of Year 14), poses a problem (SNRIS Alexandria 104; RPC III 4305.1). The reverse can be described as follows: a female divinity stands on the obverse, wearing a basileion, draped in an inflated himation rising from her back, and holding a scepter in her left hand, while with the other hand she clasps the hand of another female divinity, standing on the left, who likewise wears a basileion and holds a scepter in her left hand. The identity of the two divinities has not been unanimously agreed upon by specialists. The wearing of a basileion has, however, rather logically led them to identify the divinity on the left as Isis. Curiously, the same criterion has not always governed the identification of the divinity on the obverse. The presence of an inflated mantle at the back of the divinity on the left undoubtedly convinced Milne 1933, nos. 2288–2291, Geissen 1974, 146 no. 492, Christiansen 1988, 153, Bakhoum 1998, 73, Emmett 2001, 36 nos. 531–532, and RPC III to call this one Isis Pharia; for Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 784 no. 302, it indicates Isis-Demeter. As for the divinity on the obverse, she could, according to Geissen, who was followed by Tran tam Tinh and Bakhoum, represent Euthenia, or even Demeter, while according to Dattari, nos. 931–932, Milne and Christiansen, she undoubtedly would be another Isis. Whether this indicates two aspects of Isis should not be doubted, but it is hardly possible to push the identifications further in the absence of any determining traits. One can observe, for example, that the inflated himation at the back of a female divinity who traditionally is

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locks of hair, a basileion, the “Isiac knot” between her breasts, even the sistrum with which she encouraged the Nile flood – all signs of an assimilation occurring between Sarapis’s consort Isis and Euthenia, the Nile’s companion.119 The placement of these documents in both order and context makes the goddess Isis appear as both a dispenser of agricultural abundance in Egypt and a protectress of those who venture forth on the waves, first those of the Nile and eventually those of the whole Mediterranean.120 With the transformation of Egypt into a Roman province there was a parallel evolution of the prerogatives of the god Sarapis, establishing him henceforth as the god of fruitfulness par excellence,121 while Isis saw her powers combined in a complementary manner, so as to make her the guarantor of the successful delivery of cargoes (she holds a sail or rudder, sometimes both), usually wheat destined for Rome, for those departing from Alexandria (she is associated with the Pharos lighthouse). While widely present on smaller objects (coins, gemstone, lamps), though not to be found among small bronze and terracota statues, it is necessary to ask if the image of Isis-with-a-sail is likewise absent from the great works of stone statuary, as for a long time some have wished to believe. 3.2

The Problem of Sculpted Representations of the Isis-with-a-Sail Type

3.2.1 A Long-Debated Body of Statuary The question of the existence of statues of Isis-with-a-sail has already long been debated, with strong arguments by Bruneau, and has prompted many reactions. As the result of an analysis undertaken in a manner demonstrating a rigorous

identified as Euthenia (Jentel 1990, 175) but may instead have been Isis, is shown on other Alexandrian coins of Trajan (RPC III 4810.2; Dattari 1015–1016; Geissen 654). 119  See, among others, Picard-Schmitter 1971, 43–44, fig. 11; Jentel 1990. 120  I do not know a document attesting directly to her protection of sailors voyaging on the Red Sea. In that particular marine area it appears that navigators of Greco-Roman times would address their prayers and devotions preferably to the Great Gods of Samothrace. See I.Pan du désert 48 and Culasso Gastaldi 2015. 121  This is reflected in the god’s iconography, starting at that time, by his somewhat systematic wearing of the calathos instead of the atef of Osiris, which reflects a theological evolution contributing to the distancing, at least at the formal level, from Sarapis’s Osirian origins in Egypt, as has been effectively shown in Malaise 2009a; see also Bricault 2019 (forthcoming 2).

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approach,122 I have concluded that the type which I call “Isis-with-a-sail” incorporates on the one hand “non-distinctive traits,” which is to say morphological characteristics common to other types (such as the position of the feet or the forward movement of a slender body), and on the other hand a trait pertinent, which would be the sail inflated by the wind, only belonging to Isis.123 None of the four statues that served as the starting point of his study (those of the museums at Mariemont, Budapest, Benevento and Ostia) possesses this pertinent trait. In conclusion, Bruneau wrote: None of the three statues, nor the statuette of Mariemont (…) could have been validly held to be Isis-with-a-sail.124 (…) Concerning the existence of statues of Isis-with-a-sail, up to now there is not any proof: nothing prevents the statues of Mariemont and Budapest from being Isis-with-a-sail, but nothing proves this in this absence of a ‘pertinent trait,’ the sail inflated by the wind.125 As for those of Benevento and Ostia, “they do not conform to the type of Isis-with-a-sail.”126 Observing, on the one hand, that no Alexandrian coin from the Hellenistic period represents the Isis-with-a-sail type and especially, on the other hand, the fact that there were certain variants on coins minted during a short period of time, even sometimes during the reign of the same emperor, he believes that “local monetary iconography, in the absence of other evidence, does not seem to me to invite one to admit the existence at Alexandria of a

122  With respect to Cartesian reasoning, the virtues of which need not be demonstrated further especially in historical research, when pushed to its extreme to such an extent, can it still be applicable to humanistic studies and disciplines in general, and to the subject that occupies us in particular? 123  Beyond the criticisms regarding detail and form advanced by Pucci 1976, which are hardly acceptable, and to which Bruneau has already done justice in his article of 1978, it is the problem of the trait pertinent that has prompted most of the reservations. See, for example, Tran tam Tinh 1984, 1727–1728, a paper written several years earlier and without knowledge of either Bruneau 1978 or, of course, Bérard 1985. Returning to his argument and the criticisms formulated against him, Bruneau admits (Bruneau 1978, 160), with a little reluctance but not without humor, that there could have existed eventually an “Isis-with-a-sail without a sail.” 124  Bruneau 1978, 152. 125  But also held in both hands and held down by the goddess’s foot – something that is not always the case, as Bruneau himself concedes (1974, 344–345). 126  Ibid., 379.

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statue of Isis-with-a-sail,”127 and concludes with the fact that “the number of noteworthy variants in the representations does not invite one to believe that these last were derived from an original statue (…). Represented exclusively by two-dimensional images, the Isis-with-a-sail type thus remains for the time being an exceptional case in Greco-Roman imagery.”128 In the four decades since, new sources have appeared, which invite one to present the reader with the current state of the question, nearly fifty years later. Beyond those previously cited, it is possible to add two other statues to the discussion, one from Puteoli and the other from Messene.129 I shall briefly present all six statues, adopting the order followed by Bruneau for the original four.130

127  Ibid., 358. 128  Ibid., 379. 129  I am not including here two other statues:    The first one is a statue from the Musée du Louvre inv. Ma 2344, traditionally identified as Thetys but associated with Isis Pelagia in Vergineo 2010, 41–42 with fig. 13–14. The statue, discovered in 1764 in Civita Lavinia and bought by the Louvre in 1815, was heavily restored by the Bartolomeo Cavaceppi’s workshop around 1765. The restorer has taken his cue from the remains of a boat beneath the Nereid’s left foot and the sea-horse to reconstruct a prow; the head is entirely the restorer’s work and is modelled on the “Juno Ludovisi” type. The statue belonged to a group of ten divinities displayed in the semicircular portico of the Villa Albani until 1797.    The second one is a very fragmentary statue from the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale at Palestrina (inv. no. 1491). Found in that city’s sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, this over-life-sized statue of Fortuna (c. 2.40 m. in height) is made of grey-bluish marble while the arms and the head, which were made separately and have not been preserved, may have been of marble of a different colour, presumably white. Dated generally to the late 2nd cent. BCE, it has been considered by different scholars as a statue of Fortuna-Isis, and even Isis Pelagia; Lauro 1978; Gregarek 1999, 198 no. C29; Agnoli 2002, 31–40. But the statue is too fragmentary to accept with confidence either identification. 130  I likewise exclude from this collection the colossal female foot atop a socle decorated with dolphins and Cupids riding on Tritons that was discovered by Visconti on the Via Appia, not far from the Baths of Caracalla, in front of S. Cesareo. Several scholars have associated this monument with the mention preserved in the Regionary Catalogs of an Isis Athenadoria in Rome’s Regio XII and have proposed to recognized in it an element from a gigantic statue of Isis Pelagia (Calzini Gysens 1996 and Ensoli 2000, 272–273 and 285 with previous bibliography). As Estienne 1997, 82–83 reminds us, it is not possible, as it stands, to decide if “Isis Athenadoria” designated an isolated statue or a temple; as for the decoration of the socle, it can be linked with several other divinities, beginning with Venus.

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Figure 86 Marble statue. Mariemont (1st–2nd cent. CE)

1 – The statue at Mariemont (fig. 86)131 The statue, in white marble, is 55 cm. in height in its current state. Its provenance is unknown. It probably dates from the 1st–2nd cent. CE.132 It represents a standing female, her left leg forward. It has been described as follows: “The right arm was raised, the left hung beside the body. The clothing consists of a tunic reaching just above the feet, over which is draped a long 131  Morlanwelz, Musée royal de Mariemont inv. no. B 165. Furtwängler 1897, 38 no. 51; Lévêque 1952, 80–81 no. G39; Lévêque & Donnay 1967, 149–150 no. 87; Tran tam Tinh 1972, 68, n. 2; Bruneau 1974, 359–361 with fig. 12; Pucci 1976, 1179 with pl. LXXIII.1; Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 784 no. 301; Veymiers in Quertinmont 2016, 218–219 with fig. 132  Veymiers in Quertinmont 2016, 218.

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shawl with fringes, knotted at the breast. The rear is quite neglected. Missing are the head, which was reported, the left forearm, the right arm, and the feet.”133 2 – The statue at Budapest (fig. 87)134

FIGURES 87A–C

Marble statue. Budapest (Mid-2nd cent. CE?)

The statue, in white marble, is 1.45 m. in height in its current state, was apparently found in a villa at modern Pausillipo, in the Naples area. It is dated from the middle of the 2nd cent. CE.135 Here is the description provided by Bruneau:136 “Statue of a woman, heavily draped and leaning forward. The head and arms are missing. The left foot is placed in front; the right foot, behind, is perpendicular to the axis of the left foot; the two feet are shod in sandals. The figure wears a long, pleated dress falling to just above the ground and a mantle, ending in fringes, which falls from the left shoulder after having passed under her breasts. At the level of the left 133  Lévêque & Donnay 1967, 149–150. 134  Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts inv. no. 3934 (formerly in the Hartwig collection). Hekler 1929, 63 no. 51; Szilágyi 1969; Castiglione 1970; Handler 1971, 60; Malaise 1972a, 327; Tran tam Tinh 1972, 67–68 no. IS 19 with fig. 9–11; Bruneau 1974, 361–365 with fig. 13–15; Pucci 1976, 1179 with pl. LXXIII.2; Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 784 no. 298; Nagy 1997; Cristilli 2007. 135  Cristilli 2007, 205, employing good arguments. 136  Bruneau 1974, 362.

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buttock, another part of the mantle is abruptly interrupted by a deep cavity of 3 cm. which presents a deliberate right angle and then an accidental break. In this area one finds three sealing holes. A hemispheric cavity was used to position the head (…). The break at the left shoulder seems to indicate that the arm was held along the side of the body and that only the forearm could have been carried in front. Below the armpit, a cavity dug into the marble contains an iron rod. The break at the right shoulder indicates that the right arm was extended. The right foot protrudes slightly in front of the plinth. Each of the side faces of the plinth features two square sealing holes.” A careful analysis of the statue has provided the following information.137 Beneath two marble additions affixed at the height of the shoulder blades one finds, according to Árpád M. Nagy, “two ancient attachment holes of large dimensions, in the shape of an irregular prism, which proves that the piece was already completed in antiquity: after having roughed out the mantle at the left shoulder and the chiton at the right shoulder, two later attributes, quite likely a pair of [bronze] wings, were added.” Likewise, “the lower part of the statue (with the left leg of the figure represented), attached to the rest of the piece by means of two iron bands and lead ties, was sculpted from a piece of marble of the same type as the undoubtedly modern additions covering the shoulders.”138 3 – The statue from Benevento (fig. 88)139 Fragmentary statue in white Parian(?) marble, found in 1903 in the northern part of the Lombard wall surrounding the city of Benevento.140 The maximum height of the preserved fragment is 47 cm., and its total length is 1.02 m. It probably dates from the 1st cent. CE.141 Here is the description made by Bruneau:142 “There are preserved a boat and the two feet, shod in sandals, of a figure who was standing there. The boat is presented to the viewer from the starboard side; at the port side, the marble is roughly worked, which indicates that this side was not visible. The boat rests 137  Nagy 1997, 30–32; Cristilli 2007. 138  Nagy 1997, 30. 139  Benevento, Museo del Sannio inv. no. 1917. Müller 1969, 18–19, 21, 25–26 and 83–85 no. 279 with pl. 26; Malaise 1972a, 300 no. 15; Bruneau 1974, 365–370, fig. 16–18; Pucci 1976, 1179 with pl. LXXIII.3; Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 784 no. 300; Arslan 1997, 505 no. V. 190; De Caro 2007, 39 no. 12; Bragantini 2018, 251–252. 140  For all of the finds, De Caro 2006, 129–143; De Caro 2007, 18–27; Vergineo 2007; on the sanctuary’s potential iconographic program, Bülow-Clausen 2012. 141  Bragantini 2018, 251–252, contra Müller 1969, 85. 142  Bruneau 1974, 366.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

Figures 88a–b

Marble statue. Benevento (1st cent. CE)

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Figure 88c Detail

on a rectangular plinth, much less wide and decorated with wavy lines that represent the sea; the head of a dolphin appears between the waves. The stern, the upper and lower extremities of the bow and a part of the rail of the port side are missing. Two small holes were drilled in the rail, that of the port side 19 cm. from the bow, and that of the starboard side 23 cm. away; H. W. Müller proposes that the sail was affixed there, perhaps of gilded bronze, and held by Isis.143 The figure’s two feet are not placed along the longitudinal axis of the ship, but rather shifted towards the port side. The left foot (length: 21 cm.) is the closer one to the bow; the right foot, broken at the heel (length: ± 20 cm.), is significantly behind the left foot; the axes of the two feet are almost perpendicular.” 4 – The statue at Ostia (fig. 89)144 Statue of a woman draped and leaning forwards, in marble from Asia Minor, found in 1969 at Isola Sacra, near the Fossa Traiana, and probably originating at a public building. Its current height is 2.09 m. It must date from the second half of the 2nd cent. CE.

143  Müller 1969, 18 and 85. 144  Ostia, Museo Archeologico Ostiense inv. no. 18141. Zevi 1970–1971; Zevi 1971, 7–8; Becatti 1971, 51 n. 114; Tran tam Tinh 1972, 68 n. 2; Bruneau 1974, 370–372; Floriani Squarciapino 1983, 70–71 with fig.; Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 784 no. 299; Zevi 1997; Gregarek 1999, no. C30; Zevi 2002.

Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

Figures 89a–b

117

Marble statue. Ostia (2nd half of the 2nd cent. CE)

Once again, Bruneau’s description is worth presenting in full:145 “The head, arms, extremities of the feet coming out from the garment, and the element on which the left foot was resting have disappeared; while the rest of the statue is of gray-blue marble, the parts referred to, as Zevi quite reasonably proposes, must have been executed in white marble. The figure is represented dashing forwards, but with a slight turning to its right. The left leg is raised; the foot ‘rested on an element or attribute that must have justified the action and the momentum of the figure.’ The right foot, behind, is very oblique in relation to the axis of the left foot. The tunic, flattened 145  Bruneau 1974, 371.

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against the body, is molded against the breast, the abdomen and the thighs, then falls upon the left leg in a thick drapé. On the flanks, a thin belt tightens the garment. The mantle, rolled up at the breasts, is inflated on the sides; one finds, in fact, on the flanks of the statue traces of supports to which these elements of the mantle would have been attached. The rear part of the statue, summarily worked on, must not have been visible.” 5 – The statue at Pozzuoli (fig. 90)146 Statue in dark marble, found at the bottom of the sea inlet facing Rione Terra (Pozzuoli) in 1965, which could have come from a structure built on the bank. The current height is 1.95 m. It can be dated to the second half of the 2nd cent. CE.147

Figures 90a–b

Marble statue. Pozzuoli (2nd half of the 2nd cent. CE)

146  Pozzuoli, Flavian Amphitheater inv. no. 153644. Adamo Muscettola 1998, 549–558; Zevi 2002, 302–304 no. 4; De Caro 2006, 79 no. II.4. 147  Mid.-2nd cent. CE (Adamo Muscettola 1998); early 3rd cent. CE (Zevi 2002).

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The right arm, like the head of this statue that represents a female figure, was previously reported but has been lost. The figure, moving towards the right, is flexing her left leg. She is clothed in a chiton and broad himation, hemmed with an ample fringe. This mantle passes over the left arm, then the back, before returning to the right side and ending in the crook of the left elbow, thus leaving the breast uncovered; it previously must have been inflated from the rear, thanks to pieces that were reported, for which one can still recognize the attachment holes. The hands were held out in front. 6 – The statue at Messene (fig. 91)148 Statue of coarse-grained marble, found with four other statues in the proscenium of Messene’s theater during the excavations undertaken in 2002, and measuring 1.70 m. in height. This collection of statues dates from the second half of the 2nd cent. CE.149

Figures 91a–b

Marble statue. Messene (2nd half of the 2nd cent. CE)

148  Themelis 2011, with earlier bibliography. 149  Messenia, Archaeological Museum inv. no. 12000. Themelis 2011, 100–103, fig. 7–10.

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I reproduce here the extremely precise description of Petros Themelis, the statue’s discoverer:150 “The goddess’ forearms and a small part of the tiara (diadem) above her forehead are broken. Parts of the locks of her hair and the edges of her garment are missing. As well, most of the marble sail has broken off; only a small fragment survives. The goddess stands on a plinth, rounded at the back, that is integral with the statue. Isis strides toward the right while the upper part of her body, especially the head, is turned to her right, towards the beholder. The head and neck were carved separately and inserted into a deep cutting between the shoulders. The wavy, wet-looking locks of hair that curl around the goddess’s round, youthful face flow back loosely to fall over her neck and shoulders. There are no incisions around the pupils of the eyes. Her left leg, extended and slightly bent, rests on the beak of a ship’s prow; the ship itself is not depicted, but is symbolized by the special form and the fine workmanship of the rounded plinth with the beak projecting from its front. The goddess would have been grasping the billowing sail in front of her (now broken off) with both outstreched hands; remains of three fringed, wavy edges of the missing sail and two of its large rectangular supports are preserved on her left thigh, knee, and sandaled foot. On her feet are plain, thin-soled thong sandals that divide low on the foot, right where the first two toes meet. The goddess is clad in a long, high-girt, V-necked chiton with sleeves fastened by a round fibula on the right shoulder. The fringed mantle worn on top of the chiton covers the left arm and shoulder as well as the back, forming a thick curved mass of folds that runs diagonally from the right thigh to the bent left arm. The rich folds of the garments are pressed against the front of the goddess’ body, while the mantle, its folds dense and sharp at the edges, flutters out behind her back. The long garland of laurel leaves and flowers – roses, to be precise – bound with a fillet (…); here, it is draped over her left shoulder and reaches just below her right thigh, where it disappears under the folds of her himation.” Let us now return to the opinions pertaining to the problem of whether or not statues of Isis-with-a-sail existed. In 1897, Adolf Fürtwangler published the statuette at the time belonging to the Somzée collection,151 today preserved at the Musée de Mariemont as an “Isis Pharia(?),” a hypothesis considered “daring, but ingenious” by Pierre Lévêque, who initially identified the statuette as “Isis Pelagia,”152 before having returned to some extent to an identification that involved no more than seeing an Isis in “an attitude quite close to that of 150  Themelis 2011, 100. 151  Furtwängler 1897, 38 no. 51. 152  Lévêque 1952, 80–81.

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Isis Pelagia.”153 For Stefania Adamo Muscettola,154 in the absence of an inflated mantle at the back, but especially in light of that fact that the likely lowered position of the arms would not have permitted the holding of a sail, the statuette cannot represent an Isis-with-a-sail.155 Along with Veymiers,156 I think that, on the contrary, the posture and movement of this feminine figure suggest the presence of a veil, cast separately, as has already been noted by Fürtwangler.157 This statue of small dimensions was intended to be viewed from the front or three-quarters, with the back having been worked on less, in an archaeological context that is unfortunately impossible to determine. Jean-Georges Szilágyi, studying the statue preserved at Budapest,158 depended on the detail of the fringed mantle and its apparent discovery in the vicinity of Naples when suggesting that the statue should be recognized as an Isis Pelagia standing on the bow of a ship, and not a Niobid as had been previously thought. This identification, accepted by Castiglione and Tran tam Tinh,159 was rejected by Bruneau in the absence of a sail inflated by the wind.160 For Castiglione, the style of the Budapest statue, which would have been sculpted towards the beginning of our era but would have been a copy of an earlier work, without doubt one of the 3rd cent. BCE, is quite close to representations of Nike standing on a bow.161 This image of Isis-with-a-sail in ronde-bosse would have been derived from an original statue located at the entrance of Alexandria’s Pharos harbor. This first type of representation would have been succeeded by a second type, dating to the Imperial Period and distinguishing itself by the presence of a mantle thrown across the body of the goddess and, drawn behind her, forming an arc inflated by the wind. Perhaps destroyed along with the buildings on the island of Pharos during the Bellum Alexandrinum of 48/7 BCE, the first cult statue of Alexandria would have been replaced by another (with inflated mantle) that would have inspired the representations of the Imperial 153  Lévêque & Donnay 1967, 149–150. 154  Adamo Muscettola 1998, 551. 155  She rejects for the same reason, no doubt justifiably, the identification of two statues at Rome’s Musei di Villa Torlonia and Galleria Borghese as “Isis Pelagia” (ibid., 551–552) that Pucci 1976, 1188, fig. LXXVI.1–4 had wanted to include in this group, as well as the female figure on a relief at Rome’s Musei Capitolini discussed later (p. 126). I am not sure about this last point. 156  Veymiers in Quertinmont 2016, 218. 157  Furtwängler 1897, 38. 158  Szilágyi 1969. 159  Castiglione 1970; Tran tam Tinh 1972, 68. 160  Bruneau 1974, 365. 161  This is also the view of Williams 1985, 115.

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Period. These bold hypotheses, accepted by Susan Handler,162 seem to me the most fragile, since even the very existence of a temple of Isis on the island is still to be demonstrated.163 For Nagy,164 followed by Armando Cristilli,165 the statue, datable to the second half of the 2nd cent. CE, would have been transformed into a Nike equipped with bronze wings. For this last scholar, who accepts the idea of an original Isis Pelagia, it seems nevertheless impossible that the goddess would have been able to hold a sail in her two hands: instead, the statue would have been integrated into a more important ensemble of statuary in which the sail in question was fixed. The idea is interesting, but one can just as easily consider that the sealing holes at the height of the shoulder blades, combined with those located on the statue’s left buttock, served the purpose of hanging an inflated mantle of bronze. On a related note, the restoration of the left foot, which coincided with the plugging of the holes in the shoulder blades, led to the disappearance of the anchoring point of the sail, this one also possibly made of bronze. It is therefore necessary to admit that if nothing proves that it was indeed an Isis-with-a-sail, nothing disproves it, either.166 The statue’s original location is impossible to determine, but its erection on one of the terraces of Posillipo overlooking the sea, conceivably, would have offered the most pertinent setting for a representation of Isis-with-a-sail. The traces of the lost statue visible on the deck of the ship sculpture discovered in the Lombard wall at Benevento in 1903 were attributed to “Isis on the ship” by Müller, followed especially by Malaise167 and Rosanna Pirelli,168 an identification rejected likewise by Bruneau. The latter emphasized the absence of a sail – which perhaps was not the reality169 – and noted, additionally, that “the geographical position of Beneventum, in the area of the mountains of Samnium, does not offer favorable conditions for the development of the cult of Isis of the sea.” This is true in the absolute, but perhaps it is less so when one is aware of Isis’s double function as a maritime divinity and fruit-bringing 162  Handler 1971, 56–61 (esp. 60), while noting with justice on the following page that “the juxtaposition of the goddess’ statue and the Pharos on the coins cannot be taken literally. Whether the Isis is a cult statue or an open-air monument such as the Nike of Samothrace cannot be known.” 163  Bricault 2000b, 138. 164  Nagy 1997, 30. 165  Cristilli 2007, 202–203; a hypothesis already anticipated by Bruneau 1974, 365. 166  For Adamo Muscettola 1998, 552, “The hypothesis that it does not represent an Isis Pelagia seems to me, in this case, difficult to sustain.” 167  Müller 1969, 83–85 no. 279; Malaise 1972a, 300. 168  M. Nuoro in Pirelli 2006, 141 no. II.99 with fig. 169  See supra p. 116.

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goddess.170 As Kristin Bülow-Clausen has rightly shown,171 the ornamental decor of the Iseum would just as much have reflected Egyptian and Egyptianizing works as Greco-Roman ones; the statues attest to the assocation of Isis, Minerva and the Mater Magna, but also the importance of Isis, along with that of her sanctuary, in the imperial and religious ideology of the Flavians. The presence in the sanctuary of a statue of Isis-with-a-sail on the deck of a boat fits perfectly into such a context.172 The statue at Ostia was identified as an Isis Pelagia by its discoverer,173 who was followed by Giovanni Becatti,174 while Bruneau noted that the goddess has her left foot raised and posed on an indistinct element (a rock?) – something that would be, it is true, unique and little comprehensible for a representation of Isis-with-a-sail – and thus preferred to see in this effigy an Aphrodite of the Brazza type.175 For Tran tam Tinh, the feminine figure “has her left foot posed on a ‘rock,’ which renders the identification [of Isis-with-a-sail] barely plausible” – an opinion in which I share.176 Adamo Muscettola has suggested,177 based on stylistic criteria, that the Ostia statue is connected to a group of works representing Fortuna a priori (one from Palestrina in black marble,178 another perhaps originating at the Benevento Iseum,179 and a third preserved at Munich but acquired on the Neapolitan antiquities market180), as well as to the image of Isis shown on the medallion of Faustina II, associating the goddess holding a sail (or a veil) with a Pharos (from Alexandria or from Ostia), which I have discussed above.181 The similarities among the four statues are relatively 170  On this subject Johannowsky 1994, who invokes the presence of a mill, dating to the time of Hadrian, on the Calore River, near Apice, which leads him to link the construction of the Iseum at Beneventum with the supposed presence of Egyptians active in the region’s grain trade – a highly speculative hypothesis. The construction of the sanctuary is to be associated with the reign of Domitian and the special link between the Flavian dynasty with the Isiac pantheon. See, among others, Malaise 1972b, 415; Colin 1993, 258; Adamo Muscettola 1994, 99; Bricault & Veymiers 2018c. 171  Bülow Clausen 2012. 172  Capriotti Vittozzi 2014. 173  Zevi 1970–1971. 174  Becatti 1971, 51 n. 114. 175  Bruneau 1974, 372. 176  Tran tam Tinh 1972, 68 n. 2. 177  Adamo Muscettola 1998, 552–553 with figs. 6–8. See also Coarelli 1994. 178  Palestrina, Museo Archeologico Nazionale inv. no. 1491. Lauro 1978, pl. I–IV and VIII–XI; S. Gatti, in Arslan 1997, 332–333; Agnoli 2002 25–26, and cat. I, 1. The statue may date to the 2nd cent. BCE. 179  Lauro 1978, 207 with fig. VIIa. 180  Fürtwangler 1910², 395 no. 449. 181  See supra p. 97 fig. 70.

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convincing – draping of garments, positioning of the two legs with the left in front – even if those of Palestrina and Benevento are incomplete. If it is indeed unlikely that we are dealing with examples of Isis-with-a-sail, one nevertheless might conceive of the incomplete statue from Benevento, like that from Ostia, as representing Isis(-Fortuna) as a protectress of navigation. If the link between the medallion of Faustina – and an Alexandrian inscription mentioning Faustina Pharia and sôsistolos182 – is pertinent, this protection must have been able to be directly given in relation with the annona fleet. The presence of such statues at Ostia, the port used for off-loading the grain fleet’s cargoes, and at Benevento in an Isiac sanctuary constructed (or, less convincingly, remodeled) in honor of Domitian when he returned from campaigning, should not surprise us.183 Finally, it is worth noting that Heike Gregarek prefers to envision instead an Isis-Nike.184 The Pozzuoli statue is identified with Isis Pelagia by Adamo Muscettola, justifiably followed (though with caution) by Malaise,185 with the latter noting that the fringed mantle is the sole indication in the statue’s current state of a likely identification with Isis. It seems possible that it dates to the second half of the 2nd cent. CE. The statue could have come from the Iseum that stood near the sea jetty shown on a series of bottles made of colorless and translucent blown glass and that were engraved with a panorama of Puteoli featuring its principal monuments and port.186 Of local workmanship and consisting of several variants, these small objects were carried far away from the Campanian port as souvenirs by tourists, travelers, and spa visitors having passed through or sojourned in this seaside city. On several of them,187 one can observe a podium temple, with a lustral basin in front and the pediment decorated by a star. The radiate cult statue represented inside the building holds a patera in the right hand and a cornucopia in the left, and is sometimes interpreted as an image of Helios-Sarapis in the process of performing a libation. The temple in question would then be identified with the city’s Serapeum, which would have been erected not far from the jetty, between the theater and amphitheater, in the immediate area of the market, where a beautiful marble statue of the

182  See infra pp. 164–167. 183  On this sanctuary, Müller 1969; Malaise 1972a, 294–305; R. Pirelli in Arslan 1997, 376–380; De Caro 2007; Bülow Clausen 2012. 184  Gregarek 1999, 198–199 no. C30. 185  Adamo Muscettola 1998, 549–552; Malaise 2004, 34–35. 186  Painter 1975; Ostrow 1979; Bejarano Osorio 2005; Golvin 2008. 187  See Bejarano Osorio 2005 for the publication of a new example discovered at Merida and an analysis comparing it to the other known bottles of the same type.

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god was discovered.188 Closer to the shore, on the pier, the bottle from Prague189 bears the name ISIV(M), which must designate the port city’s Iseum, a temple distinct from the Serapeum. This Iseum is probably the same as the one mentioned on a black and white mosaic dating to the beginning of the 3rd cent. CE that decorated the floor of the apodyterium of a suburban villa in the sector east of Puteoli, in which were represented two pairs of pancratiasts. At the center of this composition, above various objects related to combat (an agonistic urn, palm, purse with 150 denarii intended for the winner, etc.), there is a tabula ansata on which is inscribed Iseo Eusebia.190 It is known that the grainimporting activities of the port of Puteoli were not completely interrupted by the construction of the port of Ostia.191 The presence of an Iseum and a statue of Isis-with-a-sail at this site therefore should not be a surprise. The posture of the statue from Messene and the presence of a ship’s prow undoubtedly make this a representation of a marine divinity. The vegetal wreath, the hair style, the way the garment is draped, all permit us to consider an identification of this feminine figure as Isis, even if these elements were not, it is true, exclusively Isiac. As for the position of the hands, this perfectly accords with the holding of a sail. It therefore seems assured that for the first time we are decidedly in possession of a sculpted representation of Isis-with-a-sail. It is known from Pausanias (4. 32. 6) that a hieron of Sarapis and Isis was to be found not far from Messene’s theater, and it is from the latter’s scaenae frons that the statue originated. During the second half of the 2nd cent. CE the theater benefitted from the munificence of Tib. Cl. Saethidas Caelianus, a member of a powerful local family, in close connection with the imperial household. One must, in effect, attribute to this euergetes the decorations of sculpted marble at the front of the three-story stage. The statue of Isis-with-a-sail would have been placed among those of emperors such as Trajan, Hadrian or Lucius Verus as well as members of the gens Saethidas. This work, which would have been fashioned at one of the same Athenian workshops as the statues of the Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus at Olympia, is considered by Themelis to be a copy from the reign of Trajan or Hadrian of an original from the 2nd cent. BCE. Its discovery at Messene, an inland site, supports the argument that the presence of a statue of marine Isis at Benevento is not inconceivable per se.

188  Malaise 1972a, 288 Puteoli 23. 189  Prague, National Museum inv. no. 137. De Caro 2006, 78 no. II.3; Bricault 2013a, 205–207. End of 3rd-beginning of 4th cent. CE. 190  Gialanella 2001; RICIS Suppl. I, 504/0407. 191  D’Arms 1974; Camodeca 1994.

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Figure 92 Marble relief. Rome (1st–2nd cents. CE)

It is important to add to the discussion that the numismatic documentation from Corinth, as will be seen later,192 reveals also the presence of a statue of Isis-with-a-sail in one of the colony’s ports during the Imperial Period. It is now necessary to discuss a relief discovered in 1935 in the vicinity of the Theater of Marcellus, in Rome’s Regio IX, today preserved at the Capitoline Museum (fig. 92).193 192  See infra p. 178 with figs. 112–113. 193  Rome, Musei Capitolini inv. no. 2448. Pietrangeli 1951, 31–32 no. 18; Parlasca 1964; Malaise 1972a, 214 Roma 392 with pl. 22; Ensoli, “Rilievo con Iside Frugifera,” in Arslan 1997, 400– 402 no. V.19, with previous bibliography, to which can be added Versluys 2002, 352.

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This good-sized fragment of marble, measuring 71.8 cm. in height, represents Isis in high relief. The goddess is dressed in a himation, which appears to be inflated at the back, and is bound by an “Isiac knot” at the height of her breast, but she does not wear a chiton. Her body and arms are turned to the right, while she slightly turns her head to the rear, in a movement that leaves her left breast exposed. She wears a diadem decorated with a uraeus, of which only the lower part of the serpent’s body remains. A hole above the forehead probably served the purpose of attaching an attribute that today is lost, perhaps a basileion. Behind her, at the height of her head, are represented the upper parts of two millet(?) stalks, a grain already widespread in Italy, but not in Egypt at that time. As it stands, the fragment must have belonged to a large marble panel, a Roman copy of the 1st or 2nd cents. CE that could have been based on an original from the 2nd cent. BCE,194 and perhaps came from an Isiac sanctuary, possibly the Iseum of Regio VIII. Initially, Klaus Parlasca thought about recognizing in it Isis Pelagia,195 but the presence of millet made him identify the goddess instead as Isis Frugifera, especially since a dedication to Isis Frugifera, accompanied by imprints of feet, was first attested at the nearby church of S. Maria in Aracoeli in the 16th century.196 The absence of a chiton is notable, and one can see in it an additional allusion to Isis’s fertility and fruitfulness aspects, in imitation of representations of Isis lactans and kourotrophos. For Eugenio La Rocca, this is an Isis holding the reins of a chariot, in the manner of Demeter;197 for Serena Ensoli, one might envision an Isis Frugifera holding a plough.198 That the relief concerns an agrarian divinity is not in any doubt, and the identifications forcefully proposed on the basis of technical and iconographic parallels are interesting. It seems, however, that the identification of marine Isis cannot be eliminated solely because of the presence of ears of grain. There is no reason not to conclude that Isis is holding a sail – at least, the alternative possibilities of a plough, the reins of a chariot, or something else are neither more nor less convincing. I have emphasized above the direct link existing between Isis as patronness of navigation and Isis-Tyche karpophoros. I am, in fact, tempted to find in this relief a representation of Isis-with-a-sail. The presence of the ears of grain that are identifiable as millet – perhaps represented because those 194   Julio-Claudian era for S. Ensoli in Arslan 1997, 400; 2nd cent. CE for Parlasca 1964, 202. 195  The idea is reprised by Pucci 1976, 1190–1191 n. 48 with pl. LXXVII.2. 196  Rome, Musei Capitolini inv. no. NCE 2113; CIL VI 351; Stuart Jones 1912, 139 no. 1a with pl. 36; SIRIS 379 = RICIS 501/0111; RICIS Suppl. III, 153 with fig. 197  La Rocca 1994, 271–272 with fig. 5–7. 198  The group of hypotheses concerning the relief’s interpretation is discussed by S. Ensoli in Arslan 1997.

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who commissioned the work preferred this grain to others for the reason that it is more “Italian” – only serves to underline one of the foremost roles of Isis, mistress of the waves: to permit the Roman Empire, thanks to navigation, thanks to commerce, and thanks to the annona shipments, to become a panMediterranean puissance divine. The ideological scope of such a source, as the previous commentators have correctly seen, must not be neglected. 3.2.2 The Problematic Contribution of Textual Sources Jesús Rodríguez Morales has drawn attention to a famous episode in Petronius’s Satyricon placing the goddess Isis at the heart of a storm endangering the main characters.199 Based on an analysis of Chapter CXIV, he attempts to reconstruct a lost passage of the novel, which may directly pertain to our subject. Let us briefly look at the situation. Embarked upon Lichas’s ship in the port of an urbs graeca, Encolpius and his acolytes Giton and Eumolpus are soon confronted by a storm that threatens to swallow them up. The situation having become critical, Lichas addresses a prayer to Encolpius: Itaque pernicies postquam manifesta convaluit, Lichas trepidans ad me supinas porrigit manus et: “Tu,” inquit, “Encolpi, succurre periclitantibus, et vestem illam divinam sistrumque redde navigio. Per fidem, miserere, quemadmodum quidem soles.” And so, when the danger appeared to have grown great, Lichas, trembling with fear, extended suppliant hands towards me: “Encolpius,” he said, “you must provide aid in our distress: return the sacred garment and sistrum to this vessel. For Heaven’s sake, make yourself pitiable, in the manner that you always have been!” The mention of the sistrum permits us to identify the “patronness” of the vessel, the tutela navis mentioned in Chapter CV, as Isis. Based on the passage quoted above, one can deduct that in a lost episode Encolpius or one of his companions had stolen from a statue of the goddess the sistrum that she had undoubtedly brandished in her right hand and a garment (vestis) that she was wearing.200 The statue was probably made of stone, and the sistrum was an 199  In two parallel articles, Rodríguez Morales 1999a and 1999b. 200  For Rodríguez Morales 1999a, 242–243, the stolen mantle (latrocinio pallium) that Encolpius and Ascyltus seek to sell in the market (Satyricon XII–XV) is nothing other than the vestis divina of Chapter CXIV, which they would have recovered in another lost episode from this work. The garment appears again, for the last time, in Chapter CXVII (vestis rapinae comes). This is debatable, and assumes that the Latin author treats pallium and

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attached metal element. It is known that statues were often dressed in real fabrics and adornments. This was also the origin of the function of the stolistes.201 Several documents from the Imperial Period have preserved lists of objects and garments destined to adorn statues of Isis.202 The goddess, who gives her name to Lichas’s ship,203 wrathful at this infamy and taking advantage of the presence of the thieves on board, raises a storm in which the ship eventually sinks, carrying with it the unfortunate captain. One finds here one of her prerogatives as a marine goddess, that of raising the waves, or of calming them. In conclusion, Rodríguez Morales suggests that the sistrum and garment were taken from a statue of Isis-with-a-sail and that on the statue from Benevento the visible notch before the goddess’s feet would not have been anything other than a mounting hole intended for positioning a vela movible, which could only have been made of fabric.204 This hypothesis is interesting but unverifiable, and difficult to retain. Without doubt, it is easier to consider that in the Satyricon one is dealing with a garment (vestis) and not a sail, taken from a “simple” standing statue of Isis adorned with a garment by a stolistes. However, one should compare the text of Petronius with the poem that Statius wrote for Metius Celer,205 in which the poet concludes by entrusting vestis as synonyms. The pallium is a Greek mantle, the himation (cf. the term palla and, in an Isiac context, the palla nigerrima of Apul. Met. 11. 3), while the vestis can designate the complete garment or just the veil of a woman (Stat. Theb. 7. 244). In an inventory from Nemus Dianae relating to the dress and adornment of a statue of Isis, the linia vestis designates the statue’s full set of garments, which was composed of a tunica, a pallium, a zona cum segmentis argenteis and a stola (CIL XIV 2215 (p. 488) = Lafaye 1884, 135–136 = ILS 4423 = SIRIS 524 = RICIS 503/0301). The two articles of clothing can perhaps be distinguished in Petronius’s text, since without doubt, these characters had entirely stripped the statue. For the activity of clothing cult statues, and especially those of Isis, compare the dedication from Luna published by Mennella 1983 = RICIS 511/0701: Vettia Pasipila Isi stolam et amictum oculos aureos l(ibens) m(erito) (“Vettia Pasipila (offered) to Isis a robe and a mantle, as well as eyes of gold, freely and deservedly”). See also, on this document, Gallo 1994, 72. 201  Malaise 2003a. 202  In addition to the two inscriptions cited supra n. 200, other texts mentioning offerings of jewelry and linens have been found at Acci (CIL II 3386 = ILS 4422 = SIRIS 761 = RICIS 603/0101), Italica (AE, 1982, 521 = AE, 1983, 521 = RICIS 602/0201), Thessalonica (IG X 2, 1, 114 = RICIS 113/0556), Delos (see the inventories from the Sarapieion collected in RICIS) and Pergamum (I.Pergamon 2, no. 336 = SIRIS 313 = RICIS 301/1202). 203  Ciaffi 1960, 16; Sullivan 1968, 43. 204  Rodríguez Morales 1999a, 248–249. Müller 1969, 18 and 45, has already considered, I should note, the existence of an associated sail, but made of bronze. This seems to me more plausible. 205   S tat. Silv. 3. 2. 101–122: Isi, Phoroneis olim stabulata sub antris, / nunc regina Phari numenque orientis anheli / excipe multisono puppem Mareotida sistro / ac iuuenem egregium,

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his friend to the care of Isis,206 of whom several tasks are required. She must first salute the boat with her sistrum, and then conduct it with a benevolent hand to a good port (vv. 101–106); it then falls to her to make the young man discover the mysteries and curiosities of Egypt (vv. 107–120), before escorting him to the East in order to entrust him finally to the god of war (vv. 121–122). Isis is thus seen to assume a double role: both protectress of the sea voyage of Metius Celer and his guide, in this substituting herself for other marine divinities evoked in the preceding verses.207

Latius cui ductor Eoa / signa Palaestinasque dedit frenare cohortes, / ipsa manu placida per limina festa sacrosque / duc portus urbesque tuas. Te praeside noscat, / unde paludosi fecunda licentia Nili, / cur uada desidant et ripa coerceat undas / Cecropio stagnata luto, cur inuida Memphis, / curue Therapnaei lasciuiat ora Canopi, / cur seruet Pharias Lethaeus ianitor aras, / uilia cur magnos aequent animalia diuos; / quae sibi praesternat uiuax alataria Phoenix, / quos dignetur agros aut quo se gurgite Nili / mergat adoratus trepidis pastoribus Apis. / Duc et ad Emathios manes, ubi belliger urbis / conditor Hyblaeo perfusus nectare durat, / anguiferamque domum, blando qua mersa ueneno / Actias Ausonias fugit Cleopatra catenas. / Usque et in Assyrias sedes mandataque castra / prosequere et Marti iuuenem, dea, trade Latino. (“Isis, once penned in at Phoroneus’s grottoes, presently queen of Pharos and goddess of the panting East, greet the Mareotic vessel with the multilayered sound of your sistrum; and conduct this eminent young man yourself with a benevolent hand, to whom the leader of Latium has entrusted his eastern standards and the command over Palestine’s cohorts, past your temples at festival time, past your sacred ports, past your villages. Let him learn under your protection whence comes the fertile inundation of the Nile that spills over into the marshes, why its waters decrease and are restrained by banks that the bird of Cecrops (i.e. the swallow) fills up with mud, why Memphis is jealous or the shore of Therapnaean Canopus is debauched, why the gatekeeper of Lethe protects the altars of Pharos (Plut. De Is. 14; Diod. Sic. 1. 87. 2), why worthless animals are placed among the ranks of powerful gods, what altars the long-lived Phoenix prepares for himself in advance, which fields Apis judges worthy of himself or in what depths of the Nile he immerses himself, worshiped by the trembling shepherds (Plin. Nat. 8. 184). Conduct him as well towards the hero of Emathia, to the place where the city’s bellicosee founder still remains, drenched in Hybla’s nectar, and also to the palace infested with serpents where, drowned in the soft drowsiness of poison, Cleopatra of Actium escaped Ausonian chains. Escort this young man as far as his Assyrian post and to the camp that has been entrusted to him, and give him, o goddess, to Latin Mars.”) 206  The first verses (vv. 1–4) are not addressed to the goddess: Di, quibus audaces amor est seruare carinas / saeuaque uentosi mulcere pericula ponti, / sternite molle fretum placidumque aduertite uotis / concilium, et lenis non obstrepat unda precanti. (“Gods, who love to preserve reckless ships and to ease the terrible dangers of a windy sea, softly smooth away the waves. May your benevolent assembly give ear to my vows, and may the softened waters not drown out my prayer with their noise.”) The voyage of Celer in Egypt is certainly to be dated to 94 CE, when Domitian was still emperor. 207  Neptune, the Dioskouroi, Nereids, Proteus, Triton, etc. On this text, see Montero Herrero 1979, 246–247; Alvar 2008, 323.

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Protectress of the Annona, Isis is the Good Fortune of Roman consumers, Egyptian growers, and intermediaries of all backgrounds, which – in this specific framework, already – associates her with Tyche/Fortuna. Could such a multiplicity of functions, moreover an evolutionary one, accommodate a single type of figural representation? The few sources studied above clearly lead one to think not. Moreover, one must ask if the Isis-with-a-sail type is indeed the only image that is able to represent visually the multiple roles of Isis, mistress of marine elements. 3.3

Other Representations of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

Four particularly interesting objects will hold our attention above all. The first is an intaglio of blue glass, preserved at Vienna (fig. 93)208 and dated to the first

Figure 93 Gem. Vienna (1st half 2nd cent. CE) 208  Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum inv. no. AS IX a 991. Zwierlein-Diehl 1973, II, 91 no. 973; Arslan 1997, 238 no. IV.239; Dunand 2000, 81 fig.; Pfrommer 2005, 683–684 no. 286.

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Figure 94 Gold ring with intaglio. Patras

half of the 2nd cent. CE,209 which bears strong similarities to the one in the collection of François Daumas discussed above.210 It features Isis, standing to the left, wearing a highly stylized basileion and dressed in a long chiton, supporting herself with a long, garlanded scepter held in her left hand, and holding a rudder in her right. She is turned towards the Alexandrian lighthouse before her. The association of this object with the preceding sources invites us to find in this Isis with both rudder and scepter a goddess who is mistress of the marine elements and protectress of navigation. Another representation of marine Isis similar to this one is featured on an intaglio inserted into the bezel of a gold ring found in a funerary cist of the late-Hellenistic Period, near the left hand of a female skeleton, during a rescue excavation undertaken in 1979 south of Patras (fig. 94).211 The tomb, rich in 209  A date suggested by the engraving technique and the image of the Pharos lighthouse, similar to that borne by Alexandrian coins from the Hadrianic era (see supra p. 82 fig. 50). 210  See supra p. 98 fig. 71. 211  Patras, Archaeological Museum inv. no. 2130. Papapostolou 1978, 361–363 no. 5 with pl. 112, fig. a-b; G. Touchais, BCH 109 (1985), 788 fig. 61.

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Figure 95 Carnelian

mostly gold and silver furnishings, indicates the elevated social rank of its occupant. On the gem can be recognized Isis, wearing a basileion, standing and turned three-quarters to the right, on a bow. The goddess is dressed in a chiton fastened by a belt and draped in a himation that envelops her lower body and partly falls onto her right shoulder. Her extended left hand holds the end of a rudder, while her right hand grips a palm to which is attached a crown – attributes that she borrows from Tyche (the rudder) and Nike (the palm and crown), and which, along with the ship on which she stands, mark her domination over the marine world.212 A third engraved stone, an orange carnelian that appeared on the antiquities market (fig. 95),213 shows the goddess once again standing to the right on the deck of a ship, wearing a basileion and clothed in a chiton and himation, while she holds a sistrum in her left hand and, in her right, a long scepter, with the handle of a situla seeming to have gone around her right wrist. Four people, significantly smaller and merely outlined, accompany her. In the upper-right field there is a monogram (XAB). But the most interesting artifact for our purpose is, without contest, a bronze statuette that became part of the collection of Louis De Clerq, for which the declared provenance as the port of Balanea (modern Banyas), on the Syrian coast (fig. 96).214 This statuette represents a standing female divinity, dressed in a long chiton and himation, wearing a calathos atop her head, and in her left hand holding a cornucopia, while her right hand clearly used to hold an object that could only have been a rudder. For Tran tam Tinh, who summarizes the communis opinio,

212  See infra p. 136sqq. 213   A CR Auctions, Art Rarities Auction 1 (12–12–2012), lot 76. 214  de Ridder 1905, 225 no. 321 with pl. L.3; IGLS IV (1955), 1309; SIRIS 358; Bruneau 1974, 349 with fig. 10; RICIS 402/0501; Malaise 2014, 224. Total height 24.2 cm., height of base 4.6 cm.

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Bronze statuette. Balanea

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Figures 96b–c (details)

this statuette bears an image of “Fortuna without any Isiac characteristic.”215 However, on the base supporting the statuette, there is a short inscription: Εἶσις Φαρία. For André de Ridder, who first published it, “the base is not clearly that of the figure,”216 a remark that one can suspect of having been prompted by the apparent mismatch between the sculptural type represented by the statuette and the epiclesis appearing on the base. Long thought lost, the statuette recently appeared on the Parisian antiquities market before being purchased by the Louvre,217 permitting an examination that enables us to return to this problem with fresh insights. This examination reveals that the base is assuredly that of the statuette, as is indicated by ancient traces of welding. A hole at the top of the head in front of the calathos is clearly visible, and one would be correct to think that it permitted the attachment of a basileion. The combination of basileion and calathos is today well known.218 As for the absence of any “Isiac characteristic,” this is debatable. In effect, as Sophie Descamps-Lequime notes, 215  Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 794. 216  de Ridder 1905, 225. 217  Neither Bruneau in the early 1970’s nor I in the early 2000’s were able to find the statuette at the Louvre; it was discovered, in fact, to have always been in private hands, not having been included among the pieces from the collection of Louis de Clercq offered to the Louvre in 1968 by Henri de Boisgelin. It came to be acquired by the Louvre in December 2014; see Descamps-Lequime 2015, 17. I would like to thank Daniel Lebeurrier of the Galerie Gilgamesh in Paris, previously in possession of the statuette, for having generously provided me with excellent photographs of it and for having invited me to study it in detail. 218  Malaise 2014, 232–233.

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“the layout of the mantle is particularly sophisticated; two layers of fabric intersect in front, in a manner revealing the presence of a flap that reaches down to the mid-thigh. These two layers go into the creation of a knot that maintains the mantle, a knot of which only the base is preserved in the form of an open ring, close to and above the channel of the left elbow. The complement – a vertical loop – has disappeared.”219 The figure must have worn an “Isis knot.” The statuette from Balanea may, in fact, appear to be the missing link between the image of Isis-with-a-sail and that of Isis-with-a-rudder. Isis the protectress of sailors and navigation could as easily have been represented and seen in the aspect of Isis-with-a-sail as in the representation of Isis holding a rudder and, eventually, a cornucopia.220 The existence of this iconographical schema is attested beginning in the Hellenistic Period by seal imprints from Paphos, on the island of Cyprus.221 Among the numerous iconographical types revealed by the excavations undertaken at this site during the second half of the 20th century, there is one image deserving particular attention, since it represents the goddess wearing the calathos, holding a rudder and cornucopia that are both unusually large.222 On a second seal can be seen the goddess, who is dressed in a long chiton and himation and stands facing left, with her left foot

219   Descamps-Lequime 2015. I thank M.-C. Budischovsky for this reference. 220  On the iconography of the type traditionally referred to as “Isis-Tyche-Fortuna,” Lichocka 1997. Unfortunately, this scholar did not present together the sources for the Isis-Fortuna type, a coherent group she does not study in particular. However, searching the plates permits the recovery of a number of representations of Isis-Fortuna, recognizable by the basileion worn by this goddess; fig. nos. 458–460, 467, 469–471, 477–510, 515, 517, 520, 527, 537 and 541. These bronze statuettes, not provided with any catalog numbers, can be found in the catalog through examination of pp. 299–310 of the index. Lichocka notes that this iconographic type appears especially on lamps, gems, and small bronze figurines, beginning in the 2nd cent. CE. In turn, these representations are rare on coinage and among large statues of stone. Traditionally, the goddess holds the rudder in her right hand and a cornucopia in her left. One can sometimes observe two minor traits in addition, a globe as symbol of the universe and a wheel as symbol of good fortune. Especially interesting are the rare representations on which there appears the bow of a ship, comparable to what is seen on the coins of Anchialos under Commodus and Septimius Severus (see infra p. 142 fig. 102 – unpublished). On these figurines, see now Amoroso 2015, Amoroso 2017, Amoroso 2018 and the thesis of the same scholar, to be published in the Supplements to the Bibliotheca Isiaca. 221  The seal prints in terracotta are assigned to the period between the second half of the 2nd cent. BCE and the end of the 1st cent. BCE. The seals themselves are either from this period or older. 222   Michaelidou-Nikolaou 1993, 344, no. 7743.

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Figure 97 Terracotta seal. Paphos (2nd–1st cents. BCE)

forward. She holds a cornucopia in her left hand and steers a rudder with her right, while upon her head there is a basileion (fig. 97).223 Stone statuary has produced several identifiable representations of Isis-with-a-rudder. To the fragmentary representations of Delos224 and Trier (fig. 98),225 we should add a statue that is almost complete – it only lacks the crown – now preserved in Athens but probably from Alexandria, which features the same iconographical characteristics. However, the presence of a small serpent wrapped around the handle of the rudder is important to note,

223  Nikolaou 1978, 851 no. 3 with pl. CLXXVII, 3. See also a very unusual intaglio featuring Isis-with-a-rudder, Harpocrates and Anubis from early Imperial times, preserved in Venice, Museo Nazionale inv. no. G 24; Toso 2014. 224  Delos Museum inv. no. A 2255. Marcadé 1953, 561 fig. 51; Dunand 1973, with pl. XXXVI,1; Zaphiropoulou 1998, 184, 281 no. 188. The acephalous marble statuette (ht. 24 cm.), featuring the “Isiac knot” between the breasts, was discovered in 1911 northwest of the theater on Delos. 225  Trier, Rheinisches Landesmuseum inv. no. 64.104; Grimm 1969, 232 no. 144A with pl. 18; Religio romana 1996, 223–224 fig. 48b; Lichocka 1997, 43, 47 with fig. 360. Similar to the discovery on Delos, the acephalous limestone statuette (ht. 43 cm.) with the “Isiac knot” between the figure’s breasts was found in 1961 at Fließem, in a Roman villa (first half of 2nd cent. CE).

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Figure 98 Limestone statuette. Fließem (2nd cent. CE).

its presence suggesting a connection between this statue and the goddess’s healing powers (fig. 99).226 If it is hardly possible to associate with confidence these few stone monuments with the maritime functions of Isis, the case is different for the small statuary of bronze. In this rather rich collection – more than 200 specimens – are to be found metal statuettes of the Isis-with-a-rudder type, among which one can single out roughly thirty exempla that are distinguished by the presence of a small dolphin in the right angle formed by the handle and the rudder’s 226  Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Egyptian Collection inv. no. 3426; Moustaka 2012. The statue (ht. 101 cm.) was offered to the museum in 1883 by a certain Dranett Pacha, a Cypriot who had lived for a long time in Alexandria. See also infra p. 142 n. 236.

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Figure 99 Marble statuette. Alexandria(?) (2nd cent. CE)

axial bar (fig. 100).227 In the majority of cases, the goddess is dressed in a chiton attached at the right shoulder in a way that leaves the left shoulder and breast unconvered, in an attitude inspired by the Aphrodite type called Genitrix, thus combining Egyptian (the basileion) and Greek traits (the cornucopia, the dolphin).228 It seems not possible to attribute to this group an Alexandrian origin with certainty.229 In fact, a significant number of these statuettes come from the Vesuvian region. The link between these statuettes and Isis’s power over the sea is not at all in doubt. It is worth noting the very interesting case 227  Berlin, Antikensammlung inv. no. 1979; Arslan 1997, 267 no. IV.295. 228  See Nagel 2015, 202 who speaks of “transcultural identity” with regard to these kinds of hybrid images; Amoroso 2018, 8. 229  On the question of the origins of the association of Tyche and Isis, Malaise 2014, 234–242.

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Figure 100 Bronze statuette. Rome(?) (1st cent. CE)

of a lararium in Boscoreale’s villa rustica in Fondo d’Acunzo, today preserved in Baltimore, which represents, among the seven statuettes that survive, two of Isis-with-a-rudder – one of the type that includes a dolphin and one of the type without (fig. 101).230 The double presence of this divinity perhaps corresponds to her two dictinct but complementary areas of activity, one the sea and the other the land. The existence of these two types of representation (with-a-sail and with-arudder) can be explained in several ways. On a strictly material plan, it must have been extremely difficult to create, as much in small sculpted works as in large, an Isis “with-a-sail,” and for this reason this second type must have been an advantageous replacement.231 At the symbolic level, an Isis holding a 230  Baltimore, Walters Art Museum inv. no. 54.747 and 54.751. Tran tam Tinh 1964, 160 no. 94; Amoroso 2017, 61 no. 1.1–1.2. 12. The two statues (9 and 10 cm. in height, respectively) were found in 1903 with five others in the room of a villa, on a small podium. 231  This idea was already presented by Malaise 1972b, 181. See now also Amoroso 2019 (forthcoming).

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Figure 101

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Lararium of Boscoreale (1st cent. CE)

cornucopia in her left hand and a rudder in her right can symbolize, figuratively speaking, good fortune. She can without difficulty be equally understood, in the proper sense, as a marine goddess (the rudder) and propitious (the cornucopia).232 The association of these two functions, i.e. goddess of the seas who protects navigation, but also propitious goddess who brings a happy life, seems to have been realized in a rather particular context, that of the transport of the annona each year from Alexandria to Italy by the imperial grain fleet sailing under the divine protection of Isis.233 232  The metaphor can be read several times, in evocative terms, in Apul. Met. (11. 15): Multis et variis exanclatis laboribus magnisque Fortunae tempestatibus et maximis actus procellis ad portum Quietis et aram Misericordiae tandem, Luci, venisti (“After having experienced so many tests of every sort, and been shaken by the harsh assaults of Fortune and most violent tempests, to the harbor of Rest and altar of Mercy, Lucius, you will at long last have come”); (11. 25) Nec dies nec quies tuis transcurrit beneficiis otiosum, quin mari terraque protegas homines et depulsis vitae procellis salutarem porrigas dexteram, qua fatorum etiam inextricabiliter contorta retractas licia et Fortunae tempestates mitigas et stellarum noxios meatus cohibes (“There is no day, no night, no fleeting moment that you let pass without your blessings, protecting men on sea and land, driving off the storms of life, extending to them a helpful hand which unknots the inextricable weaving ordained by Destiny, soothing the storms of Fortune and mastering the fateful course of the stars”). 233  On the annona, Rickman 1980; Sirks 1991; Gabba 1994; Bricault 2000b.

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Figure 102 Anchialos. Septimius Severus / Tyche (or Isis) on a bow (193–211 CE)

Therefore, the type of coin from Callatis (our A2d´),234 a priori exceptional, on which a goddess (i.e. Isis) with-a-sail is wearing a calathos can be distinguished.235 However, it is necessary to avoid systematizing this observation and to treat all statuettes of Isis-with-a-rudder and cornucopia as images of marine Isis.236 Here it is necessary to invoke an iconographic source that has up to now been unique, a lamp with a notably original theme (fig. 103), discovered in a private house at the site of Aleria, on Corsica.237 The disk of this large lamp, with a reflector in the shape of a crescent, a type characteristic of the Augustan period,238 decorates a complex scene showing Isis-with-a-sail and Harpocrates standing on a boat, as was described by Thérèse Oziol:

234  See supra p. 68 fig. 21. 235  Malaise 2014, 229 n. 42. 236  See, for example, the statue of Isis in white marble at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (inv. no. 3426), given in 1883 by P. Dranett Pacha, a Cypriot Greek doctor living and working in Alexandria (our fig. 99). The goddess, standing, holds a cornucopia in her left hand and a rudder in the right; a small serpent is found between the right hand and the rudder. Her crown, probably a basileion, is not preserved, but the knot between her breasts guarantees the identity of Isis. These attributes are those of Isis-Tyche, with the serpent also pointing towards her functions as a healer. Moustaka 2012 dates this statue, produced at an Alexandrian workshop, to the 2nd cent. CE. 237  Aleria, Musée Départemental d’Archéologie inv. no. 59/157. Oziol 1980, 23–24 no. 44 with pl. IV; Podvin 2011, 253 no. Idd-Hdf.m(1) with pl. 55. 238  According to the traces of a signature, this could have been a lamp produced at the workshop of Myro, which is to say manufactured in Latium at the beginning of the 1st cent. CE.

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On a wavy sea are two figures aboard a ship: Isis at the stern, and her son Harpocrates at the bow. The goddess, represented in profile, with solid support, her feet slightly spread apart, holds before her with both hands an inflated sail. From her right hand extends a sistrum. She is dressed in her long robe that is ample and light, through which one can detect the position of her legs. She also wears a sash with oblique striations, of which the fringes, blown by the wind, continue the movement behind her. A long mass floats free behind her. On her head rests an important hairdo, rather flat, and different from the traditional Isiac hairstyle: one may think of a crown of foliage and flowers. At the other end of the boat, Harpocrates, frontal, has adopted his conventional posture: lightly flexing and placing his weight on his left leg, he carries, pressed tightly against his body, a very full horn of plenty, from which there appear to be ears of wheat emerging. He has placed his right index finger on his lips. His head is surmounted by the lotus flower. In the figurehead can be recognized an ibis, in profile. At the middle of the boat, between the two figures, a braided basket covered with a conical lid, only permits one to see the neck and head of the uraeus that stands in it.239

Figure 103 Lamp. Aleria (1st cent. CE) 239  Oziol 1980, 23.

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Rhodes. Nike navigans (31 BCE–60 CE).

The goddess, standing on the right, is adorned with long hair that floats behind her back, unless it represents wings that would be comparable to those of Victoria-Nike,240 according to a well-known iconography that one finds, among others places, in Rhodian coinage of the end of the 1st cent. BCE and beginning of the 1st cent. CE. Indeed, there are numerous coin issues that bear representations of Nike standing to the right or left on a bow, holding a palm and a wreath (fig. 104). Isis herself does not wear anything other than a light chiton, having abandoned her mantle in order to use it as a sail. One may note, finally, that she put on the stole with fringed edges that she regularly wears on the disks of lamps in later times, when she was shown in the company of Anubis and Harpocrates.241 On the lamp from Aleria Isis holds the sail with both hands but without the help of her left foot, which would have aided in increasing the surface area rather than having it be gathered up at the center of the disk. This rather symbolic sail – one must not forget that Isis is on a ship’s stern – must in effect leave space for several other elements at least as important: Harpocrates, a cista (“chest”) and an ibis. Harpocrates, first of all, is represented in a very traditional manner, holding the cornucopia, as he does most of the time, whether alone or with his mother. One thus finds here the image of an Isis who is at the

240  One might think of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, splitting the air and waves. The prototype of Isis-with-a-sail might be found in representations of Nike, according to Williams 1985, 115. See RPC I 2761 for the coin of Rhodes (fig. 104). 241  See, for example, Tran tam Tinh 1972, pl. XXII; Podvin 2003; Podvin 2011, 86 fig. 161, with pl. 57–59.

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same time inventor of the sail and protectress of sailors, but also the goddess of abundance due to the presence of Harpocrates. She is, once again, both Pelagia and Fortuna: the presence of a serpent emerging from the cista mystica242 indicates the chthonic character and association with fertility of this goddess, who at the time was identified with Demeter;243 she equally brings to mind the Isis in serpent form assimilated with Thermouthis, the Hellenized aspect of Rnnt, goddess of the harvest;244 and, finally, there is the ibis245 serving as the parasēme (figurehead) of this ship.246 Therefore, there is little doubt that during the Imperial Period, and certainly before, there coexisted at least two types of representation pointing to the marine powers of Isis: the Isis-with-a-sail and the Isis-with-a-rudder. This “coexistence of images,” to use the appealing phrase of Françoise Dunand,247 a perfect example of polysemy in iconographic referents, is largely attested in sculpture and coins. These polysemic images, all mixed, that have for a long time been termed “syncretistic,” might have been perceived in different manners according to their context. It all depends on the criteria that determined the choice of motif, the actors who had ordered, fabricated or utilized it, the spectators who had looked upon it, and on the social network into which each monument was integrated within the contexts of production, diffusion and reception. The choice of images and representativity of the different types can vary greatly from one medium to another. The reasons for these imbalances are 242  A serpent (Agathodaimon?) rather than an uraeus. The sources concerning the cista mystica in Isiac context are not exceptional. Mentioned by Tibullus, Apuleius and Plutarch, the cista appears on reliefs, altars, sarcophagi, vessels, and finally on several mural paintings, as at Pompeii; Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 222–226; Heerma Van Voss 1979; Malaise 1985; Koemoth 2010. 243  Even if it is most likely a coincidence in terms of geography and chronology, one should mention an altar dedicated to Isis and decorated with images of Isis-Thermouthis, the crocodile god Sobek and Anubis, which was uncovered during the excavations of 1924–28 near the Porto Torres train station, site of the ancient Turris Libisonis, in Sardinia (SIRIS 521 = RICIS 519/0301). Malaise 1978, 670–673; Arslan 1997, 214–215 no. IV.194; Gavini 2014, 24–26. 244  On Renenet and Thermouthis, Broekhuis 1971, 105–141; Malaise 2005, 170–171; d’Ascoli 2015. 245  At Pompeii, ibises were present in the sanctuary of Isis, whether in the form of statues or depicted in the painted scenes decorating the temple. Tran tam Tinh 1964, 144 no. 48 with pl. VII.2 (painting), and 175 no. 145–146 (marble and bronze). They likewise appear in the Isiac frescoes of Herculaneum: Tran tam Tinh 1971, 83–86 with pl. XXVII–XXVIII. One also finds ibises in Nilotic landscapes, certain examples of which would have decorated Isiac cult sites, as was the case at Ostia’s Serapeum; De Vos 1980, 81–82 with fig. 39b; more generally Meyboom 1995, 250 n. 97–98, and 257 n. 122; Capriotti Vittozzi 1999, 113–115; Malaise 2005, 85–89. 246  On figureheads, see infra pp. 270–272. 247  Dunand 1999; Dunand 2013.

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to be sought in the connection that links these image-objects to the societies that produced them, to the agents who manipulated them, and to the uses they made of them. This is why Isis as the mistress of the marine world was most frequently represented on jewels and small bronze statuary, iconographic media more apt to satisfy an individualized relationship with the divine through the values she embodied than large marble statuary or coinage.

CHAPTER 4

The Names of Isis, Goddess of the Seas If the iconographic representations of Isis, goddess of the seas, are many, is that equally true of the names by which one could – or had to – refer to, invoke, and thank her? Did Isis have need, in the Greco-Roman world, for certain qualificatives with which to express her power over the sea, either in general or specficially? Names fundamentally constitute an organizing principle of the divine and each onomastic formula provides an opportunity for a particular understanding of a god, partial and complementary to the others. Viewed in relationship to one another, the names attributed to a single divine entity emphasize his power, abilities, and actions. Put in context, the divine names reflect the modalities of interaction instituted by their human interlocutors. Names are thus conveyers of meaning, which should not be a surprise – meanings that are in connection with the realities (geographical, temporal, social, political, etc.) in which they were written. Some of these realities become evident within a cult and, occasionally, interact with one or more images of the god, whereas others would appear, rather, as poetic creations lacking local roots.1 But to wish to establish strict boundaries between these different realities is significantly more delicate than it appears. Each situation must be contextualized before being employed in a more global analysis. Three examples taken from the cult of Isis, the “goddess of many names” (myrionymos), will be sufficient to show this.2 During the Greco-Roman period, Isis Tαποσειρίας/ Taposiris was the focus of a particular cult under this name in numerous parts of the Mediterranean basin – most notably, a priest of Isis Taposiris is known at Athens.3 In this context, the cult and rites that were practiced combine into a specific qualificative, of toponymic origin, which characterizes a singular aspect of the divine entity that was Isis as spouse mourning the death of Osiris, and into a particular iconography.4 The next example at first glance appears more poetic than cultic. In the first of his hymns inscribed at the temple of Isis Thermouthis at Narmouthis,5 in the Fayoum, a certain Isidorus ennumerated the diverse names under which Isis was venerated throughout the world, proof 1  Parker 2003; Parker 2017. 2  For the hundreds of qualificatives serving to designate Isis, whatever their nature, Bricault & Dionysopoulou 2016. 3  R ICIS 101/0216. 4  Bricault 1992; Bricault 2006, 78–82. 5  See supra p. 48.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_006

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to him of her great power. For the Hellenes, whose language he used, Isis was none other than Hera upon-a-great-throne (Ἕλληνες δ̕’ Ἥρην μεγαλόθρονον). Although this epithet is a hapax in Greek, a literary creation, it in fact represents a transcription of an epithet well known in Egyptian, ḥr ś.t wr.t, and one in later times common to numerous divinities there – among them Isis. In her great temple at Behbeit el-hagar, a certain Harsiêsis (c. 378–360 BCE) served as priest of Isis upon-a-great-throne.6 A third example is to be found in the use of name Inachis, “daughter of Inachos,” for Isis by certain Latin poets7 in their accounts of the myth of Io – Inachos’s daughter – having come to Egypt while evading Hera’s jealousy. Both names – “Isis” and “Io” – refer to the same deity at different stages in her life, Io, early on, in Greece, and Isis, later, in Egypt.8 Abundant in poetry, this name never appears to have been employed in a cultic context. What about the names of the goddess of the seas? After reading the works of certain modern scholars, one would be right to ask which name or names might properly have designated marine Isis in the ancient world, assuming that there was one.9 To choose but one example, the epithet associated in the numismatic catalogs and studies with the name of Isis that is used for describing her when she is shown on a coin holding a sail varies from one entry to another. Most often she is called Pharia, even in the absence of a lighthouse, and sometimes Pelagia, without clearly understanding the reason or reasons for one choice or the other – assuming that there actually had been one. It is therefore necessary to ignore such treatments by modern scholars and to look back to the ancients when posing several questions. In limiting oneself to Greek and Latin,10 which terms were used to evoke or invoke Isis in the context of her relation to the marine world? In the definition of the goddess’s multiple personalities and of her fields of action, in the expression of her prerogatives, and in the statement of her affinities with other divine puissances, which determining factors were priviliged by people? 6  Bricault 2009, 134–135. 7  But also, before them, Callim., Epigr. 57 (= AP 6. 150), to name just one; Bricault & Dionysopoulou 2016, 32–33, 74–75. 8  Gwyn Griffiths 1986; Veymiers 2011b, 111–113, with previous bibliography; Chance 2013. 9  The problem clearly appears, for example, when Vidman 1970, 86 writes that Isis is mistress of the sea “as their epithets Euploia, Pharia, and Pelagia attest, particularly on Delos,” or indeed when Vanderlip 1972, 81 n. 38, explains that “On Delos especially, Isis is Pelagia, Euploia and Pharia,” which is doubly inaccurate, since the three epithets do not all appear in the Delian sources and they certainly are not interchangeable. Bruneau saw this problem well, and attempted to resolve it in Bruneau 1974, 349–351. 10  For Egyptian, see supra pp. 16–18. I do not know texts written in other languages during Greco-Roman times that would concern Isis’s marine jurisdictions.

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Was the poetic lexicon identical with that of priests and worshipers? Were the epithets employed by one group also used by the other? Were literary epithets merged with epicleses in order to form only a single terminology, or was there a distinction made between the two?11 From among all the epigraphical, literary, numismatic and papyrological sources that assocate Isis with the marine world there emerge four principal epicleses – εὔπλοια, πελαγία / Pelagia, σώτειρα, and Φαρία / Pharia – and several epithets that almost all come from the same text, the litany of the P.Oxy. XI, 1380.12 4.1

Isis Eὔπλοια

Isis is called Eὔπλοια13 in three texts:14 two Delian dedications of Hellenistic date and the great Isiac litany of P.Oxy. XI, 1380.15 11  A good, useful definition of epicleses is found in Brûlé 1998, 17–20; Brûlé & Lebreton 2007, 218–221. 12  Bricault & Dionysopoulou 2016, 19 (εὔπλοια), 54 and 80 (πελαγία / Pelagia), 59 (σώτειρα), 63 and 80–81 (Φαρία / Pharia). 13  This epithet is more frequently associated with the name Aphrodite; Miranda 1989; Pugliese Carratelli 1992; Cusumano 2006, 29–30; Demetriou 2010, 74. The lexicon linked to Aphrodite’s marine prerogatives, moreover, is considerably richer and more extensive than that applied to Isis. As Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 433–437 has shown, the power of Aphrodite over the sea was linked to her celestial nature, which, in this specific area, distinguished her powers from those of Poseidon. One finds traces of the marine Venus, during the Imperial Period, as far as North Africa; Pflaum 1981. 14  Bricault & Dionysopoulou 2016, 19. 15  In an inscription from Alexandria (SB I 977 = I.Alex.Imp no. 83, with pl. 43; 15 February 14 CE), a certain Lucius Tonneius Anterôs made a vow for the successful sea voyage (εὐπλοίᾳ) of the ship Nικαστάρχτης. But nothing permits us to associate Isis with this wish with any certainty. Equally problematic is the case of a sarcophagus found at Ostia and bearing the inscription εὐπλοίᾳ. Certain scholars, such as Stuhlfauth 1938, 146–147 and Vidman 1969, 254, see in this an epiclesis of Isis, depending on the sarcophagus’s decor: two geniuses, one that of Ostia and the other that of Alexandria, are represented on it, as well as the head of a uraeus, which evokes both Egypt and Isis in her role as protectress of navigation. For Bruneau 1974, 336, it could pertain to a vow that was more general, and not necessarily linked to Isis; see infra pp. 191–192 for the presence of the same vow on boatshaped terracotta lamps. However, its presence on a sarcophagus poses a question: does it recall a life of crossings between Ostia and Alexandria, or rather call for divine protection of the voyage of the deceased in the afterlife? Several epitaphs are known in which the deceased is treated as a sailor permanently safe from shipwrecks. As written in Carcopino 1922, 225–227, in certain examples of these texts “Life is compared more or less explicitly with a crossing, the termination of which is the port where all travelers end up dropping anchor”; the same idea is to be found in Chapouthier 1935, 322.

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The first dedication, already mentioned before,16 is addressed to Isis-SaviorAstarte-Aphrodite, who ensures a successful sea voyage and who listens to prayers, as well as Eros-Harpocrates-Apollo. It was deposited at Sarapieion C as a thank-offering, without doubt a little after 140 BCE, by Andromachus, son of Phanomachus, in his own name and that of his wife and children. For Marie-Françoise Baslez,17 “this ‘Isis Euploia Epekoos’ is not one of the manifestations of the all-powerful divinity, mistress of the seas and inventor of the techniques necessary for sailing, as the Isiac aretalogies recall; the marine nature of the goddess is merely one aspect of her basic function as a goddess who ‘listens’ and protects. The emphasis is placed not on her being all-powerful, but on the divinity’s compassion.” A compassion which belongs to a specific context, that of the effective protection of Andromachus and his family. The recognition that he expresses by placing this dedication in the great, official sanctuary inhabited by the gens isiaca extends to a trio of female divinities18 (Isis, Astarte, Aphrodite) who, far from being confused with one another in some sort of syncretism, were all distinct powers associated through their common prerogatives and mastery of the marine world. In addressing himself to all of them, the dedicant multiplied his chances of being heard and, in turn, protected. A second Delian dedication (fig. 105), given by a certain Athenian named Isidorus, son of Isidorus, and placed in Sarapieion C in 104/3 or 92/1 BCE, proceeds from the same intentions.19 Ἰσίδωρος Ἰσι/δώρου Ἀθηναῖ/ος Ἴσιδι Εὐπλοίᾳ / ἐφ´ ἱερέως Ἀπολ//λοδώρου Κρωπί/δου, / ζακορεύοντος Νικίου. Isidorus, son of Isidorus, Athenian, to Isis who ensures a successful sea voyage (euploia), during the priesthood of Apollodôros (of the deme) of Cropides, Nicias being zakoros. This very pragmatic, very human aspect of the relations maintained between sailors – as well as others – and Isis in her various areas of activity, naturally

16  See supra pp. 21 and 84. CE 194 = ID 2132 = RICIS 202/0365. Ἴσιδι Σωτείραι Ἀστάρτει Ἀφροδίτηι εὐπλοίαι ἐπ[ηκόωι] / καὶ Ἔρωτι Ἁρφοκράτει Ἀπόλλωνι Ἀνδρόμαχος Φανομάχου / [ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ] καὶ γυναικὸς καὶ τέκνων χαριστήριον. 17  Baslez 1977, 62. 18  Three masculine divinities are in turn addressed (Eros, Harpocrates and Apollo). 19   C E 147 = ID 2153 = RICIS 202/0329. The last line, which mentions the zakoros, is inscribed on a socle that is independent of the base.

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Figure 105 Statue base. Delos (104/3 or 92/1 BCE)

strays from the highly theoretical image of the goddess transmitted by the Aretalogy. The Oxyrhynchus litany provides the third occurrence of the epiclesis, which would have been borne by Isis at Gaza, according to the author (or authors) of the text:20 ἐν / Γάζῃ εὐπ[λ]έαν. The unusual form εὔπλεα undoubtedly was nothing more than an auditory corruption of the epithet εὔπλοια, one of many in the text of this litany.21 That such an epithet was attributed to Isis in a city like Gaza, celebrated for its port of Maïouma, should not be astonishing. The patron god of the place was Marnas,22 who is known to have assumed, among others, the role of protector of maritime commerce, as patron of the Gazan merchants established at Ostia.23 This being the case, the place of Isis in the city remains quite obscure at the moment.24 20  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 98–99. 21   I G V, 1, 1551 for the form Διόσκoυρoι εὔπλειαν. 22  Mussies 1990, 2447–2449; Belayche 2004; Belayche 2009, 180–183. 23   I G XIV 926 and 1043. 24  I do not agree with Chuvin (1990, 210–211) when he suggests that the female divinity who was shown beside the theos patrios of Gaza on the city’s coinage may well have been

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Isis πελαγία

The epiclesis Πελαγία/Pelagia affixed to Isis’s name was hardly more common.25 It is known from three occurrences in Greek and two (or perhaps even three) in Latin, in documents ranging from the 1st cent. BCE to the 2nd cent. CE.26 The oldest attestation appeared on a dedication inscribed on a column, previously seen at Mytilene but now lost:27 Ὀκταυία Μάρκου / θυγάτηρ / Εἴσιδι Πελαγίᾳ / εὐακόῳ. Octavia, daughter of Marcus, for Isis Pelagia, who listens well to prayers. This is paleographically dated to the 1st cent. BCE, though without certainty. The dedicant addresses herself to marine Isis, the goddess capable of granting prayers. In the present situation, this last part could only pertain to a sea crossing.

Io(-Isis?), mistress of navigation. This is in fact Artemis, present beside Marnas in a distyle temple on civic coin issues beginning with Hadrian in Year 192 of the city era (RPC III 4023; Year 192 = 131/2 CE). 25  Πελαγία is also used for Aphrodite (Artem. 2. 37), but as a literary epithet and not a cult title as for Isis. It should be noted that if Isis shares with Aphrodite certain epithets or epicleses (Euploia, Pelagia) she never had attributed to her the qualificatives of Pontia or Limenia, which would designate Aphrodite at Hermione in the Argolid, for example (on which see Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 186–188). 26  Bricault & Dionysopoulou, 54 and 80. 27   I G XII 2, 113 (according to Ansse de Villoison) = SIRIS 259 = RICIS 205/0302. Ansse de Villoison 1809, 306, had seen the inscription at Mytilene and, in giving its text, written the following: “I found one of the same in the courtyard of a house at Corinth.” It is possible to understand from this that he had seen a dedication at Corinth that was in every way identical with the one at Mytilene. This is the situation that L. Vidman proposed in his SIRIS, under no. 34, presenting a second inscription, this time Corinthian, with the same text as that of Mytilene. Bruneau 1974, 337, considered as suspect the existence of a second dedication at Corinth “with the same rare adjective εὐακόος.” This argument is pertinent even if it cannot be considered decisive. In effect, nothing prevented Octavia, daughter of Marcus, from depositing in two different places – a port of embarcation, port of call, or port of destination – dedications bearing the same text, even if it contained an adjective that was not in common use. However, I strongly doubt that Ansse de Villoison was able to see, in two different places, two identical dedications. Perhaps he had seen at Corinth an inscription simply mentioning Isis Pelagia? Or, perhaps he also had had the text of Pausanias in his hand? None of this is clear. See the remarks of Smith 1977, 216–217. For this reason, I have not retained the “dédicace corinthienne” in RICIS. For Aphrodite εὐακόος, Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 292.

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The second document likewise comes from the eastern Aegean. A marble altar found in 1948 at Iasos in Caria – as well as incense burners, which were not discovered28 – was consecrated to Anubis and Isis Pelagia, along with Isis Boubastis, by a man and his wife during the Imperial Period:29 Γάϊος Κανίνιος [Συν/α]λλάσσων μετ[ὰ Κα]/νινίας Στρατο[ῦς τῆς] / ἰδίας συμβίου [τὸν] // βωμὸν μετὰ τῶν [περὶ] / αὐτὸν θυμιατη[ρίων / Ἀ]νούβιδι καὶ Ἴσι[δι Πε/λ]αγίᾳ καὶ Ἴσιδι Βου[βάστει / ἐκ] τῶν ἰδίων ἀνέ[θηκεν]. Gaius Caninius Synallasson, with Caninia, daughter of Stratus, his spouse, consecrated at his own expense this altar along with the censers around it to Anubis, Isis Pelagia, and Isis Boubastis. The restoration of the name Boubastis is sufficiently convincing to have been retained by all commentators, despite the absence of six out of nine letters. The conjoined presence in a single dedication of Isis Pelagia and Isis Boubastis – two aspects of Isis a priori distant from each other – is quite interesting. Boubastis, i.e. the Egyptian goddess Bastet, sometimes considered the mother of Horus,30 had progressively been integrated into the Osirian myth thanks to subtle theological constructions. Mistress of joy and dancing, protectress of maternity, in Egypt she had woven direct links between Hathor and Isis.31 Outside of Egypt, she seems to have found a place in the Isiac micro-pantheon, either by being associated with or assimilated to Isis, or by preserving a certain degree of autonomy.32 Her role of protectress of young women, women in labor and children drew to her numerous worshipers. Here, the joint presence of Isis Pelagia and Isis Boubastis perhaps becomes clearer if one remembers that in Egypt Isis, Lady of the North Wind, had the capacity both to unleash (or calm) storms and to give breath to those giving birth, like Hathor.33 It is without doubt this goddess with the two different facets who is involved here, probably because Caninia was expecting a child. The presence of the hegêmon Anubis – and the

28  A cavity on the upper part and a slot undoubtedly could have been used for the installation of a censer. 29  Robert 1957 = SEG XVIII (1962) 449 = SIRIS 274 = I.Iasos no. 281 = RICIS 305/1402. Gaius Caninius Synallasson likewise appears in a long decree from Iasos voting him honors (Reinach 1893, no. 3 = I.Iasos, no. 248). 30  Spiegelberg 1904, 77. 31  Quaegebeur 1991. 32  Malaise 2005, 51–59; Bricault 2013a, 62–65. 33  Supra pp. 14–15.

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absence of Sarapis, who had no potential role to play in such circumstances – can thus be more easily explained. A civic coin issue from Iasos of the Isis-with-a-sail type, in the name of and bearing the image of Lucius Verus,34 could attest to the existence of a cult in honor of Isis Pelagia there.35 Several scholars have sought to identify, among the multiple unidentified buildings at the site, which structure or complex was able to accommodate the Isiac family, if there was only one. The two principal hypotheses, however, remain tentative and not very convincing, the more recent even less so than the first.36 The third attestation, likewise in Greek, is provided by Pausanias, with respect to the sacred space which he encountered on the road at Acrocorinth:37 ἐς δὴ τὸν Ἀκροκόρινθον τοῦτον ἀνιοῦσίν ἐστιν Ἴσιδος τεμένη, ὧν τὴν μὲν Πελαγίαν, τὴν δὲ Αἰγυπτίαν αὐτῶν ἐπονομάζουσιν, καὶ δύο Σαράπιδος, ἐν Κανώβῳ καλουμένου τὸ ἕτερον. On ascending towards Acrocorinth, there are two sacred precincts of Isis, with her being called Pelagia in one and Aigyptia in the other, and two of Sarapis, honored in one under the name (of Sarapis) of Canopus. As at Iasos, there are two different forms of Isis mentioned here by Pausanias, which unfortunately he does not explicate,38 distinguished from each other by two types of adjectival toponyms that convey two distinct spheres of intervention, if not areas of action. The two are both associated with spaces, the one maritime (Pelagia) and the other terrestrial (Aigyptia), and the former profoundly Hellenic, as has been seen, whereas the other looked back to the goddess’s land of origin – recalling in the Greek mind the foreign nature of the goddess and, perhaps, of the cult celebrated for her here. It is also probable that there were distinct iconographies accompanying these two epicleses in

34  Weiser 1985, 180; SNRIS Iasus 4. 35  Three inscriptions from Iasos (RICIS 305/1401–1403) and at least a dozen coin issues (SNRIS Iasos 1–8 and SNRIS Suppl. I, 259) concern the Isiac divinities. The inscription RICIS 305/1403, quite damaged, mentions a neokoros of the name Menecrates, son of Menecrates, of Alexandria. 36  Delrieux 2004; Baldoni 2014. 37   Paus. 2. 4. 6. 38  On the use of epicleses by Pausanias, Pirenne-Delforge 2008, 263–271; on the Isiac cults at Corinth, Smith 1977; Veymiers 2014d.

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Figure 106 Epitaph. Rome (End of the 1st cent. CE)

the two Corinthian precincts.39 As Élodie Matricon-Thomas has emphasized quite well regarding the figures of Isis in Attica,40 the simultaneous and evolutive presence of images – artistic or textual – of the goddess in Greece beginning in the 2nd cent. BCE permitted a personality that was already quite well-defined to be further enriched by adapting it to the demands and needs of the local populations while at the same time preserving, or even reviving, the less Greek of Isis’s traits. The most ancient Latin example comes from Rome, where a funerary inscription (fig. 106) from the end of the 1st cent. CE41 mentions an aedituus having served Isis Pelagia,42 indicating that the goddess possessed a cultic place – a temple or a shrine – there under this aspect:43 Dis Manibus sac(rum). / Ser. Sulpicio Aug(usti) l(iberto) / Alcimo, aedituo / ab (sic) Isem Pelagiam. / Vix(it) an(nos) XXXVII, aeditu / avit an(nos) X. Fecit uxor / Ventria Aprodisia / vir(o) bene merent(i) mul(ier) / infelicissuma et sibi suis / l(ibertis) l(ibertabus) p(osterisque) eor(um). Consecrated to the divine Manes. To Servius Sulpicius Alcimus, imperial freedman, (temple) custodian of Isis Pelagia. He lived 37 years and served 39  See infra pp. 171–172. 40   Matricon-Thomas 2012. 41  Servius Sulpicius was a freedman of Galba, thus establishing the date. 42  C IL VI 8707 = ILS 4421 = SIRIS 396 = RICIS 501/0132. 43  See infra p. 171.

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as custodian for 10 years. His spouse Ventria Aprodisia, a most unfortunate woman, had (this monument) built for her husband, who was well deserving of it, and for herself as well as for their freedmen and freedwomen and their descendants. From Saguntum, in Tarraconensis, there comes a dedication to Isis Pelagia (fig. 107), inscribed on a limestone altar of which only the left part survives, and which was made by a Roman citizen.44 It is dated to the end of the first or beginning of the 2nd cent. CE. L. Val(erius) Fi[dus (?)] / Isid[i] / Pelag[iae] / v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) [m(erito)]. Lucius Valerius Fi[dus?], to Isis Pelagia, fulfilled his vow, freely and deservedly.

Figure 107 Altar. Saguntum (End 1st-early 2nd cent. CE)

44  P. Beltrán, NAH 3–4 (1954–1955), 164; A. García, AEspA 33 (1960), 192 n. 32 = AE 1962, 78 = García y Bellido 1967, 111 no. 5 = SIRIS 764 = ILER 355 = Beltrán Lloris 1980, 20 no. 5 with pl. II = CIL II2 14,1 (1995) 295 with pl. 6,1 = RICIS 603/0401. L. 2–3 Isid(orus) / Pelag … Beltrán 1954–55, Isid[i] / Pelag[iae] García 1960 and all following editors.

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Figure 108

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Dedication. Rome (1 CE)

If the restoration of Pelagia seems unquestionable in the Spanish inscription, it is much more hypothetical in another inscription from Rome, dated to the year 1 CE (fig. 108):45

45  C IL VI 30975 (Hülsen) = ILS 3090 = Cavallaro 1975–1976 = AE 1981, 76 = Palmer 1990 = AE 1991, 278 = RICIS 501/0137; Gasparri & Paris 2013, 82 no. 38 : l. 5–7 Fortuna[e, Matri] / [Mag]nae, Opi, Isi, Pi[etas, ---], / [---] Fatiis d[ivinis] Hülsen; Fortuna[e, ---] / [---]nae, Opi, Isi, Pi[etatis, ---], / [---] Fatiis d[ivinis] Cavallaro. In associationg this dedication with CIL VI 31073, Palmer 1990 proposes a certain number of restorations which I reproduce here while including a question mark with each. According to him, this group of divinities evokes the group associated with the Saecular Games of 17 BCE, to which he would add the Isiac gods worshiped in the Campus Martius. For the date of this document, Fraschetti 2008.

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Mercurio / aeterno deo, / I[ovi, I]unoni regin(ae), Min[ervae, / So]li, Lunae, Apol[lini, / Dia]nae, Fortuna[e, / Iunoni (?) Luci]nae, Opi, Isi Pe[lagiae (?), / Sarapi (?)], Fatiis d[ivinis. / Quod bo]num [ faustum feli]xque [sit]. / Imp(eratori) Caesari Augus[to, Genio (?)] / eius, senati populi[que Romani] / et gentibus, nono [anno] / introeunte felic[iter] / C. Caesare L. Pau[llo co(n)s(ulibus)] / L. Lucretius L(ucii) l(ibertus) Zethus / iussu Iovis aram Augustam / posuit. Salus Semonia, populi Victoria. To (Mercury)46 the eternal god Jupiter, Juno the queen, Minerva, Sol, Luna, Apollo, Diana, Fortuna, [Juno(?)] Lucina, Ops, Isis Pe[lagia(?), Sarapis(?)], and the divine Parcae. That it be good, favorable and fortunate. To the emperor Caesar Augustus, his [Genius(?)] and that of the Senate and Roman people, and to the other peoples, at the fortunate commencement of the ninth year (from the institution of the magistri of the vicus), with Gaius Caesar and Lucius Paullus being consuls. Lucius Lucretius Zethus, freedman of Lucius, at the command of Jupiter made an offering of this august altar. Salus Semonia, victory of the People. The restorations of the epiclesis Pelagia and Sarapis’s name, highly hypothetical, do not invite one to engage further with this document, which is quite interesting in other ways. 4.3

Isis σώτειρα

Several inscriptions and the litany preserved on the Oxyrhynchus papyrus attribute to Isis the epithet σώτειρα.47 If certain occurrences are clearly outside of a maritime context,48 one is unquestionably to be associated with the protection given to sailors by Isis, and three others may have been. I have already evoked the Delian dedication Ἴσιδι Σωτείραι Ἀστάρτει Ἀφροδίτηι εὐπλοίαι ἐπ[ηκόωι], in which σώτειρα undoubtedly pertains to her role as protectress 46  “Mercury” as well as the “Salus Semonia, populi Victoria” at the end were all added later. 47  Bricault & Dionysopoulou, 59. Several studies have been consecrated, in part or in whole, to this aspect of Isis: see, among others, Haerens 1948; Bleeker 1963; Tarrant 1988; Sfameni Gasparro 1999; Sfameni Gasparro 2007. 48  Inscriptions RICIS 202/0170 (Delos) and 402/0601 (Libo, Syria), and P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 91–92. According to this last document, she bore this epithet at the caravan city of Petra, undoubtedly outside of all maritime context. Sôteira serves to qualify a large number of goddesses, including, notably, Artemis, Athena, Hecate, Hygieia, Kore and Tyche; see Graf 2017, based on an epigraphical – but rather incomplete – catalogue of sources.

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Figures 109a–b

159

Rock crystal

of navigators.49 According to the Oxyrhynchus litany, Isis would have had this epithet at Naucratis, a city in Egypt’s Delta region whose links to the Mediterranean Sea were essential to its very existence.50 It is for this reason tempting to consider that the savior aspect of the goddess at this place may have concerned the milieu of sailors. The same may be true of a short dedication from Rhodes which a metic, Hippon of Cnidus, during the 1st cent. BCE gave as a thank-offering to “Isis who saves,”51 as well as another dedication of the same period, this time from Cos, in which a neokoros named Glaukias addressed himself, at the goddess’s command, to “Isis who saves.”52 To these epigraphical attestations I would add a rock crystal, preserved at the British Museum, that has long been known (fig. 109).53 On one side is engraved an anchor and on the other a collection of iconographic symbols – a basileion, an ear of what, a winged caduceus, two stars, a lunar crescent – which all point to Isis’s character of savior, health-giver and protectress both on land and sea. It appears clear that in certain cases the complex figure of Isis σώτειρα more specifically embodies her aspects as a divine protectress of sailors, including her tendency to listen to their prayers in order to grant them, thus uniting

49   C E 194 = ID 2132 = RICIS 202/0365. See supra pp. 21, 40, and 150. 50  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 20. See supra pp. 22–23 for Aphrodite and Isis at Naucratis. 51  Maiuri 1925, no. 17 = SIRIS 179 = RICIS 204/0108: Ἵππων Κνίδιος / μέτοικος / Ἴσ[ει] Σωτείραι / χαριστήριον. 52  Maiuri 1925, no. 449 = SIRIS 247 = I.Cos EV 149 = RICIS 204/1004: Γλαυκίας / νεωκόρος / Ἴσι Σωτείρᾳ / [κ]ατὰ πρόσταγμα. 53   B M 1814.0704.1477 = Cat. Gem 2627 (anc. coll. Charles Townley).

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her epicleses εὔπλοια / πελαγία and the epithets ἐπήκοος / εὐάκοος that would often be attributed to her. If εὔπλοια seems to concern more specifically the successful navigation of a ship, πελαγία undoubtedly offers a broader spectrum of interventions, placing the goddess within the full range of her powers over the marine elements. The connection established several times between these epicleses and the adjectives ἐπήκοος or εὐάκοος confirms the strength of the personal relation that was established between the devotee, either in danger or at risk of being in danger, and the divinity54 who offers an attentive and helpful ear to his situation.55 4.4

Isis Φαρία

Much more frequent is the epithet Φαρία/Pharia, attested for Isis in literary (since the end of the 1st cent. BCE), epigraphical (during the 2nd cent. CE) and numismatic sources (in the 4th cent. CE).56 Tibullus, the first of those, evokes the “crowd of celebrants at Pharos,”57 while Ovid,58 followed by Martial59 and Statius,60 refers to the iuvenca Pharia, the heifer of Pharos, which is none other than Isis-Io.61 The latter poet, apropos of Io’s arrival on Egyptian soil, writes that “now, [she is] queen of Pharos.”62 This toponym is merely a substitute for the word “Egypt,” as is proven by its 54  Whichever it is. E.g., at Delos, one knows dedications to different theoi soteres, the Dioscuri (ID 2401), Herakles (ID 2433), the gods of Ascalon (ID 2305), etc. 55  Baslez 1977, 132, which attributes to this duality a Semitic origin, as ἐπήκοος was most often conferred upon Isis by individuals originating along the Syro-Palestinian coast. It is, however, permitted to doubt this “Semitic specificity”: the ancient Egyptians had always insisted on their divinities’ propensity to listen, to the point that the epiclesis “the one who hears all” eventually turned into a divine entity, Sedjemet-nebet (Wagner & Quaegebeur 1973). Bonnet 2015, 506–508 likewise questions this as a Semitic characteristic. See also infra pp. 163–164. 56  Calderini 1935, 161; Fraser 1972, I, 20–21, and II 54–56 n. 125–128; Bricault 2005, 445–446. Bricault & Dionysopoulou 2016, 63 and 80–81. I am unaware of a papyrological occurrence of this epithet. Isis is the only one to bear this toponymic and functional epiclesis, with the exception of Ceres, referred to as Pharia by Tert. Apol. 16. It is, however, probable that it was Isis, as both mistress of vegetation and patronness of the Annona, who was hidden behind this theonym; see infra pp. 164–167. 57   T ib. 1. 3. 32. 58   O v. Ars am. 3. 635; Ov. Fast. 5. 619. Also Ov. Pont. 1. 1. 38. 59   M art. 10. 48. 60   S tat. Theb. 1. 254. 61  The same is true of its appearance in Euseb. Chronica, apud Sync. 237. 6–9 (Schoene). 62   S tat. Silv. 3. 2. 102.

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other appearances in Statius’s oeuvre.63 In Ovid, Pharos clearly designates Alexandria by metonymy,64 as well as in the verse of Tibullus quoted above and in Apuleius.65 If there is ambiguity, it only concerns knowing if “Pharos” in Latin designated only Alexandria or rather the whole of Egypt. The same doubt arises with regard to the passage from Porphyry cited by Eusebius of Caesarea, which evokes, among other divinities, Isis of Pharos,66 as well as for the secondhand citation (in indirect discourse) that Minucius Felix made from Euhemerus.67 It is probably the same for the last two literary attestations of this epiclesis, in Tertullian68 and the Carmen in paganos.69 None of these texts itself justifies the frequent comment that Pharos was an important center of the cult of Isis, where the goddess had had a famous sanctuary. In fact, three hypotheses offer themselves to us: 1) Isis Pharia had a temple at Alexandria, on the island of Pharos or elsewhere: this remains to be demonstrated. 2) Isis had a temple on the island of Pharos, which could have given her the qualifier Pharia: this is possible, but there is no definitive written or archaeological source that enables us to confirm this. 3) Isis had a temple at Alexandria, and it was her literary assimilation with Io that enabled her to be qualified by metonymy as Pharia (i.e., “Alexandrian” or “Egyptian”): this stands out clearly from the sources; to go further would involve extrapolation. The presence of Pharia in several epigraphical documents introduces important elements. In the funerary poem of the Epicurean Agricola, originally from Tivoli but entombed at Rome, he evokes the memory of his wife Primitiva Flavia, a devotee of Pharos’s goddess (cultrix deae Phariae), i.e. Isis. The inscription might date to the middle of the 3rd cent. CE. Here again the expression must be understood as a stylistic periphrasis designating Isis as an Egyptian 63   S tat. Silv. 3. 2. 112; 5. 3. 244. 64   O v. Am. 2. 13. 9 recalls that Isis posseses sanctuaries at Paraetonium, Canopus, Memphis and Pharos. The absence of Alexandria in this verse clearly indicates that the city is hidden by metonymy under the name of its most famous monument as would have been recognized by a Greek or a Roman; the same approach is found at Ov. Met. 9. 773–774. See likewise the remarks of Ramírez de Verger 1988, 87–89. 65   O v. Met. 2. 28. 66   P orph. De philosophia ex oraculis haurienda (p. 123–124 [v. 46] Wolff = fgt 309F Smith p. 358) apud Euseb. Praep. evang. 5. 7. 5. 67   M in. Fel. 21. 1. Isis, a divinized human, is here placed at the same level as Jupiter of Dicte or Delphic Apollo. 68   T ert. Apol. 16 (197 CE.). Here it is a question of Pallas Attica and Ceres Pharia rather than Attic Minerva and Isis Pharia. 69  Carmen IV, 99 = Anth. Lat. I, 1 p. 13 sqq. (end 4th-beginning 5th cent. CE).

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goddess, rather than as an indication of the existence of a sanctuary of Isis Pharia at Rome with which the deceased would have been affiliated.70 In two painted proskynema texts from Upper Egypt and Nubia, datable to the end of the 2nd cent. CE, the pilgrims indicated that they had been raised close to Isis Pharia. The first is painted on the western wall of the Gate of Hadrian at Philae:71 Ἶσιν τὴν ἐν Φίλαις προσκυνήσας τις εὐτυχεῖ, / οὐχ ὅτι μόνον πλουτεῖ, πολυζῳεῖ δ’ ἅμα τούτῳ· / τραφεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ πὰρ Φαρίᾳ Ἴσιδι ἐνθάδε ἱκόμην, /– εἰμὶ δ’ ἐγὼ Σερηνός, βοηθὸς ἀγακλυτοῦ Πτολεμαίου – / ὁμοῦ σὺν Φήλικι καὶ Ἀπολλωνίῳ ζωγράφῳ, / χρησμοῖς Ἀπόλλωνος ἀνικήτοιο ἄνακτος, / σπονδῶν καὶ θυσιῶν ἕνεκα ἐνθάδ’ ἱκόντες, / δεόμενοι καὶ τούτων μετασχεῖν· πρέπον γὰρ ἦν· / οὐδένα μῶμον εὑρήσεις. He who made adoration towards Isis of Philae is fortunate, not only because he becomes rich, but because at the same time he obtains a long life. I, who was raised close to Isis Pharia, have come here – I am Serenus, assistant to the illustrious Ptolemaios – in the company of Felix and Apollônios the painter; prompted by oracles of Apollo, invincible lord, it is for the sake of libations and sacrifices that we have come here, desirous of participating in these. One will find nothing blameworthy. 70  C IL VI 17985a = Bücheler, CLE 856 = SIRIS 451 = Malaise 1972a, 127–128 Roma 51 = Sabbadini 1975, 71–72 = RICIS 501/0177. The inscription, engraved on a marble sarcophagus that may date to the 3rd cent. CE and found in 1626 beneath the basilica of St. Peter, today appears to be lost: Tibur mihi patria, Agricola sum vocitatus, / Flavius idem, ego sum discumbens, ut me videtis. / Sic et aput (sic) superos annis, quibus fata dedere, / animulam colui nec defuit umqua (sic) Lyaeus. // Praecessitque prior Primitiva, gratissima coniuncxs, / Flavia, et ipsa cultrix deae Phariae casta / sedulaque et forma decore repleta, / cum qua ter denos dulcissimos egerim annos. / Solaciumque sui generis Aurelium Primitivum // tradidit, qui pietate sua coleret fastigia nostra, / hospitiumque mihi secura servavit in aevum. / Amici, qui legitis, moneo, myscete Lyaeum / et potate procul redimiti tempora flore / et Venereos coitus formosis ne denegate puellis: // cetera post obitum terra consumit et ignis. (“Tivoli is my fatherland. My name is Agricola, and also Flavius; I am lying here, as you see me. It is thus as well among the people above, during the years that the Fates had granted me, I have cultivated my soul and never has Lyaeus failed me. Primitiva has gone before me, my most charming spouse, herself a devotee of the Pharian goddess (i.e., Isis) at once chaste and attentive, endowed with the ornament of beauty, in whose company I had spent thirty years most sweet. As a consolation, she left me Aurelius Primitivus, so that he would maintain our burials out of his sense of piety, and peacefully preserved for me a place for eternity. Friends, you who read this, I counsel you, mix and drink Lyaeus far from here, your temples wreathed with flowers, and do not refuse the embraces of Venus with beautiful girls. All the rest, after one’s demise the earth and fire consume.”) Sabbadini provides a quite singular Pharidis instead of the reading of Phariae in CIL. 71  I.Philae II, no. 168 (25 March 191 CE).

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The second is painted on the epistyle of the temple of Isis at Hieraskyaminos:72 τ προσκύνημα τῆς κυρίας Βρουττίας Φαρίας / καὶ τοῦ τέκνου αὐτῆς Ἰούνκου – μεγίστη δόξα διὰ βίου – / καὶ ὁμοίως τοῦ τέκνου αὐτῆς Μαρκέλλου – ἡ λαμπρὰ ἀξία – / καὶ ὁμοίως Μαξιμίωνος τέκνου – πάσης τῆς παιδείας δόγμα – // καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῶν Μαξίμου – δεξιὸς ἀνὴρ ἀεὶ δόκιμος παιδεία̣ – / καὶ Ἀρέας Σεραπιάδος καὶ Σωστράτου – ἡλίου ἐπίτευγμα / καὶ Βρουττίου Βρουτταρᾶτος, ὃν ἀγαπᾷ ἠ Φαρία Ἶσις – / ὅλης συνγενείας τῆς ἀβασκάντου, ἀνδρεῖος νεανίας / Μάξιμος ἔγραψα. The proskynema of the mistress Bruttia Pharia and her child Iuncus – the greatest glory of her life – as well as her child Marcellus – the splendid dignity – and also the child Maximion – the reputation of all education – and her father Maximus – a right man, always of respected education – and Area Serapias and Sostratus – the sunny achievement – and of Bruttius, the son of Bruttaras, whom Isis Pharia loves – for the protection of the whole kinship, I, Maximus, a brave young man, wrote this. Here, too, it is permitted to hesitate. Is one to understand that they grew up in proximity to a sanctuary of Isis Pharia – Isis of Pharos – or, more simply, in this way that they are showing their Alexandrian origin? In the latter case, Isis Pharia would designate once more Isis of Alexandria, without greater specificity.73 Another inscription, of Imperial date, on a base decorated on one side with a relief representing Sarapis-Agathodaimon and on the other Isis-Thermouthis, which was rediscovered on a small island in Lake Mareotis, features a dedication to the very great goddess Isis epekoos Pharia:74 θεᾷ μεγίστῃ / Εἴσιδι ἐπηκ[όῳ] Φ̣ α̣ρ[̣ ίᾳ] / εὐξάμενος / σὺν τῇ γυναικὶ // καὶ τοῖς τέκνοι[ς] / ἀνέθηκα ἐπ’ ἀγαθ[ῷ] / Διόσκορος Πε/τησωτη ε̣λαφθου̣(?). 72  C IG III 5119 = SB V 8542. 73  Jördens 2013b, 302–303. 74  S. de Ricci, APF II (1903), 566 no. 123 = Breccia 1911, no. 103. The restoration of the final two epithets of Isis poses a problem. According to the text’s editors, the stone has the letters EΠIK ΦΑΡ, which Seymour de Ricci interpreted as ἐπικ[όῳ] Φαρίᾳ (read ἐπηκ[όῳ ?] Φαρίᾳ) and Breccia as ἐπικ(αλουμένῃ) Φ̣ α̣ρ[̣ ίᾳ]. I have been unable to see the stone at the Alexandria National Museum (inv. no. 3609), but one can undoubtedly envisage some ligatures, among them at least one between the H and K of EΠΗΚΟΩ. See the remarks of Bernand 1991, 57, and supra pp. 158–160 on the direct links unifying the marine epithets of Isis and the qualifier ἐπήκοος.

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To the thrice great goddess Isis who-hears-suppliants Pharia, having made a vow, I Dioskoros son of Petesôte, have consecrated this for the good, with my wife and children. Unfortunately, the dedication is damaged and the proposed readings do not reveal the epithet Pharia’s intended sense, if it is even right to restore it in this text. There are additional epigraphical documents that permit us to move forward, such as a dedication for the health of an Antonine emperor,75 which is certain to have originated at Portus (fig. 110):76 Εἴσιδι Φαρίᾳ / Εἶσιν τὴν ἐν Μενουθὶ / ὑπὲρ σωτηρίας / τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν // αὐτοκράτορος / Ἀντωνείνου / [ὁ δεῖνα ἀνέθηκε]. To Isis Pharia [so-and-so has dedicated] (this statue) of Isis of Menouthis for the health of our sovereign, the emperor Antoninus. The connections between Portus and Alexandria were quite direct following the new harbor having been put into service by Trajan. Its frequenting by Alexandrians was significant, as is demonstrated by numerous Greek inscriptions that have been found at the site, undoubtedly with many more yet to be excavated.77 The presence of Isis should not be a surprise in this context, no more than that of Sarapis.78 It is likely that the statue dedicated there was erected in a cult site. The conjoined presence of the two forms of Isis indicated by its inscription is of interest in more ways than one. Isis of Menouthis, a healing and oracular goddess who possessed a well-frequented temple at this

75  There have always been divergent opinions, regarding the identity of this emperor: Antoninus, Commodus, or Caracalla? 76  Gruter 1602, pl. 85 no. 1 (inscription found in a house at Rome and sold in 1843 to Parma’s Ducale Museo d’Antichità) = Letronne 1842, 434–437 no. XLV, which was considered, based on its content, as originally from Alexandria or its vicinity, information subsequently repeated by Franz (CIG III 4683b; he mentions the Roman origin of the stone in the Addenda at p. 1186), Dittenberger (OGIS II, 706) and Kiessling (SB V 8282) = IG XIV 1005 (Kaibel, who privileged the Roman origin) = SIRIS 403 = Moretti 1964, 198–201 no. 4 fig. 3, who attributes this text to Portus (followed by Malaise 1972a, 93 Portus Ostiae 14) = I.Delta I, 296–299 (ph.) = I.Porto 9 = RICIS 503/1204. 77  See I.Porto. 78  On the Isiac cults at Ostia, Floriani Squarciapino 1962, 19–36; Mar et al. 2001; Cajot 2018. A number of inscriptions from Ostia and Portus concern the gens isiaca; RICIS 503/1101–1134 (Ostia) and 503/1201–1223 (Portus). But there are also numerous inedita from both Portus and Ostia.

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Figure 110 Dedication. Portus (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

coastal town located between Canopus and Alexandria,79 is here distinguished from Isis Pharia, who must in this case designate another Isis, both in her form and her very nature. It is difficult not to recognize Isis of Alexandria behind the name Isis Pharia,80 an Isis functioning as protectress of sailors to the extent that a lighthouse protects those who voyage upon the sea from great dangers.81 79  On this temple, Epiph. De fid. 12. 1–12. 4. On Menouthis, I.Delta I, 296–299 collects the ancient sources. See also SIRIS 556a (= I.Porto 18 = RICIS 503/1212) for a second dedication of a statue of Isis of Menouthis, likewise from Portus. On Isis of Menouthis, Winand 1994; Bricault 2014a; Renberg 2017, 369–377. 80  I do not share either the conclusion or underlying arguments of Castiglione 1970, according to which whom an Alexandrian Isis Pharia would have corresponded to Sarapis/Osiris of Canopus, based on the notion that, in an Hellenistic version, it was from Alexandria that Isis would have embarked upon the sea in search of her husband, setting out from a sanctuary that this scholar assumes had existed on the island of Pharos. The companion of Sarapis of Canopus, if there indeed was a companion, would most likely be Isis of Menouthis, as several Alexandrian coin issues attest. See now Laporte & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming). 81  Malaise 2005, 148.

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The same conclusions can be drawn from the examination of a Latin inscription discovered on Crete at Phoenix (modern Loutro) that has been dated to the reign of Trajan.82 Iovi Soli optimo maximo / Sarapidi et omnibus diis et / imperatori Caesari Nervae / Traiano Aug(usto) Germanico Dacico n(ostro) // Epictetus libertus tabellarius, / curam agente operis Dionysio Sostra/ti filio Alexandrino, gubernatore / navis parasemo Isopharia T. Cl(audii) Theonis. To Jupiter Sun Best and Greatest Sarapis and to all the gods and to our Emperor Caesar Nerva Trajan Augustus Germanicus Dacicus, Epictetus, (imperial) freedman, courier,83 (dedicated this) with Dionysius, son of Sostratus, Alexandrian, acting as intermediary, the commander of the ship bearing Isis Pharia as a device (and) belonging to Titus Claudius Theon. As the ship’s ensign leads us to believe,84 Titus Claudius Theon, the owner of the Isopharia, must himself also have been an Alexandrian. A man bearing the same name is known from two papyri as μισθωτής85 and conductor86 of the estate of Lucius Annaeus Seneca located in the Oxyrhynchite nome, which was an imperial possession. The second papyrus designates him as a former gymnasiarchos and agoranomos of Alexandria. In spite of the commonness of the names, the owner of the Isopharia and this Alexandrian magistrate could have been the same person, though they are more likely to have been father and son.87 One might suppose that the ship made a stopover at Phoenix, located on the southern coast of Crete, along the route that it followed between Alexandria and Italy.88 Regrettably, the nature of the cargo cannot be determined solely on the basis of this dedication.89 82  C IL III 3 = ILS 4395 = I.Cret. II XX, 7 (p. 228) = SIRIS 171 = RICIS 203/0701. The imperial titulature establishes the date as between 102 and 114 CE: Rougé 1966, 327. 83  On the tabellarius present on Alexandrian ships, Sen. Ep. 77. 1. 84  See infra p. 271. 85  P.Oxy. XXXVIII, 2863 (62 CE). 86  P.Oxy. XLII, 3051 (89 CE). 87  Cuvigny 2010, 278. On the papyrological dossier of this Claudius Theon, Rowlandson 1996, 58 and n. 100. 88  On the maritime roads from and to Portus, Arnaud 2012. 89  Reddé 2014, 71 suggests that the ship may have conveyed military personnel rather than merchants. The language employed, Latin, and the formulaic phrasing do not argue against this.

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Figure 111 Coin with Isis Faria. Rome (379–394 CE)

The juxtaposition of these various elements permits us to advance the theory that Isis Pharia, which is to say the poets’ Isis of Egypt or Alexandria, had become, through an easily understandable shift in meaning, the goddess who was protectress of the convoys of grain which, arriving at Portus, would ensure Rome’s supply:90 as suspected by Bruneau, a subtle play on words between φᾶρος (the mantle/sail) and Φάρος (the lighthouse) appears to have occurred.91 This explains the coin legend ISIS FARIA on Roman issues of Vota publica of the 4th century (fig. 111).92 Responsible for Rome’s wheat supply, it is logical to see the imperial power, issuer of these votive coins, placing itself under the auspices of the goddess of Pharos, which was the port of departure for the grain fleet, and thus being assured of the protection of marine Isis. 4.5

Isis κυβερνῆτις and ὁρμίστρια

Excluding these four epicleses, there are in Greek two more epithets that are found in the Oxyrhynchus litany and directly related to the marine prerogatives of Isis. According to the author(s) of this text, at Peucestis, a village in the Delta region perhaps located not far from Alexandria and probably founded by 90  The appellation Faria attributed by most scholars, and especially numismatists, to the standing Isis who holds a sistrum and situla present on antoninianus coins struck at Antioch’s mint in 268–269 CE (RIC V.1, p. 229.217 = SNRIS Antiochia 13) and bearing the legend SALVS AVGVSTI on the reverse, is an abberation. 91  Bruneau 1961, 444; the idea was revived by Naster 1968, in a short paper in which he summarized Bruneau’s first two articles. 92  Bricault & Drost (forthcoming).

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a Macedonian named Peucestas,93 Isis bore the qualificative κυβερνῆτις (“steerswoman/pilot”).94 As the term κυβερνήτης was sometimes applied to felucca steersmen traveling upon the Nile,95 this epithet is quite certainly to be viewed in connection with the goddess’s role as overseer of sailing, without our being able to determine in which context she was thought to exercise this area of competence: in the Delta as a pilot of a barque in the Osirian myth, or on the open sea if Peucestis was a coastal village? At two points in the same litany Isis is qualified as ὁρμίστρια,96 an epithet that would have been hers at Psochemis and Pelusium.97 While the location of Pelusium is known – at the westernmost point of Lake Sirbonis, the vast lagoon that was linked to the sea by a narrow channel – that of Psochemis is uncertain, even if it also must have been a place with a port,98 which would explain why the goddess there was able to bear the name of “Our-Lady-of-the-Harbor,” protectress of sailors who have arrived in a good port. Avienus also calls Isis dea litoris Pelusiaci.99 It is not possible, given the current state of our knowledge, to establish whether these two epithets must also have been epicleses characterizing the goddess at various cult sites.100 Another passage of the Oxyrhynchus litany gives the following text:101 ἐν Kνίδῳ ἄφεσιν ἐφ[ό]/δων, εὐ[ρ]έτριαν This problematic passage has been interpreted in various ways by the scholars who have focused on it. The first editors of the text, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, translated ἄφεσιν̣ ἐφόδων as “dispeller of attacks”;102 Lafaye, without certainty, as “who repulses attacks (?)”;103 Paul Collart as “turning away 93  P.Tebt. III 867, 107, 210; Geogr. Rav. 3. 2 (Peucestim); Dizionario IV.2 (1984), 117. 94  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 69–70. 95  P.Hibeh I, 39, 6, P.Giess. I 1, etc. 96  H. Kees, PWRE XIX.1 (1937), col. 413. 97  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 15–16 and 74. 98  H. Kees, PWRE XXIII.2 (1959), col. 1420; Dizionario V (1987), 178. The connection between the Ψωχήμις of the papyrus and Ψώχεμμις πολίχνιον Αἰγύπτου of Stephanus of Byzantium was made by Grenfell & Hunt (p. 205), who proposed to situate this small city at Kafr esZayat, or else near it. The epithet attributed to Isis at this place indicates that Psochemis must have been a port, undoubtedly on a branch of the Nile, the Canopic or Bolbitic, but not necessarily on the Mediterranean coast, as suggested by the Dizionario’s note. 99  Phaenom. Arat. 282. 100  These two epithets do not appear to have been associated with any divinity other than Isis. 101  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 80–81. 102  P.Oxy. XI, p. 201. 103  Lafaye 1916, 83.

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attacks”;104 Schmidt, who declared that he did not understand the text as read by the editors, preferred to put a period after ἄφεσιν and then to correct the text to ἐφ /δων, which is unnecessary.105 Cazzaniga proposed, in turn, to see in this an aspect of Isis Pelagia, mistress of the waves, associated with assuring the successful arrival of ships.106 On the one hand, he placed the term ἄφεσις in relation to the Πλοιαφέσια, and on the other hand he connected the words ἔφοδος and εὐρέτρια to the celebration of the Isiac mysteries. If the link proposed by this scholar between this passage and the cult’s mystery aspect seems forced and not very convincing, his placing it in relation with Isis’s maritime prerogatives is more appealing. In effect, if the translations already proposed can hardly be discussed, it is equally possible to translate ἐν Kνίδῳ ἄφεσιν̣ ἐφόδων, εὑρέτριαν as “at Cnidus [Isis is she] who frees the ways, [the] inventor,” and to understand it as “at Cnidus [Isis is she] who frees the (maritime) ways, [the] inventor (of sailing or of the sail),” and as the means of an identification between the goddess and Cnidian Aphrodite Euploia. But one cannot exclude another explanation, which seems not to have been considered. In Hippocrates,107 the term ἔφοδος signifies “attack, bout of fever.” Cnidus, native land of Ctesias, is known for having been home to an association of Asclepiades almost as famous as that of the nearby island of Cos, native land of Hippocrates.108 And, since the invention of medicine was attributed to Isis in a certain number of aretalogical texts,109 making her a healing goddess, if this meaning of ἔφοδος is to be retained one can translate the passage as follows: “at Cnidus [Isis is she] who repels attacks of fever, inventor (of medicine).”110 At the end of this analysis, it appears – and this should not come as a surprise – that the various qualificatives attributed to Isis in relation to her marine prerogatives do not seem to have been usable as so many synonyms. As was beautifully expressed by Pierre Brûlé, “Each epiclesis in effect adds to the definition of the divinity by conveying a shape, a color, a scent – so many elements that permit the painting of a more accurate and complete portrait.”111 104  Collart 1919, 94. 105  Schmidt 1918, 112. 106  Cazzaniga 1965, 234–235. 107  Prog. 20. 108  On this group, see, for example, Pugliese Caratelli 1991, 81–94; Nissen 2009, 261–267. 109  For example, the Aretalogy of the Kore Kosmou §13. 110  Compare, for example, Diod. Sic. 1. 25. 2 apud Euseb. Praep. evang. 2. 1. 30; Juv. 6. 92–94; or the epithet Ἀλεξίκακοι which she bears, associated with Sarapis, on a lamp found at Sabina in Samnium (RICIS 508/0801). 111  Brûlé 1998, 16.

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The epiclesis Euploia, employed especially during the Hellenistic Period,112 like the epiclesis Pelagia which was used mostly during the Imperial Period, alludes more generally to Isis as protectress of sailing, ships, and sailors. The polysemic Sôteira definitely applies to the same function, which was at once both that of savior and protectress, especially in the Aegean basin. It is undoubtedly necessary to reserve the epithet (if not the epiclesis?) Pharia for the Alexandrian Isis, most often accompanied iconographically by the lighthouse, in her role as protectress of the grain fleet that transported wheat from Egypt to Italy during the Imperial Period. Beyond these four epicleses, the other terms discussed above would appear to have been literary epithets more than epicleses. However, each in its own way, these epicleses and epithets specify the nature of the divinity, identifying a particular role in an infinitely vast sphere of action, that of power over the marine world.

112  The only attestations from the Imperial Period concerning Isis appear in P.Oxy. XI, 1380, a text in which there are numerous traces of archaism.

CHAPTER 5

A Cult for Isis, Goddess of the Seas 5.1

The Cult Sites of Marine Isis

The corollary question to that of the necessary distinction between epithets and epicleses is whether or not there existed cult sites of marine Isis herself,1 where, eventually, a particular ritual would have been performed for her and where some of the statues discussed in previous chapters would have been erected.2 Two sources invite us, at first glance, to respond with an affirmative: Pausanias’s passage describing Corinth and its vicinity,3 and a funerary inscription from Rome.4 The majority of commentators, among whom I was included, have seen in Pausanias’s text proof of the existence of four distinct Isiac sanctuaries,5 sometimes even deducing the presence of buildings in speaking specifically of “temples.”6 However, as Pirenne-Delforge has underlined,7 in a descriptive passage like that concerning the climb up Acrocorinth Pausanias relies on a varied vocabulary (hieron, naos or temenos) to designate the cult sites that he himself had seen, a lexical variety that perhaps was not solely due to a concern for style. She even doubts that the author for stylistic reasons had sacrificed the technical use of words permitting him to convey the diverse realities that had presented themselves to him. Commentators of the Periegesis have generally translated the word temenos as “precinct,” “enclos sacré,” or “recinti sacri.” From the start, a temenos was an area that had been set aside, “reserved apart from the rest of the land.”8 In a religious context, the term temenos represents 1  The subject is addressed briefly by Romero Recio 2000, 90–91 and 131. 2  For the question of divine statues and “cult statues,” Rüpke 2009 and Van Andringa 2012, esp. 106–108, for a study of the positioning of the statues of Isis at her Pompeian temple. 3  Paus. 2. 4. 6, with the commentary of Roux 1958, 38, 39 and 104 for the mention of sanctuaries consecrated to Asclepius and Isis at the far end of the port of Kenchreai (2. 2. 3), and 46–47 for the four Isiac “sacred enclosures” along the path leading up to Acrocorinth (2. 4. 6); see also supra pp. 154–155. 4  CIL VI 8707 = RICIS 501/0132; see supra p. 155. 5  So Dunand 1973, II, 155 and 157; Milleker 1985, 123–124; Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000, 171; Bricault 2001, 8; Bommas 2005, 109; Hoskins Walbank 2010a, 368. 6  Smith 1977, 225 and 227–228 (“sanctuaries 2–5”); Leclant 1984, 1703; RICIS, 34; Engels 1990, 102–105. 7  Pirenne-Delforge 2008, 143–178. 8  Casevitz 1984, 85–87.

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a space that has been taken, delimited and consecrated to a divinity.9 These Isiac temenê that were present along the Acrocorinth road thus did not necessarily correspond to four distinct sanctuaries, but perhaps instead to four clearly delimited spaces that were consecrated, respectively, to Isis Pelagia, Isis Aigyptia, Sarapis, and Sarapis of Canopus, situated at the heart of a vast and unique sanctuary. The presence of temenê does not necessarily indicate structures built on a large scale. Each temenos could have featured just an altar and cult statue. These must have been found in immediate proximity to the forum, if one considers the likelihood that the description reflects a route followed by setting out from there, as Pausanias did for the routes to Lechaion and Sicyon.10 For three of these four spaces, Pausanias provides an epiclesis qualifying the divinity honored there, without providing detailed explanations, as these would have been obvious both to him and to his readership.11 If the sense of Pelagia poses no problem, that of Aigyptia is more ambiguous, probably referring to a particular function and iconography.12 In fact, the presence of Isis, under various forms, and of her circle is well attested at Corinth and its port of Kenchreai.13 In 1965, at the north foot of Acrocorinth, in a tunnel used for the hydraulic system of the hamlet of Anaploga, there was discovered a small three-legged marble base bearing a dedication to Sarapis and Isis by one Philôtis, daughter of Philônidas, and which it seems possible to date to the 3rd or 2nd cent. BCE,14 before the city’s destruction by Mummius. However, one cannot make a very strong argument using this inscription to show that one of the four15 Isiac sanctuaries at Corinth mentioned by Pausanias had existed in the same location beginning in the Hellenistic Period. From the middle of the 1st cent. CE comes a second 9  Pirenne-Delforge 2008, 161–166. 10  Williams 1975, 28–29. 11   Pirenne-Delforge 1998; Pirenne-Delforge 2008, 263–271. 12  See supra p. 154. 13  Smith 1977; Rife 2010. 14  Corinth, Archaeological Museum inv. no. I 2650. Robinson 1966, 138–139 with pl. 129c–d; Daux 1966, 756–757 with fig. 10 = SIRIS 34a = Smith 1977, 217–218 = RICIS 102/0101: Φιλωτὶς / Φιλωνίδα / Σαράπι, Ἴσ[ι]. The letter forms make one think of the 3rd–2nd cents. BCE. The spot where the inscription was found was filled in during the 1st cent. CE. 15  I do not follow Castiglione 1970, who wrote that there were not four temples, but just two, each dedicated to a divine pair, one of which was consecrated to Isis Pelagia and Sarapis of Canopus, two divinities envisioned in their role of protectors of sailing. Castiglione saw in this interpretation proof of his thesis, according to which it was from the Canopus sanctuary that the marine version of Isis had departed Egypt, spreading throughout the Mediterranean world. If the healing aspect of Sarapis of Canopus is well known, his function as protector of sailing entirely remains to be shown. See supra pp. 164–165 for Sarapis of Canopus and Isis of Menouthis.

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dedication addressed to the divine couple, this time written in Latin, by an individual named Caius Iulius Syrus, inscribed on a fragmentary column of green marble that was found in March 1929 in the theater located on the side of the forum opposite from Acrocorinth.16 As for the hypothetical text mentioning Isis Pelagia that Ansse de Villoison had seen at Corinth, it is undoubtedly better not to take it into account.17 To these two short dedicatory texts one may add two busts and a head of Sarapis found, respectively, to the north of the basilica along the route to Lechaion, in the South Stoa, and east of the theater. The two busts appear datable to the Antonine Period, the head to the Severan Period.18 The lower part of a large marble statue of Sarapis accompanied by Cerberus was likewise unearthed at the northwest corner of the forum.19 A soapstone statuette featuring the image of Osiris Hydreios comes from the zone lying to the east of the theater.20 A certain number of sculpted fragments belonging to representations of Isis or of Isiac(s) were likewise discovered during the American excavations.21 Finally, several Roman lamps of Corinthian make that are decorated with Isiac motifs are known:22 two bearing representations of 16  Kent 1966, 33 no. 57 = Smith 1977, 218 = RICIS 102/0102: Isi et Serapi v(ovit) C. Iulius [S]yr[us]. 17  See supra p. 152. 18  Milleker 1982. The first bust (124–127 with pl. 24), in white marble (current ht. 14.1 cm.), was discovered to the north of the basilica on the road to Lechaion. The calathos has been lost. The beard is curly and full. On the forehead, five large locks form a sort of fringe. Milleker dates it to the beginning of the Antonine Period. The second bust (127–132 with pl. 26–27), likewise of white marble (ht. 40 cm.), was brought to light in 1936 in the South Stoa. Two pairs of curly locks falling upon the face leave the central part of the forehead exposed. The curls of the beard and the temples are twirled. To Milleker, this bust is a local work of the beginning of the Antonine Period, perhaps the reign of Hadrian. The head (132–135 with pls. 28, 29a), also of white marble (ht. 15.7 cm.), was found in 1982 to the east of the theater, in an unstratified layer. The forehead is bare, the beard full; the hair falls in curls to either side of a part down the middle. At the top, an opening would have enabled the attachment of a calathos that is now lost. This head, which corresponds to the anastolê type, to Milleker undoubtedly would have come from a statuette of Sarapis enthroned, and dating to the beginning of the Severan Period. 19  Johnson 1931, 30–31 no. 23; Scranton 1951, 71 and 148 with pl. 28.3; Hornbostel 1973, 350–351 n. 7; Smith 1977, 218–221. 20  Williams II & Zervos 1985, 79–80 no. 49 with pl. 17. 21  Johnson 1931, 68 no. 123; Sturgeon 2004, 205 no. 88 with pl. 72/b–c. 22  Milleker 1982, 124 n. 18 only cites the three lamps found at Corinth, while Smith 1977, 222–223 mentions five. I note, with Bruneau 1980, 42, that these representations of the Egyptian divinities attest to the spread of their cult among the public at large. He adds (53–54, n. 151) that these themes were more frequent on Corinthian lamps than those of Attica, with Corinth according to him having been less faithful than Athens to a Hellenism of rather strict observance. See now Podvin & Veymiers 2008.

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busts of Sarapis,23 one Sarapis enthroned and facing forward,24 another busts of Sarapis and Isis,25 and the last, found on Delos, which has already been discussed, perhaps bears the image of Isis-with-a-sail.26 As for the bust decorating the bone pin, sometimes identified as Sarapis,27 it is more likely that of a beardless “Egyptian.”28 However, the source most often treated as evidence for Corinth and Kenchreai having been the foremost Isiac center of the Peloponnese29 is undoubtedly the Golden Ass of Apuleius of Madaura. For the great majority of modern scholars, the African author’s choice of making his hero Lucius a man from Corinth30 can be explained by his desire to structure and homogenize his novella, the final part of which unfolds at Kenchreai, the eastern port of Corinth.31 Kenchreai could have been favored by the author because of a personal recollection associated with experiencing initiation there,32 and perhaps also due to the local Isieion’s renown. Despite the attempts of numerous scholars, this hypothesis remains to be demonstrated.33 In effect, nothing permits us to say that Apuleius was initiated into the mysteries of Isis, and, a fortiori, 23  The first, published by Broneer 1930, 194 no. 604 fig. 117, was found at Corinth. The second, preserved at Athens, is of unknown provenance, but the name of the workshop, that of Apollophanos, permits us to identify it as of Corinthian origin; Siebert 1966, 498 fig. 20. Both belong to the Type XXVII defined by Broneer, datable to the beginning or middle of the 2nd cent. CE. Broneer 1930, 90–96. 24  Broneer 1930, 206 no. 704 fig. 140. Found at Corinth, this likewise belongs to Broneer’s Type XXVII, and probably dates to the beginning or middle of the 2nd cent. CE. 25  Corinth, Archaeological Museum inv. no. L-4106. Siebert 1966, 499, n. 5. 26  See supra pp. 90–91, fig. 60. 27   Kater-Sibbes 1973, 84 no. 471. 28  Davidson 1952, no. 2350 with pl. 119; Milleker 1982, 124 n. 18. 29  As was written in Beaujeu 1983, 396. 30  Met. 2. 12. This Corinthian origin is in contrast to Patras as the origin of the main character in the Greek Lucius, or the Ass, which has been incorrectly attributed to Lucian, and which along with Apuleius’s novel was modeled on a lost work featuring the same general plot and taking place in Thessalonica. For Lucius’s somewhat muddled origins, see Met. 1. 1. 3. 31  Most notably Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 14–20. 32  This is the communis opinio on the subject, for which the bibliography is considerable. I cite, among others, Veyne 1965; Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 15; Pavis d’Escurac 1977, 51 and 61; van der Paardt 1981; Hidalgo de la Vega 1983; Malaise 1986; Pizzolato 1989, for whom it was probably in 147 CE that Apuleius, already in Greece, had occasion to encounter for the first time the Isiac cults at Kenchreai, during the Navigium Isidis festival; and, finally, see the different contributions in Keulen & Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2011. 33  The thesis regarding the autobiographical nature of this work finds one of its principal arguments in the use of the ethnic Madaurenses (Met. 11. 27) to designate Lucius. See, among others, Walsh 1970, 184; Smith 1972; van der Paardt 1981; Penwill 1990, 224–226. However, it is not necessary, as is done by Fredouille 1975, 15–16 and 129 n. 5, to consider that this is the case of a copying error and that one should instead read Corinthiensem,

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that this occurred at Kenchreai. As for the fame of the local Isieion, there is nothing indicating that it exceeded that of numerous other sanctuaries of this goddess. I would, in fact, be tempted to view the matter quite differently and consider whether Apuleius’s choice of Corinth was deliberate, with the final scene at Kenchreai being just the inevitable result. In addition to a literary tradition that Thessalonica did not possess, Corinth was celebrated for the sexual perversion and cruelty of its inhabitants.34 Moreover, certain passages in the novel are built upon specific parts of the city’s heritage, such as the local link to the Medea myth or the Cynics’ attacks on the city. Finally, the celebrated greed of the Corinthians permitted the harsh representations of them in Book 10. In choosing Corinth rather than Thessalonica, Apuleius opted for an environment suitable to his plans: to make Book 11 contrast with the base behavior detailed before.35 The presence of a cult site consecrated to Isis at the port of Kenchreai is attested by Pausanias (2. 2. 3), by an Antonine coin, and by Apuleius (Met. 11. 16). According to Pausanias, ἐν δὲ Κεγχρέαις Ἀφροδίτης τέ ἐστι ναὸς καὶ ἄγαλμα λίθου, μετὰ δὲ αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῷ ἐρύματι τῷ διὰ τῆς θαλάσσης Ποσειδῶνος χαλκοῦν, κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἕτερον πέρας τοῦ λιμένος Ἀσκληπιοῦ καὶ Ἴσιδος ἱερά. At Kenchreai there is a temple with a stone statue of Aphrodite, and then behind this, upon a mole running into the sea, there is a bronze statue of Poseidon, and at the other end of the port, sanctuaries of Asclepius and of Isis. since on two occasions Apuleius specifies that Corinth is Lucius’s native city (Met. 11. 18 and 20). 34  Mason 1971. 35  Beyond the possibly autobiographical aspect of the novel there is the question of the author’s sincerity in the face of a lived experience. See the arguments recently advanced by several scholars placing in doubt this sincerity and considering Book 11 as nothing more than the satirical conclusion to a novel: Anderson 1982, 83–85; Winkler 1985, 219–227. For Harrisson 1996, this conclusion could have been inspired by the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides, published shortly before the Metamorphoses, around 175/6 CE. For the date of the Sacred Tales, Behr 1968, 108–110; Behr 1978; Weiss 1998, 38–39, who places their publication precisely in spring of 176; see also Goeken 2012. For Rochette 2001, if Apuleius sometimes has a critical eye for certain contemporary religious practices, the parallels between his Golden Ass and Aristides’s Sacred Tales is instead to be explained by the general context of the times. See also Keulen & Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2011. But it is still far from certain just when Apuleius wrote his novel, so one cannot exclude the possibility that it came out before Aristides.

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A Corinthian coin published in 1812 by James Millingen provides a representation close to Pausanias’s description (fig. 112).36 Struck in the name of Antoninus, on the reverse it represents a port nearly semi-circular in shape, as suggested by a long quay that is perhaps bordered upon by a colonnade, at the ends of each of which are found two temples. The one on the left, a tetrastyle structure flanked by a tree, is seen from the front, the other is turned towards the right at a three-quarters angle. Symmetrically matching the hemicycle, three boats navigate at full sail outside the port’s entrance. At the center of the field, and thus of the port, one can recognize a statue of Poseidon, nude, armed with his trident and accompanied by a dolphin. Above the iconography can be read C(olonia) L(aus) I(iulia) Cor(inthus). The differences, even more than the similarities, that appear between this image and Pausanias’s description have caused much ink to be spilled and have hatched a number of hypotheses, often ingenious ones. For the majority of scholars, the identification of this port with that of Kenchreai is not subject to doubt, the resemblances to what Pausanias describes being obvious.37 The 36  Millingen 1812, 46 no. 2 with pl. II.19; Imhoof-Blumer & Gardner 1888, 17 no. 11 with pl. D–LX; Dunand 1973, II, pl. XLV-3. A second exemplar, preserved at Berlin, was published by Lehmann-Hartleben 1923, 238, Münztafel no. 10 (and reprinted by Leipoldt & Regling 1925, 130 with pl. 5 no. 2). These two coins were again illustrated in the article of Hohlfelder 1970, pl. 80 a-b. A third exemplar is preserved at the Numismatic Museum in Athens (inv. no. 4025), a fourth one at the British Museum (inv. no. L 1920-8-5-1003), and a fifth one was discovered during the American excavations; Edwards 1933, 32 no. 149. Two others belong to private collectors. Bricault & Veymiers 2007, 406–409; RPC IV online no. 5098 (temporary). 37  Only Walde (1978, 106) contests this identification, preferring to see Corinth’s other port, Lechaion, which permits her to connect the statue from Kenchreai to his “resting Poseidon type”. The statue of Poseidon visible on these coins, according to her, must have been erected on a quadrangular structure, situated in Lechaion’s inner port, during the Imperial Period (Shaw 1969, 370–372 with pl. 96). To support this hypothesis, Walde refers to the text of Pausanias (2. 2. 3), which assigns to Lechaion a sanctuary and bronze statue of Poseidon, and a local tradition, reported by Georgiades 1907, 4 with pl. 1, which places this structure in relation with “a bronze statue representing Poseidon holding in his hand the flame of the port’s lighthouse.” However, Pausanias does not give any indication regarding the location of Lechaion statue, and the popular tradition evoked by Walde would seem quite doubtful, as it is unverifiable, late, and curiously close to one of the descriptions of the Colossus of Rhodes. In any case, while being fully aware of the numismatic conventions that explain, among other things, the central position of the statue of Poseidon, one must admit that the configuration of the port as it appears on these coins hardly resembles that which emerges from the archaeological research undertaken up to the present at Lechaion (Rothaus 1995). The connection with Kenchreai, however, if based solely on archaeological criteria, is just as weak.

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main difference appears to concern the statue of Poseidon. It is found “upon a mole” according to Pausanias, but in the port according to the coin. However, the term ἐρύματι originates in a correction by Johann Friedrich Facius in his 1794 critical edition of Pausanias,38 with the codices actually providing a reading of ἐπὶ τῷ ῥεύματι τῷ διὰ τῆς θαλάσσης, thus placing the statue on a platform positioned in the middle of the port, which would seem quite improbable. The correction of Facius has been accepted by all scholars, with the notable exception of William Martin Leake, who suggested correcting the manuscript tradition with ἕρματι rather than ἐρύματι.39 According to him, the statue would have been erected on a rock emerging from the waves in the harbor. The excavations undertaken in the port of Kenchreai over several decades by the missions of the University of Chicago and Indiana University never found a clear trace of the statue nor the platform.40 Nor were they able to find substructures that would have belonged to a port layed out as a semi-circle. As Robert Hohlfelder wrote, “Although the Kenchreai bay area today coincides approximately with the semicircular numismatic portrayal of the ancient port, excavations conducted at various points on land and underwater indicate a more linear design for the ancient harbour.”41 It is probably unnecessary to take the image provided by the coin as a realistic representation. It is likely that the esthetic concern of the engraver and the round shape typical of coinage both worked against this coin’s faithfully representing reality. The wish of the issuers was less to provide a realistic image of the port than to convey a clear message, one easily perceived by users.42 The double symmetry of the composition (quay/ships, temple/temple) also permits emphasis to be placed on the statue of Poseidon. There exists at least one other series of Corinthian coins, datable to the same period since the portrait of Antoninus on the obverse is almost identical to the one being studied, which presents a quite similar composition, with the exception of one detail. It is not a representation of Poseidon that decorates the center of the reverse (the statue of the god is visible within the distyle temple on the left), but an Isis-with-a-sail (fig. 113). Correctly identified by Kurt Regling,43 38  Facius 1794, 184 n. 4. 39  Leake 1830, 235. 40  The underwater excavations, however, have brought to light at the mole’s northern end several poros blocks of large dimensions which could have served as the base of a colossal statue (Scranton, Shaw & Ibrahim 1978, 18–19). 41  Hohlfelder 1970, 330. 42  On the coin’s images and its message from issuers to users, Iossif et al. 2018. 43  Leipoldt & Regling 1925, 130 with pl. 5, 3.

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Corinth. Antoninus (138–161 CE)

who was followed by Martin Price and Bluma Trell,44 as well as Smith,45 Isis was not recognized by Lehmann-Hartleben,46 nor by Hohlfelder.47 With the statue of Poseidon having been visible in his temple’s interior in this series, one cannot follow this last scholar when he explains that this statue was erected shortly before Pausanias’s visit, in place of the one, not identified by him, featured at the center of the other series, which would then have been the older of the two.48 It is much easier to think that the authority issuing these coins, which quite probably were contemporaneous, intended to highlight that the port was under the protection of two important marine divinities: Poseidon and Isis. The existence of a third series, this one representing Aphrodite Euploia, can also be hypothesized, even if a coin of this type has not yet been found.49 In conclusion, one can ask if Pausanias in his description might not have been influenced by a coin that he perhaps held in his hands during his visit to Corinth.50

44  Price & Trell 1977, 83 fig. 146. 45  Smith 1977, 202–203. 46   Lehmann-Hartleben 1923, 238 n. 2, only referring to a “female godhood.” 47  Hohlfelder 1970, 328 n. 10, with pl. 80c, evoking simply “another deity.” This scholar does not seem to have known Leipoldt & Regling 1925, nor the iconography of Isis-with-a-sail. 48  Ibid., 328. 49  The series with Isis-with-a-sail (SNRIS Corinthus 4; RPC IV online 5097 temporary) is only known from four example, at London, Berlin (fig. 113), Corinth and Munich. 50  I am unable to follow Castiglione 1970, 47, when he writes that the layout shown on this coin would have corresponded to that of Pharos, and from which he had deducted that there was an effort made at Corinth-Kenchreai to create an exact copy of the sanctuary of Isis at Alexandria and its statue. For an analysis of the other cult sites represented on Corinthian coins, Bricault & Veymiers 2007.

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Also at Kenchreai, the missions of the University of Chicago and Indiana University, excavating a partly submerged complex that is located at the southwest end of the port, have discovered in an apsidal courtyard 120 glass panels in opus sectile, stored in openwork boxes, on which one can see several Nilotic and harbor scenes, but also several scenes that are pastoral or feature figures representing consuls, philosophers, or mythological personnages.51 These panels appear to have been intended for a renovation of the building in the second half of the 4th cent. CE.52 For their discoverers, the building in which they were unearthed would have belonged to the Isieion mentioned by Pausanias.53 This hypothesis, which lacks an architectural basis, is not at all convincing. Such iconography hardly points to a cultic context, but is more fitting to a wealthy aristocratic dwelling, as has already been proposed by several scholars.54 The same excavators also thought that they had found an epiclesis of Isis in the term ὀργία inscribed on the lower part of a marble column discovered in the debris of the neighboring early Christian basilica.55 However, the interpretation of this isolated and very late document – its paleography indicates a date of the 4th–5th cents. CE – calls for prudence, even if Isis is known at least once to have been given this epithet, at Thessalonica.56 Finally, it is worth remembering that the Roman provincial coinage from Corinth is rich in issues of the Isis-with-a-sail type and such coins were struck under Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Septimius Severus.57 And this list is most likely not exhaustive. Beyond Corinth, the only source making express reference to a cult site consecrated to Isis Pelagia comes from Rome: the funerary inscription of a certain Servius Sulpicius Alcimus, an imperial freedman,58 mentions that he had

51  Ibrahim, Scranton & Brill 1976, with all earlier bibliography. This work was the subject of a critical review by Bruneau in REG XCIII (July-December 1980), 551–552, the conclusions of which I share. On these Nilotic scenes, Versluys 2002, 217–219 no. 117. 52  According to Wente 1983, 21, a study of the glass objects at the Alexandria National Museum that had originated in the city or its territory shows the Alexandrian origin of these opus sectile panels decorated with Nilotic or harbor scenes, which are datable to around 350 CE; see also Kiilerich & Torp 2018. 53  Scranton, Shaw & Ibrahim 1978, 71–78. 54  Rothaus 2000, 69–76, prefers to interpret the courtyard with fountain as a nymphaeum, whereas W. O. Stern in Stern & Thimme 2007, 308–311 instead sees a luxurious dining room; on this question, Veymiers 2014d, 147. 55  Scranton, Shaw & Ibrahim 1978, 73 and 125 (ph.) = RICIS *102/0201. 56  R ICIS 113/0552; Steimle 2008, 103–106. 57  Bricault & Veymiers 2007, and the SNRIS Corinthus. 58  Boulvert 1970, 55–56.

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served Isis Pelagia (ab [sic] Isem Pelagiam)59 as warden (aedituus)60 for ten years. Manumitted by Galba, this individual was warden of what one can assume was a cult structure61 consecrated to Isis Pelagia under the Flavians, a structure that was occasionally linked by scholars to a colossal marble foot, wearing a sandal decorated with marine motifs, found near the Via Appia in the Baths of Caracalla. As was already stated more than a century ago by Lafaye, this connection is purely speculative.62 Georges Boulvert has shown that Augustus had generally appointed “his slaves and freedmen as aeditui engaged in the oversight of cult buildings that he had constructed or restored or subsumed in some manner into the imperial possessions,” which may likewise have been the case with his successors.63 One can therefore question whether this is truly an independent structure devoted to the cult of Isis Pelagia with which we are dealing,64 or rather if this aedituus was not the warden of a shrine standing within the Iseum Campense, the complex that is known to have been rebuilt by Domitian after the fire that ravaged the city in 80 CE.65 Up to now, no ἱερεύς or sacerdos of marine Isis is known.66 59  See supra pp. 155–156. The construction ab + acc. is surprising and undoubtedly should be corrected to ad Isem Pelagiam. 60  On the semantical and grammatical distinctions operating between the terms aeditu(m) us and aedituus, Cavazza 1995a and Cavazza 1995b. 61  Chioffi 1996, 114, envisioned an aedes, perhaps one to be located close to the Tiber. 62  Lafaye 1884, 227; Malaise 1972a, 222–224. 63  Boulvert 1970, 56 and n. 278–281. Compare the funerary inscription of a certain Tiberius Claudius Callistus, freedman of Nero and warden of a temple of Serapis found in a necropolis along the via Flaminia (RICIS 501/0131). 64  The same questioning can be found in Versluys 2002, 364, who justifiably writes, “the cult place for Isis Pelagia known through the inscription can have been anywhere in Rome or have been part of, or connected with, already known sanctuaries.” 65  On this controversial date for the sanctuary’s construction, see, among others, Coarelli 1984; Versluys 2004; Scheid 2004; Scheid 2009; Coarelli 2011; Malaise 2011; Bricault & Veymiers 2018c. 66  We do not even know for certain of a cult site devoted to Isis Pelagia, with one proposed identification being much too tenuous. Among the coastal dunes, roughly 300 m. from the acropolis of Cumae, there were discovered the remains of a complex which might date to the 1st cent. BCE or CE. Excavators have unearthed there a monumental basin that had sides richly covered with polychromatic marbles and was equipped with a system for supplying and draining water, and was surrounded on three sides by a portico. To the south of the basin was found a rectangular platform, accessed by a ramp, on which must have stood a small temple. Some other structures were broughy to light beside the platform. In the basin were discovered three acephalous Egyptian statuettes decorated with hieroglyphic inscriptions: one of Inaros, a naophoros priest (30th Dynasty), one of Isis (or rather a Ptolemaic queen as Isis, it appears to me) with arms at her sides (1st cent. BCE), both in basalt, and one of a Ptolemaic sphinx sculpted from greenish stone. For these statues, Cozzolino 1999. To the excavator, P. Caputo (Caputo 1998; Caputo 2003), this

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Figure 114 Intaglio (1st cent. CE)

However, from the existence of certain cult reliefs with the image of Isis-with-a-sail, such as the one from Thessalonica,67 one can infer the celebration of a cult of Isis, patroness of the seas. This appears to be what is indicated by the decoration of a pâte de verre intaglio from the Ashmolean Museum which associates a rudder, a lituus and a basileion (fig. 114).68 One is likewise reminded of the altar and incense-burners offered to Anubis, Isis Pelagia and Isis Boubastis at Iasos.69 From modern Makrakomi, in the upper valley of the Spercheios River in central Greece, comes an offering table bearing a dedication to Isis,70 which was at one point preserved in a private individual’s courtyard, in which was also found “a stone anchor, which would have come from the same place as the inscription.”71 It is, however, rather difficult to associate these two pieces of evidence with one another in order to conclude that there was a temple of marine Isis in close proximity to the river.

should be recognized as an Iseum, perhaps consecrated to Isis Pelagia. This identification, accepted notably by De Caro 1997, 350–351, and Malaise 2004, 32–33, was rejected without a real argument by Gigante 1995. That this would be an Isiac sanctuary is quite possible, probably an Iseum. But nothing permits us to confirm that it was consecrated to Isis Pelagia, other than its proximity to the sea – a weak argument. Not all of the Isea located near shorelines were necessarily devoted exclusively to Isis, goddess of the seas. 67  Blanchaud 1984; Adam-Veleni 2002, 82–83 no. 164. The relief dates to the 2nd–3rd cents. CE; see supra p. 69. One must remember that the Isiac character of the one from Delos is not certain. See supra pp. 90–92. 68  Oxford, Ashmolean Museum inv. no. 2003.96. Henig & MacGregor 2004, 117 no. 11.33. 69  See supra p. 153. 70  Roux 1954, 90 = SIRIS 72 = RICIS 109/0101; Spyropoulos 1971, 237–238; Dunand 1973, I, 46. 71  Roux 1954, 90 n. 1.

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What is to be concluded? That Isis Pelagia was able, as at Corinth, to be the titulary divinity of a consecrated space that was her own, but also, undoubtedly more often, was able instead to be worshiped in a chapel integrated into a more important Isiac sanctuary, as perhaps was the case at Rome and elsewhere. The study of coinage from Aspendos, in Pamphylia, perfectly illustrates this.72 Perhaps due to the competition between Side and its neighbor Aspendos, during the reign of Caracalla the latter city introduced into its monetary iconographic repertoire Sarapis and, more broadly, the entire Isiac family. Between the years 212 and 260 CE, the date of the last issue minted for Aspendos, the types that were used varied greatly, including both those found in wide use (Isis or Sarapis standing) and those original to the city (Sarapis on a quadriga, above Caelus). Among these, on four coin issues, one finds Isis-with-a-sail, which is surely just one of the aspects of this goddess honored at her local sanctuary. For the moment, we do not know any cult sites where the goddess would have born the epicleses εὔπλοια, σώτειρα,73 or Φαρία. The existence of sites devoted to her cult could have been considered, a priori, only in harbors, in immediate proximity to the sea. The Corinthian and Roman sources studied above show that this was not the case, as is undoubtedly demonstrated by the statue from Benevento, as well as that of Messene. There are also other sources indicating that she was worshiped at Kenchreai and undoubtedly at Ostia and elsewhere as well, sometimes quite far from a Mediterranean port. In his treatise on the customs of the Germans, Tacitus (Germ. 9.1) indicates that one group from among the Suebi would sacrifice to Isis: pars Sueborum et Isidi sacrificat. He adds: unde causa et origo peregrino sacro parum comperi, nisi quod signum ipsum in modum liburnae figuratum docet aduectam religionem. The source and origin of this foreign cult, I have not been able to learn these, except that the symbol itself, designed in the form of a liburna, indicates an imported religion. 72  Bricault 2017. 73  I do not follow Dunand (1973, I, 111) when she writes that “another temple consecrated to Isis the protectress of sailors – Ἶσις σώτειρα – was erected, it appears, on Cape Lochias; it would be to this that Plutarch [Ant. 74] was referring in the narrative relating that Cleopatra had built, for herself and for Antony, monumental tombs near the temple of Isis.” She adds (111 n. 1) that “it can only pertain to the temple of Isis Lochias because, according to Cassius Dio 51. 8, Cleopatra’s tomb was constructed in the palace itself, and it is known that the royal palace was located close to Cape Lochias.” If we are able to accept with ease the idea that Isis possessed a temple close to the royal palace, nothing permits us to conclude that this was located on Cape Lochias, and even less that she was worshiped there under the name of Sôteira. One this point, Malaise 2005, 149–151.

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This text has greatly intrigued scholars74 and since the 16th century has inspired a number of interpretations.75 Some have associated this Isis of the Suebi with the local Matres. Others have identified her with Nehalennia, protectress of sailing upon the lower Rhine and along the coast of the North Sea, but also a mother-goddess, provider of fertility, and chthonic divinity who had her own mysteries.76 Such an association has also been contemplated for Nerthus,77 a goddess compared by Tacitus in Chapter 11 of the same work to the Roman Terra Mater.78 However, it is possible to question whether it is not in fact simply a matter of Isis, who is known to have had a temple at Mogontiacum (modern Mainz) at least from the beginning of the 1st cent. CE, and who was able, as protectress of riverine navigation, to play this role on the Rhine and Neckar rivers.79 As Mareile Haase wrote, “According to Apuleius,80 the so-called cymbia served as a lamp or sign of Isis in the worship of Isis. In antiquarians like Festus and Servius cymbia were described as ship-shaped objects.81 If such ship-shaped objects, as Apuleius says, found use in the Isis-cult, then Tacitus might actually have meant the goddess Isis.”82 It is now necessary to investigate the forms this cult took and the celebrations associated with it. 5.2

Ritual Practices

The texts that have just been discussed do not provide any information regarding the possible appearance of the cult sites consecrated to marine Isis, nor about the daily cult activities taking place at them. Without doubt, these in theory would not have been much different from the daily rituals of the cult of Isis in general: opening of the temple, singing, praising, dressing statues,

74  Baltrušaitis 1968, 107–117. Difficult, but nonetheless essential, is the question of determining just who were the Suebi of whom Tacitus wrote and where they were located at the time that he was writing these lines concerning them. 75  Grimm 1969, 98–100; Turcan 1989, 102; Haase 1998; Haase 2004, 113–115. 76  F. Kauffmann, in an appendix (p. 549) to Drexler 1894; Grimm 1969, 2 n. 6–7 and p. 99. F. Heichelheim, s.v. Nehalennia, PWRE XVI.2 (1935), col. 2180, is the most cautious; on Nehalennia, see also Martens 1992; Stuart & Bogaers 2001; Liertz 2003; Spickermann 2010. 77  So Hommel 1941, 169–170; Rives 1999, 162. 78  Franke 1936, col. 51–52. 79  Witteyer 2006. 80  Met. 11. 4; 11. 10. 81  Discussion of this point in Haase 1998, 322–325, and n. 43–55. 82  Haase 2004, 114.

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making offerings and sacrifices, dedicating, expressing gratitude, and so on.83 Even so, in the present case those responsible for these actions, practices and rituals had to take into account several specific factors: the particular sites where the socio-economic activities of the sea-faring people would take place, their fears, their beliefs, the uncertainties specific to the sea in that particular area, and the rhythms and cycles generated by this physical space that was so different from the terrestrial world.84 One can thus ask if marine Isis was believed to expect particular offerings,85 as was the case, for example, with Aphrodite Euploia receiving sea shells.86 An epigram by Philip of Thessalonica,87 dating to the 1st cent. CE, evokes several types of offerings consecrated or vowed to Isis by a certain Damis, who had been saved from drowning by this sovereign goddess: Aἴγυπτου μεδέουσα μελαμβώλου, λινόπεπλε δαῖμον, ἐπ’ εὐϊέρους βῆθι θυηπολίας∙ σοὶ γὰρ ὑπὲρ σχιδάκων λαγαρὸν ποπάνευμα πρόκειται καὶ πολιῶν χηνῶν ζεῦγος ἐνυδροβίων καὶ νάρδος ψαφαρὴ κεγχρίτισιν ἰσχάσιν ἀμφὶ καὶ σταφυλὴ γραίη χώ μελίπνους λίβανος. Εἰ δ’ ὡς ἐκ πελάγους ἐρρύσαο Δᾶμιν, ἄνασσα, κἠκ πενίης, θύσει χρυσόκερων κεμάδα. Patronness of black-soiled Egypt, goddess with the linen robe, come and receive my ritual offerings. On the wood ashes a crumbling cake is laid for you and there is a white pair of water-dwelling geese,88 and powdery nard round many-grained figs, and wrinkled raisins and sweet-scented frankincense. But if, O sovereign, you save Damis from poverty, as you did from the deep, he will sacrifice a fawn with gilded horn.89 It is also known that certain paintings serving as votives for sailors were deposited in cult sites of Isis. Juvenal alludes to this, mocking the practice:90 83  On the forms of cult rendered to Isis, Bricault 2013a. 84  Romero Recio 2000; Horden & Purcell 2001; Malissard 2012; Jimenez Correio 2014. 85  On offerings to marine gods, Romero Recio 2012. 86   C allim. Epig. 5, for the offering of a nautilus shell to Arsinoe-Aphrodite by a woman from Smyrna in the sanctuary of Cape Zephyrion. As for Plin. Nat. 9. 25 and 32. 1, he reports that certain types of murex shells were specially consecrated to Aphrodite at Cnidus: Theodoropoulou 2013. On shells in Egyptian religion, Aufrère 1999, 71–75, as well as the review of P. Koemoth in BiOr LVIII.1–2 (2001), 116–117. 87  A P 6. 231 (= 21 G.-P.). 88   O v. Fast. 1. 453; Juv. 6. 540–541; Bodson 1987; Bodson & Marcolungo 1994, 49 and n. 99. 89  Anth.Gr. 6. 190.9–10; 191.6; 300.7–8; Verg. Aen. 5. 366 and 9. 627 for this custom of gilding the horns of sacrificial victims. 90   J uv. 12. 26–28, with the scholiast’s explanation: antiquitus enim solebant qui naufragio liberati essent pro voto pingere tabellas et in templo Isidis ponere (“In fact, since ancient

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sed cognita multis et quam uotiua testantur fana tabella plurima; pictores quis nescit ab Iside pasci? (Shipwrecks), known to many, and to which, in a number of temples, votive panels attest; who does not know that, in effect, Isis nourishes painters?91 These thank-offerings are obviously a posteriori, after a safe crossing, and sometimes correspond to the fulfillment of a vow after a prayer had been answered.92 The language evoking this trait of Isis is rich, could either concern the gods themselves, who are referred to as helpful or attentive, or the dedicants, who designated themselves as saved or cured, or else the actual circumstances of the dedication. For example, from Delos comes a thank-offering93 from Protus, son of Pythion, of Cos, “saved from numerous and great perils (at sea?)” (σωθεὶ[ς] ἐκ πολλῶν καὶ μεγάλων κινδύνων),94 deposited in Sarapieion C c. 150 BCE for Sarapis, Isis, Anubis, Apollo95 and the gods sharing the same times, those who were saved from a shipwreck followed the custom of having tablets painted as an ex-voto and depositing them in a temple of Isis”) (Scholia ad Sat. XII, 26–28 [ed. Wessner p. 195]); Haensch 2019, 59–60 and n. 93 with further references. 91  That is, Isis in her diverse functions, since Tib. 1. 3. 27–28 reports the custom of certain individuals who had been sick likewise depositing votive panels after a recovery that they attributed to the goddess: Nunc, dea, nunc succurre mihi (nam posse mederi picta docet templis multa tabella tuis) (“Now, goddess, now help me (for you know how to heal, as the numerous tablets in your temples prove)”). A wall painting from a private home in Pompeii (reg. IX, ins. III, no. 15), in which Isis-Fortuna can be recognized brandishing the sistrum in her right hand and holding a cornucopia in her left, her right foot resting on a globe against which a rudder leans, might be an example of this type of thank-offering, as suggested by the text traced with a brush above this scene: Philo[ca]lus votum sol(vit) libe(n)s merito. Tran tam Tinh 1964, 148 no. 59 with pl. XVII for the painting, and CIL IV, 882 = SIRIS 494 = RICIS 504/0218 for the inscription. It does not seem unthinkable to find marine Isis in this painting. 92  See the sources collected in the conference catalog Ex-voto marins 1981, 37–57; see also infra p. 241. 93   C E 72 = ID 2119 = RICIS 202/0230: Πρῶτος Πυθίωνος Κῶιος, σωθεὶ[ς] / ἐκ πολλῶν καὶ μεγάλων κινδύνων / Σεράπει Ἴσει Ἀνουβει Ἀπόλλωνι θε/οῖς συννάοις ὑπὲρ αὑτοῦ καὶ τῶν // [[παιδίων Φιλουμένης]] καὶ Πυθίω/νος χαριστήριον. 94  The expression πολλοὶ κίνδυνοι often was employed for dangers at sea; compare I.Portes 48 (= OGIS I, 69) for a dedication to the Great Gods of Samothrace pertaining to a voyage on the Red Sea; Culasso Gastaldi 2015. More generally, Habicht 2001 and Habicht 2002. 95  “Apollo” here undoubtedly represents Harpocrates. The same individual is also the commissioner of the gift of a small Apollo statue (undoubtedly again identified with Harpocrates) fashioned from stone (RICIS 202/0423 A I,22 = RICIS 202/0424 B I,22 = RICIS 202/0433 A,21).

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temple, made both in his own name and those of his children Philoumene and Pythion, and given as a sign of gratitude. The interpretation of a verse in Juvenal96 has even led certain scholars to suggest that sailors or mere passengers who had escaped a shipwreck, having arrived safely in port, sometimes would have made an offering of their hair to Isis in one of her temples,97 following the example of members of her priesthood – something that requires confirmation. Before their departure, some would give the goddess small votive reliefs of the sort bearing a molded image of Isis-with-a-sail from the Athenian Agora98 or the molded terracotta from Savaria,99 but other objects were also given. These could take the form of small anchors,100 such as the trapezoidally-shaped limestone one of unknown provenance preserved at Cambridge (fig. 115),101 which featured a hole in the upper part and a carved image of a bearded serpent wearing a basileion, and representations of marine animals, like that of a dolphin on a column deposited in the dromos of Delos’s Sarapieion C, according to two temple inventories from the middle of the 2nd cent. BCE.102 However, it is not possible to go much beyond this, due to the lack of sources that are probative and contextualized.103 96   J uv. 12. 81: … gaudent ibi vertice raso (“they rejoice there, after having raised their heads”). 97  Ronnick 1995. To this scholar, the term ibi would refer to the temple of Isis at Portus. 98  Athens, Agora Museum inv. no. ST 527; Williams 1985, 118. See supra pp. 55–56. 99  Szombathely, Savaria Museum inv. no. 66.1.2283; Buocz 2012. See supra pp. 56–57. 100  It is a different situation for an inscription from Iasos that appears to present both a lex sacra and a dedicatory text to Sarapis, Isis and Anubis, perhaps dating to the Imperial Period. Levi & Pugliese Carratelli 1961–1962, 585–586 no. 14 fig. 14 = Robert 1963, 311–312 = SIRIS 274a = I.Iasos II no. 242 = RICIS 305/1403. Before having been reused for a door threshold, the stone, with three circular holes drilled into it, was quite likely repurposed as a boat anchor, in the 4th or 5th century according to Desantis 1999. 101  Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum inv. no. E.GA.288.1949. Published by Brunner-Traut 1979, 78 no. 47 with pl. XXXIX; Brunner-Traut 1980, 7. Given its size (8 cm. x 11 cm.) and weight (292 gm.), this model of an anchor from the Roman era is undoubtedly a votive intended to thank Isis Pelagia for her protection during a crossing. 102   I D 1416, B, I, 24 = RICIS 202/0424 B, I, 24 (156/5 BCE). It was still to be found there eleven years later: ID 1442 A I, 12 = RICIS 202/0428, 12 (145/4 BCE). A dolphin can also be found in a large, fragmentary relief of white Luna marble, discovered at Perusia in Umbria, that features a large ribbon wrapped around a cluster of ears of grain coming out of a halfopen casket. On the front there is a sparrow and, on the base, a dolphin. On the left side is found a shield with the head of a small fawn and, below, the inscription Veneri martiali. Even lower, beneath the casket, there is a palm, to the left of which one reads Victoriae, while to the right Isidi is inscribed above a sistrum; RICIS 510/0101. This relief, seen in 1884 in a private house by F. Gamurrini, dates to the 2nd cent. CE. The dolphin could have been linked to the marine prerogatives common to both Venus and Isis. This fragment perhaps comes from a public dedication linked to the Roman army. 103  Considerably more numerous are the marine ex-votos (prow ornaments, rudders, anchors, vessels in the form of a barque) mentioned in the Delian temple inventories for

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Figure 115

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Votive model of anchor (1st–3rd cent. CE)

The less fortunate, or those who were travelling most often from one place to another, would not necessarily have employed this type of approach in order to invoke the goddess’s protection, privileging jewelry decorated with images evoking this divine power. The reasons leading one to wear an engraved gemstone were numerous and could overlap.104 Private objects, both gemstone and intaglios, as well as the jewelry in which they were embeded (both rings and pendants), were generally intended to be seen. The choice of images for them and the messages that they conveyed were partly determined by this desire for these objects to be exhibited, and thus for them to communicate something to the viewer, but also by the wish of an individual to carry with him everywhere the image of a divinity who would protect him in all circumstances. These gemstones thus could have been used in adornments, seals, souvenirs, charms for good luck or protective amulets, and therefore knowing the specific role of a given gemstone is not always possible. However, these gems most often would have served as media for the expression of devotion and thus reflected religious preoccupations. This is why the imagery most apt for satisfying a personal religiosity was especially well-developed. In the Isiac sphere, this is to be seen in Harpocrates and Isis-with-a-rudder, having been much more popular on gems, jewelry and in small bronzes than on coins and large statues, whereas the image of Isis-with-a-sail, being more political and official, was very common on coins.105 Among the coins on which the Isis-with-a-rudder type is known, one represents a typical example: a heavy cast ring with a thick hoop, semi-circular Apollo’s cult. For the religious beliefs of sailors in antiquity, Wachsmuth 1967; Rougé 1975, 206–210; Alvar & Romero Recio 2005; Fenet 2016, esp. 456–501 about votive anchors. 104  Veymiers 2009, 216; Bricault & Veymiers 2018a. 105  See supra figs. 6–61.

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Figure 116 Gold ring (2nd–1st cents. BCE)

in section, expanding at the shoulders, which has an oval bezel engraved with Isis standing on the blade of a steering oar, its hooked handle in one hand. The goddess also holds a cornucopia in the crook of her right arm, while wearing a chiton with a himation wrapped around her hips and over one shoulder and forearm, her hair surmounted by a basileion and arranged in a chignon, with tendrils falling to her shoulders (fig. 116).106 See also, for example, an amethyst said to have been found in Antioch (Syria) that features the Isis-with-a-rudder’s type, the goddess wearing a basileion. A name is inscribed in the field, KWKH, possibly the personal name of the gem’s owner (fig. 117).107 See too a silver statuette of the same type (fig. 118).108 Official media, coins and their iconographic types are born from the will of a political issuing authority (the princeps and his agents, the cities and their magistrates), and these as a general rule appeared in large numbers, as opposed to inscribed gemstones, which were produced in small quantities, with the exception of molten glass. Objects originating in the spheres of both economics and public affairs, coins would sometimes be diverted from their intended use and instead become pieces of jewelry, mounted in pendants or 106  Boardman & Scarisbrick 1970, no. 15. 107  New York, Metropolitan Museum inv. no. 81.6.187; Richter 1956², 84 no. 368 with pl. 47. 108  London, British Museum inv. no. GR 1867.5–8.761 (Blacas Collection); Walters 1921, 12 no. 44 with fig. 9, who gives an incorrect description of that 5.5-cm. piece.

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Figures 117a–b

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Amethyst (1st–2nd cents. CE)

embedded in ring bezels, or even phylacteries that would hang from the neck after having been pierced.109 The imagery selected for these new contexts was not chosen at random, as is revealed by the significant percentage of coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type that have been pierced with one or two holes (fig. 119).110 The repurposing of public objects in this manner thus offered them a new life, directly linked to a particular individual’s personal affairs. One final type of source that is frequently linked to the maritime prerogatives of the Isiac circle are boat-shaped lamps bearing one of more figures related to the Isiac family, all of them terracottas.111 109  Perassi 2011. 110  R PC III 5995/3; SNRIS Alexandria 219b (Year 19 = 134/5 CE); see also, e.g., the pertinent coins of Iasos (SNRIS Iasus 4) and Rome (SNRIS Roma V027a1, V084ba6, V112bb2 and 6, V128a7 and V193ab1). The position of the hole or holes does not appear to be significant. For the coins struck at the six o’clock position, one might have been able to think, a priori, that the face showing the hole at the top was the one that one would have wished to see facing outwards when worn. But analysis of all of the coins collected in SNRIS that have holes shows that this is not the case, since some of them had holes made at three or four o’clock. 111  On boat-shaped lamps, Ciceroni 1989–1990, 793–801; Haase 2001, 320–329; Podvin 2004, 369–371; Podvin 2011, 260–261 NAVI (1–10) with pl. 63; Podvin 2012. The specimen of the

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Figure 118 Silver statuette (1st cent. CE)

Figure 119

Alexandria. Tetradrachm of Hadrian (134/5 CE)

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Figures 120–121 Lamps. Puteoli and Ostia (c. 70–120 CE)

Two of these lamps were discovered in the Italian Peninsula. The first, provided with ten wick holes along each side and a large one at the stern, was found in the sea near the port of Puteoli (fig. 120).112 On the prow are represented side by side Isis and her companion Sarapis, both standing frontal, with the goddess wearing a basileion, holding a cornucopia in the hollow of her left arm and raising her right arm towards the god, who is wearing the calathos and holding a rudder in his right hand.113 British Museum, Bailey 1988, 427 no. Q 3376, with pl. 129, is a copy from the beginning of the 19th century. 112  London, British Museum inv. no. Q 2722. Walters 1914, 55–56 no. 390 with pl. X; Picard 1962; Tran tam Tinh 1972, 52–54 IS 4; Bailey 1988, 339–340 no. Q 2722 with pl. 80, with all preceding bibliography; Tran tam Tinh 1990b, 129–131; Merkelbach 1995, 673 pl. 213; Sanzi 2004, 140–142; Podvin 2011, 260 NAVI (1) with pl. 63. For the inscription, IG XIV 2045,48 = RICIS 504/0403. 113  To Dölger 1950, 280, Sarapis is instead represented as a protector of sailing, while Isis appears more as a provider of wealth and prosperity.

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Below, in a rectangular central area, on the first register of the deck, one of the Dioscuri, standing and nude, holds a horse; further down, in a second register, Ptah as demiurge in the form of a dwarf prepares to place a small vase in an oven.114 At the end of the boat there is a head crowned with ivy atop a thyrsus. Below the Dioscurus can be read εὔπλοια in a tabula ansata, while on the back of the boat is inscribed Λαβέ με τὸν Ἡλιοσέραπιν, which can be understood as “Take me, Heliosarapis!”, indicating its purpose as a talisman during the duration of the crossing.115 This artifact can be dated to the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd cent. CE.116 The other lamp from Italy was found at Ostia (fig. 121).117 With ten wick holes, it represents Isis at the center, standing between two columns and dressed in a chiton and himation, wearing a basileion, and brandishing the sistrum in her right hand while holding a cornucopia surmounted by a uraeus in her left. At one end, oriented in the same direction as the goddess, Harpocrates is represented as a bust, wearing the pschent and holding a cornucopia with his left hand and putting his index finger to his mouth, while at the other end, inverted, one finds Sarapis as a bust, wearing the calathos. These three divine figures are all facing frontal. Harpocrates and Sarapis are shown framed by columns that support a triangular pediment representing the façade of a temple. Another, rather similar lamp, with eight wick holes, was found in Carthage in 1900, not far from the Basilica of Dermech, near the location of the Serapeum (fig. 122).118 It features the same type of central area, almost square in this 114  Tran tam Tinh 1972, 53, prefers to see instead a Silen imitating a potter; Bailey 1988, 340, thinks it is one of the Cabeiri. 115  The meaning of this inscription has not been clearly established. Tran tam Tinh & Jentel 1993, 63 n. 37, survey the proposed interpretations: Heliosarapis is “the name of the boat, a slang term for designating a boat-shaped lamp (?), the identification of the iconography of the god represented on the boat with the boat itself (?).” I believe that it represents the boat’s name. 116  According to Bailey, this lamp and the next were Cnidian products datable to 70–120 CE. Based on this, to him the inscription εὔπλοια is addressed to Aphrodite, which appears quite improbable in light of the lamp’s decoration. The wish must have had a general power, reinforced both by the images of gods known to have protected voyagers and the imperative formula found on the back. To Adamo Muscettola 1998, 557 n. 40, the lamp would have been a “product of the island [of Cos?] associated with the wine trade with Italy”.” 117  Ostia antica, Antiquarium inv. no. 3218. Floriani Squarciapino 1962, frontispiece and 35; Hornbostel 1973, 307 with fig. 323; Merkelbach 1995, 672 pl. 212; Podvin 2011, 260 NAVI (2) with pl. 63. 118  Tunis, Bardo National Museum inv. no. K 1280. Gauckler 1901, 135–136 no. 32, with a sketch; Hautecœur 1910, 229 no. K 1280; Podvin 2004, 370 with fig. 3; Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (3) with pl. 63; Laporte & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming).

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Figures 122–123 Lamps. Carthage and Sabratha (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

case, but unfortunately the relief has not been preserved (unless it was never added). At the prow, a bust of Harpocrates facing frontal, in the same pose as the preceding example, matches that of Sarapis, again positioned in the stern. Here, too, the gods are flanked by columns, this time connected by an arch. Rings positioned beneath each god’s bust permit lamps to be suspended. Another lamp from Africa, also fragmentary, was discovered at Gigthis. It presents, once again, the figure of Isis at the center between two columns, accompanied by a serpent, as well as a bust of Sarapis at the stern (while the other end has broken off).119 A fifth lamp, was discovered at the site of the South Basilica in Sabratha’s Regio I, from which only one of the ends has been preserved, which features a bust of Isis (fig. 123).120 They are both dated to the 2nd–3rd cents. CE. 119  Tunis, Bardo National Museum inv. no. K 1281. Gauckler 1907, 559; Hautecœur 1910, 229 no. K 1281; Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (4). 120  Sabratha, Roman Museum inv. no. 638. Joly 1974, 164 no. 839 with pl. XXXI, suggesting that it was imported from Egypt; Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (5) with pl. 63.

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Figures 124a–b Lamp. Kato Paphos (end of 2nd-early 3rd cent. CE)

A sixth boat-shaped lamp with Isiac figures, broken into multiple fragments, was found at Kato Paphos on Cyprus, in the House of Orpheus, at a level dating to the 2nd–3rd cents. CE. It features a dozen wick holes along the sides and an image of Sarapis on the deck, enthroned and accompanied by Cerberus, with two stars below him, while a standing figure of Harpocrates adorns one of the ends (fig. 124).121 On the bottom, one can read the inscription ΗΛΕΙΟ CΕΡΑΠΕC (Ἡλειοσεράπες, “[This has been dedicated] to Heliosarapis”). The letterforms point towards the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd cent. CE.

121  Paphos, Paphos District Museum inv. no. PHH 380. Karageorghis 1987, 689–690, fig. 45 = RICIS 401/0501; Michaelides 2009; Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI(6) with pl. 63. For Michaelides 2009, 201, this could be an example of a lamp of Cnidian make.

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Figure 125 Lamp. Berlin (2nd cent. CE)

On a seventh, rather fragmentary, lamp with four wick holes that comes from modern Porto Torres on Sardinia,122 there remain traces of the feet of a divine image in a shrine, about which Jean-Louis Podvin, after autopsy, concludes that “it might be Sarapis.”123 An eighth lamp with eight wick holes, preserved at Berlin (fig. 125),124 features busts of Isis at the stern and Sarapis at the prow. Harpocrates, standing near an altar in the central area, holds a goose in his right hand, while in the left part of the scene there appears a small pillar surmounted by a lyre and caduceus. Below there is a lion.125 On the back of the lamp can be read the 122  Sassari, Museo Archeologico Nazionale G. A. Sanna inv. no. 9015. Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (7) with pl. 63; Gavini 2014, 25 fig. 6. 123  Podvin 2011, 94. 124  Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum inv. no. 19591; Weber 1914, I, 31 no. 12; II, pl. 1 no. 12a–b. 125  Its editor also observed on the prow an image of Pan.

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Figures 126–127 Lamps. Ascalon (1st–2nd cents. CE) and Minoa (3rd cent. CE)

inscription ΘEOIC ΛABE EΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΗΡΙΟΝ (θεοῖς λαβέ εὐχαριστήριον: “Take this to demonstrate your gratitude to the gods”).126 One may finally add a fragment of a ninth lamp, discovered in Ascalon, which features a bust of Isis at the stern, iconographically close to the previous one (fig. 126),127 and of a tenth, found at Minoa on the island of Amorgos, which also features the bust of Isis, but was more crudely executed (fig. 127).128

126  Wilhelm Weber, who published this artifact, believed it to be of Egyptian origin. But one can doubt this, since the lamp type does not seem attributable to an Egyptian workshop. It is comparable to another boat-shaped lamp, regrettably quite fragmentary, that was found in a tomb at Gerasa and bears the same inscription on the back (Amman, Archaeological Museum no inv. no.; Kraeling 1938, 461 no. 249 with pl. CXXVIIe; Bienkowski 1991, 79 fig. 86; Podvin 2012, 120–121), but for which an Isiac character cannot be assured due to its poor state of preservation. One may perhaps recognize Aphrodite. The lamp from Gerasa, dating to the 2nd cent. CE, was thought to be “probably Cnidian” by Bailey 1988, 340; the lamp at the Berlin Ägyptisches Museum (our fig. 125) likewise could have been manufactured at Cnidus. 127  Ashkelon, Rockefeller Archaeological Museum inv. no. 2012–701; Johnson 2008, 130 no. 386. A fragment of another boat-shaped lamp also found at Ascalon does not feature Sarapis, as claimed by Johnson 2008, 130 no. 185, but most likely one of the Dioscuri instead. 128  Marangou 2002, 260 fig. 243.3.

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Figures 128–129 Lamps. Alexandria (2nd cent. CE)

Lamps in the form of a barque have likewise been found in Egypt and follow more or less the same arrangement, but are also quite different from the ones described above. Of smaller scale and having a single wick hole, these feature Sarapis alone, wearing the calathos, enthroned, holding with his left hand and leaning on a scepter, while extending his right hand above Cerberus. These lamps are all datable to the 2nd cent. CE. A particular detail, however, permits them to be classified into two categories. On certain lamps, the deck along its railings is flanked by a column against which a nude Dioscurus leans, armed with a lance, atop his head a pilos surmounted by a star (fig. 128). An oar is represented on the hull, on either side of the stern. On the back can be read the inscription KATAΠΛOΥC, a vow “for a good voyage.”129 On the 129  Tran tam Tinh & Jentel 1993, no. 26–27, p. 50–51 cite five other examples, of which three are unedited. The two that have already been published are Bailey 1988, no. Q 1990, and Pietrzykowsi 1977, 127–128, fig. 7. The latter was found in Alexandria during the Polish

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other lamps, which are slightly smaller, the place of the Dioscuri is taken by an Agathodaimon serpent wearing the pschent (on the left) and the serpent goddess Thermouthis wearing a basileion (on the right). On the back can be seen the inscription NEIKH, a wish for victory, perhaps as much for Sarapis when one is upon on the raging waves as for a merchant engaging in commerce (fig. 129).130 These inscriptions are not, in fact, anything other than “the types of short prayer in which the wish is also an invocation in honor of the divinity.”131 It is equally worth noting a boat-shaped lamp with five wick holes preserved at Cairo’s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities,132 on the stern of which Sarapis is represented standing, his torso bare, leaning on a scepter in his left hand and extending his right hand over Cerberus. Finally one needs to consider a series of lamps that the majority of scholars connect to the Isiac sphere. One of them, fragmentary, was found by chance in the vicinity of the Odeon at Corinth.133 Others, more or less complete, were found in the Athenian Kerameikos, where they were probably manufactured. The majority of these come from deposits, dating to the beginning of the 4th cent. CE, located in the Pompeion complex.134 The best preserved is 29 cm. in length and has eight wick holes along the sides, each accompanied by a small vent (fig. 130).135 The central part, flanked by two columns, unfortunately is not preserved. The ends, similar to each other, are decorated with a shrine enclosing a divinity’s bust that faces forwards. At the prow, the bust is that of a goddess wearing a calathos, holding in her left hand what can perhaps be interpreted as a cornucopia from which a palm emerges, while a cross-shaped object in her right hand might represent a rudder; at the stern, the bust is that of a bearded god with long hair, wearing the calathos atop his head and dressed excavation of Kom el-Dikka. The one illustrated here (fig. 128) comes from a private Swiss collection (www.artefacts.mom.fr no. LMP-4367). 130  Tran tam Tinh & Jentel 1993, 52–53 no. 29–30, who cite two other examples, including Bailey 1988, no. Q 1991 (fig. 129). 131  Tran tam Tinh & Jentel 1993, 63. 132  Inv. no. 26503, signaled by Bailey 1988, 23; see also Ballet & Pomey 2015, 189. 133  Archaeological Museum of Ancient Corinth inv. no. L-1174. Broneer 1930, 284 no. 1448 with pl. XXI; Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (9). Another fragment from a boat-shaped lamp (Corinth Museum inv. no. L-1993–13) appears to feature a bust of Sarapis according to Williams 2005, 223 n. 4 and 225 (see also Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (9)), which cannot be confirmed without the opportunity to examine the object in person. 134  The lamps of this type do not appear to be attested before the end of the 3rd cent. CE. Böttger 2002, 209–210 nos. 2683–2712, and 300 no. 4746. 135  Perlzweig 1961, 121–122 with pl. 23j (and not pl. 24 as p. 121 indicates); Bruneau 1974, 338– 340; Böttger 2002, no. 2583 with pl. 50; Podvin 2011, 261 NAVI (10) with pl. 63.

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Figure 130 Lamp. Athens (4th cent. CE)

in a chiton and a himation that goes across his left shoulder. These diverse elements and the combination of the two busts, quite stylized, invite one to find in these the couple Isis and Sarapis.136 The question all this raises is which role or roles should be attributed to these boat-shaped lamps that are so often linked to Isis’s maritime cult: liturgical, votive, funerary, or simply functional use? One should note from the start that the list of boat-shaped lamps is much longer than the one proposed above, since not all feature an iconographic element that is undoubtedly Isiac.137 This 136  Ciceroni 1989–1990, 796, recognizes Isis and Sarapis, as does Böttger 2002, 52; also Podvin & Veymiers 2008, 65. 137  This observation was made long ago by Deonna 1927, 255 (with Bruneau 1965, 107–108 following), while publishing 17 lamps or fragments that do not feature an a priori Isiac element; see also Bruneau 1974, 340 n. 1. See the boat-shaped lamps published in Deonna 1938, 197–203; Menzel 1969, 73–74 no. 490 with fig. 58; Hayes 1980, 103 no. 410 with pl. 63; Hellmann 1987, 61–62 no. 231–232 with pl. XXVIII; Bailey 1988, 243 no. Q 1989 with pl. 39;

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does not mean that no boat-shaped lamps lacking these elements were used in an Isiac context; and, the converse is true as well.138 Podvin139 has convincingly demonstrated an almost systematic disproportion, when excavations of Isiac sanctuaries have permitted the establishment of objective statistics between lamps of Isiac types and the others – by far the majority – found at each site. Isiacs did not solely use lamps decorated as with Isiac imagery, as was also true of non-Isiacs. Several scholars have wished to connect, a priori rather logically, boatshaped Isiac lamps to the festival of the Navigium Isidis,140 and in particular to Apuleius’s mention of the small, golden boat-shaped lamp hold by the goddess.141 Indeed, one of the officiators represented on the walls of the peribolos of Pompeii’s Iseum carries a golden lamp in the form of a small boat suspended from a long rod ending in a hook,142 which is tempting to associate with the lamp described by Apuleius. But nothing requires us to conclude that the image in question concerns this annual procession held during the month of March. After all, opportunities to move or convey a lamp, including one in the form of a boat, were not lacking during the rest of the year. I strongly doubt that the exclusive purpose of these boat-shaped lamps was to be transported during the Navigium Isidis. It is known, in contrast, that certain lamps were undoubtedly consecrated as an ex-voto for Isis,143 as with Sarapis. A famous epigram of Callimachus144 has been used to justify the votive nature of boat-shaped lamps:145 Ciceroni 1989–1990, 794 and n. 9. For boat-shaped lamps, more generally, Pavlović 1966; Göttlicher 1978, pl. 23.293 and 41.522; Göttlicher 1979; Podvin 2011, 91–95; Podvin 2012. 138  A certain number of lamps in the shape of a boat, made from bronze or terracotta, were found at Pompeii in the Casa di P. Cornelius Tages I, 7, 10/12 (NotScav 1927, 77–78), in the Casa del Moralista III, 4, 2 (Spinazzola 1953, I, 728), and in the western isola of Regio VI (Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia, Naples 1860–1864, I, 1, 120), and these do not bear any Isiac imagery. One can think, however, that the two lamps found in the triclinium of the house of the merchant Publius Cornelius Tages, each richly decorated with Nilotic and Egyptianizing motifs, if not Isiac, could have served in Isiac processions – and if so, why not the Navigium Isidis among them? 139  Podvin 2011. 140  So Mazaubert 1937, 318; Picard 1962, 229; Floriani Squarciapino 1962, 32; Tran tam Tinh 1964, 27; Menzel 1969, 73; Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 195. Contra Bruneau, REG 78 (1965), 440– 441, and Vidman 1970, 7. See infra pp. 203–228 for the festival itself. 141   A pul. Met. 11. 4. 142  Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale inv. no. 8926. Tran tam Tinh 1964, 93–94 and 136– 137 no. 33. 143  Bruneau 1974, 338–339; Bruneau 1980, 51, n. 118. 144  Epig. 55 Pf = 16 G.-P. = AP 6. 148 = Souda, s. v. μύξα. 145  Mazaubert 1937, 317–318.

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Tῶι με Κανωπίται Καλλίστιον εἴκοσι μύξαις πλούσιον ἁ Κριτίου λύχνον ἔθηκε θεῶι εὐξαμένα περὶ παιδὸς Ἀπελλίδος· ἐς δ᾽ ἐμὰ φέγγη ἀθρήσας φάσεις “Ἕσπερε πῶς ἔπεσεσ’.” To the god of Canopus, Callistion, daughter of Critias, has dedicated me. Me, a lamp rich with twenty wicks, after having made a vow for her child Apellis. Turning one’s eyes towards my flames, one says, “Evening star, how did you fall to Earth?” One encounters two problems with this, however. First, the precision regarding the twenty wick holes does not automatically make this lamp a boatshaped one.146 Second, as for the god of Canopus, who can be none other than Sarapis,147 he is better known for his qualities as a healer than for his role as protector of sailors. It was probably on the occasion of her child’s recovery that Callistion made the dedication of this lamp, and not a maritime context. Be that as it may, the votive texts written on some of these lamps could naturally be the expression of a wish for a successful voyage, just like the expressions of gratitude towards the gods that permitted one, and were comparable to the formula Σὺ μὲν οὖν εὐπλοέι (“May your voyage be fortunate!”) reported by Lucian.148 This is the case with lamps bearing the terms εὔπλοια, καταπλους or νείκη, but also with the one from Kato Paphos dedicated to Heliosarapis as protector of sailing – protection all the more effective, undoubtedly, because the boat in question is itself called “Heliosarapis,” as at Puteoli. One may also ask to what extent, after producing a generic and standardized batch of lamps, the workshops manufacturing them would have devoted themselves to the personalization of certain boat-shaped lamps by adding acclamative and propitiatory formulas in response to the instructions of this or that customer. This is also the case for the lamps from Gerasa and at Berlin, ideal for indicating gratitude, as is proclaimed by the inscriptions that run along their bottoms, following the principle of reciprocity that sustained the relations between people and gods.149

146  It is not possible to follow Tran tam Tinh 1990b, 129, when he writes “the lamp from Puteoli reminds us of Callimachus’s famous epigram mentioning a similar lamp dedicated to Sarapis of Canopus.” 147  Laporte & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming). 148   L uc. Nav. 14. 149  This formula is found on one inscribed gem: Le Blant 1898, 36–37 no. 83 for a carnelian showing a boat, inserted into a large and ancient gold ring bearing the words AGENT /

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One can also take into consideration, in certain cases, a different reading of these inscriptions, which would link them to the happy fulfillment of one’s life and hopes for wealth and prosperity. In effect, this voyage can be understood in a metaphorical sense, and refer to the journey through life. The role, a dual one in this circumstance, of Isis – who, moreover, often holds the cornucopia on these lamps – as a protectress of sailing but also of fertility, and the presence of Harpocrates warrant this double interpretation.150 The presence of some of these lamps – those from Gerasa and the Athenian Kerameikos –in tombs led certain scholars to insist on their having had a funerary character.151 While it is true that for a long time lamps were used in Egypt as part of funerary ritual, this seems debatable elsewhere. It is undoubtedly no more necessary to attribute a funerary function systematically to lamps found outside of Egypt, even if they are often found in tombs. Lamps found in sanctuaries did not necessarily play an essential role in cult rituals. We should never forget that the primary function of lamps is to illuminate.152 This must have been how they were used most of the time, whether they were the object of a vow and deposited in a sanctuary, or simply kept within private residences. Suspension rings as well as certain holes or slots that are visible under the hull of a boat-shaped lamp clearly indicate that some of these lamps were intended to be suspended in the manner of ship models in the shrines frequented by sailors. One can also admit that some were undoubtedly meant just to be decorative, signifying the attachment of the owner of a home in which the lamps were used to the divinity or divinities represented upon them, regardless of whether he was a sailor. In the case of boat-shaped lamps, it is difficult, however, to consider that their owner, or their dedicant, did not have some sort of connection to the maritime world, as is indicated by where the examples have been brought to light (e.g., Ostia, Puteoli, Carthage, Gigthis, Ascalon, Minoa). Without doubt, it is for reasons of this nature that some of these lamps have been retrieved from tombs that could have belonged to sailors, at Gerasa and Athens.

ƐΥΠΛΟƐΙ. On lamps as active agents in their relationship with people in the ancient world, Bielfeldt 2014. 150  A double reading that can also justify (and be justified by) the presence of the Dioscuri or of the Agathodaimon and Thermouthis on the Egyptian boat-shaped lamps – lamps on which, it should be remembered, Isis does not appear. 151  So Benoît 1952 or Ciceroni 1989–1990, 795–798, the demonstration of which, much too systematic, attempts to minimize the extreme the votive and “marine” nature of these lamps. 152  Podvin 2014b; Podvin 2015.

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The questions raised by the likely existence of cult sites belonging to Isis as a marine goddess, and by the possible use of certain boat-shaped lamps during group ceremonies, have led us to discuss the celebration of festivals in honor of Isis, goddess of the seas – festivities to which it is now necessary to turn our attention. 5.3

Festivals in Honor of Isis, Goddess of the Seas

Being so precisely established and developed, the maritime and riverine prerogatives of Isis could only be celebrated on the occasion of particular ceremonies. However, the origin of these festivals is rather difficult to clarify. One can imagine that when the ideological framework strongly suggested by the Aretalogy was set in place this aspect of the goddess’s nature did not lack recognition and deserved celebration. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to establish at which moment, in which context and under which conditions this trait of Isis’s personality became sufficiently important for there to be ceremonies specifically devoted to her. It is only in the Imperial Period that the sources permit us to assess the question, since two festivals on the Roman calendar are directly connected to marine Isis: the Navigium Isidis of March 5 and the Sacrum Phariae of April 25. 5.3.1 The Navigium Isidis The festival that marked the reopening of the sea routes in the Mediterranean each spring was called the Πλοιαφέσια in an inscription from Byzantium (fig. 131),153 in Apuleius,154 and in John Lydus.155 In the Latin world, this festival bore the name Navigium Isidis, attested by the Menologia Rustica,156 Lactantius,157 the Chronography of 354 (also called the Calendar of Philocalus),158

153  S IRIS 130 = Łajtar & Twardecki 2003, no. 5 = RICIS 114/0703 (beginning of 1st cent. CE). See also Vidman 1970, 76–78. 154  Met. 11. 17 (c. 175 CE), according to a correction to the reading of the manuscripts, which have AOIAFESIA. This correction, accepted by almost all scholars, was rejected, unconvincingly, by Festugière 1963, 142–143. 155  Mens. 4. 45 (middle of 6th cent. CE), who establishes the connection between the beginning of the sailing season and the Ploiaphesia festival. On Roman calendars, Salzmann 1990, esp. 169–176; Rüpke 1995 (English trans. 2011); Rüpke 2006. 156  C IL I², p. 280. 157  Div. inst. 1. 11. 21 (beginning of 4th cent. CE). 158  C IL I², p. 338; Salzman 1990, 173–175.

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Figure 131 Dedication. Byzantium (Early 1st cent. CE)

Claudian,159 Fulgentius,160 and the Third Vatican Mythographer.161 Ausonius162 instead uses the periphrasis natalis ratis isiacae, while Vegetius163 evokes it without naming the festival.164 The Menologia Rustica, the date of which is not certain, place the festival in March, whereas the Chronography of 354 and John Lydus place it precisely on March 5.165 As Pliny the Elder had written three centuries earlier:166 159  De Isidis navigio (end of 4th cent. CE). 160  Mythologiae 1. 20 (5th–6th cents. CE). 161  Script. rerum mythicarum 3. 5 (9th–10th cents. CE). 162  De feriis romanis 24 (end of 4th cent. CE). 163  Epitoma rei militaris 4. 39 (c. 400 CE). 164  Merkelbach 1981 believes that a passage in Suet. Nero 20. 2 makes a direct allusion to the festival of Navigium Isidis: Captus autem modulatis Alexandrinorum laudationibus, qui de novo commeatu Neapolim confluxerant, plures Alexandria evocavit (“Charmed to hear himself rhythmically cheered by the Alexandrians who had just disembarked in Naples, he (Nero) brought an even larger number of them to that city”). Despite some lexical parallels with Apul. Met. 11. 5, 9 and 16, this hypothesis is hardly convincing. 165  On March 3, even as late as 303 CE, there was celebrated at Caesarea Maritima a festival “on the birthday of the one called Tyche at Caesarea” (Euseb. Mart. 11. 30: ὁ μὲν Ἀδριανὸς Δύστρου πέμπτῃ μηνός, πρὸ τριῶν Νώνων Μαρτίων, γενεθλίων τῆς κατὰ Καισάρειαν νομιζομένης Τύχης ἡμέρᾳ), which probably was associated with the opening of navigation; Belayche 2003, 118. The links between Isis and Tyche were quite direct in the coastal cities of Palestine (Ascalon, Caesarea). 166   Nat. 2. 47. 122.

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Ver ergo aperit navigantibus maria It’s spring that opens the seas for those who sail. Vegetius,167 for his part, at the very end of the 4th cent. commented that it was easy to sail between May 27 and September 14, and better to show some prudence from March 10 to May 27 and September 14 to November 11. Between this date and the beginning of March, the sea was theoretically closed.168 But as Michel Reddé has noted, “These dates are in fact approximate, and numerous texts show that, even in the middle of winter, not all maritime movement was interrupted. First, local cabotage remained possible; next, risk-takers, or those whose affairs absolutely required them to depart, those whom the lure of profit would torment, sometimes would take to the sea during the bad season for sailing if they were able to find a ship and crew.”169 The sea may have been closed, but this did not necessarily prevent sailors from attempting to cross it. It was always the case that on a certain spring day, one that could vary somewhat, almost everywhere along the Mediterranean coast – and even at cities not situated on the Mediterranean itself170 – there would be a festival celebrated in order to mark symbolically the end of the mare clausum, and the “official” reopening of sailing on the sea, under the protection of Isis. The ceremonies associated with these festivities were explicitly linked to Isis in the inscription from Byzantium (fig. 131), dated to the very beginning of the 1st cent. CE.171

167  Vegetius 4. 32. 168  C.Th. 13. 9. 3. 3 and CJ XI. 6. 3. Pittia 2002, 199–203; Medas 2004, 34–40; Jimenez Correio 2014, 133–134. 169  Reddé & Golvin 2005, 7; see also Morton 2001, 258–261; Warnecke 2002, 103; Beresford 2013, esp. 40–42 (which is completely outdated, being based solely on old scholarly literature in English). 170   Paus. 10. 32. 13–18 reports that at Tithorea, in Phocis, there was celebrated in honor of Isis two festivals each year, one in the spring and the other at the end of autumn, both in and outside the sanctuary of Isis, described as the most venerable of those built by the Greeks to the Egyptian goddess. The two festivals (certainly the Navigium Isidis and the Inventio Osiridis) each lasted for three days; on Pausanias’s description of the site, Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2005; Chandezon 2011. 171  S IRIS 130 = Tacheva-Hitova 1983, 32–35 no. I, 54 = I.Byzantion 324 = Łajtar & Twardecki 2003, 29–32 no. 5 = RICIS 114/0703. Rhoimetalkes, king of the Odryses, died in 14 CE, the terminus ante quem for this inscription. Year 32 could correspond to the 32nd year of his reign or the 32nd year of the Actian era, i.e. 1/2 CE.

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Ἴσιδι καὶ Σαράπιδι / βασιλεύοντος Ῥοιμε/τάλκου, μερα(ρ)χοῦν/τος δὲ Ἀρτεμιδώ//ρου τοῦ Φιοστρά/του, ἔτους λβ´, Ἀρτε/μίδωρος Συνίστο/ρος υἱὸς ναυαρχή/σας τὰ μεγάλα Πλ[οι]//αφέσια τὸν τελα/μῶνα ἀνέθηκεν. For Isis and Sarapis, during the reign of Rhoimetalces I, the merarchês being Artemidorus, son of Philostratos, in Year 32 Artemidorus, son of Synistor, who was navarch during the great Ploiaphesia, consecrated this telamon. The other sources, all literary, mentioning the festival are later, as has been noted.172 However, it does not seem impossible to conceive of the existence of this festival at an earlier date.173 It has been seen that the aretalogies, the prototype of which could go back to the 3rd cent. BCE, already made Isis the patronness of sailing.174 However, these texts are propagandistic and nothing permits us to say that this theological statement was immediately associated with concrete manifestations of this role, such as the festival in question. Numismatic evidence,175 due to its richness, might be able to provide other chronological information. The first coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type appeared among the coinage of Byblos during the reign of Antiochus IV (175–164 BCE),176 and these figure among the first autonomous issues of this city under the Seleucid domination (figs. 44–46). Up to the 3rd cent. CE, this coin type recurs among those issued by this Phoenician city.177 But can one, for all that, consider these with certainty an illustration of the celebration of the Ploiaphesia? No, not even if I am strongly inclined to think that this was the case. I have discussed above the influence, even indirect, that Byblos could have had on the 172  See supra pp. 203–204. 173  Dunand 1973, III, 223–230. 174  See supra pp. 47–48. 175  See supra p. 58sqq. 176  For Manganaro 1982, 261–262, this would not be the most ancient numismatic representation of marine Isis. One can legitimately doubt this identification, however, since nothing in the iconography of this female figure invites us to recognize her as Isis. On a silver coin from Syracuse dating to Republic (215–212 BCE), one can see on the reverse a female figure holding a long branch in her left hand and a scroll that has been partly unrolled in her right. This object was interpreted in SNG Lockett Collection, 1024 as a sistrum, an identification accepted by the majority of scholars (Franke 1958, 80; SNG München, 1439; SNG Fitzwilliam Museum, 1440; SNG Ashmolean Museum, 2125). It was also accepted by Manganaro, who recognized Isis Pelagia on a coin because of the inflated veil behind her shoulders, an identification maintained in two other studies: Manganaro 1981–1982, 37 no. 7 with pl. 10.7; Manganaro 1989, 534; see the reservations provided in SNRIS, 179. 177  S NRIS Byblus and supra p. 87.

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genesis of marine Isis on two separate occasions. The first was when Hathor, lady of Byblos, gained her character as a goddess of the sea there; the second was when Isis, in the Gebalite episode of her quest for Osiris, traveled there by sea, showing proof of her ingeniousness as well as her courage.178 The choice of such a motif for decorating the reverse of some of the first coins autonomously struck by the city obviously was not one made by chance, and came from a strategy seeking to elevate the stature of Byblos by insisting on its role in one of the myths on which the newfound popularity of Isis outside of Egypt was based. Of the numerous episodes feeding into the versions, variants and retellings of the Osirian myth, the ones placing Isis in contact with the Mediterranean world were among the most essential at informing the peoples for whom the Mediterranean and its ports were closer than the Nile and its trading posts about this goddess. I therefore would not be surprised if this coin issue could at the same time both recall the direct connections linking this port city to Isis and commemorate the reopening of sailing on the Mediterranean, by then already under the goddess’s protection. It must be remembered, however, that Byblos remained for two and a half centuries the only city to use this iconographic type, until Alexandria seized upon it during the reign of Domitian. The image of Isis-with-a-sail on coins did not spread widely until the beginning of the reign of Antoninus.179 The third source is an epigraphical one. On a large, marble stele found in the Isieion at Eretria was preserved a list of navarchs more than 80 lines long from the 1st cent. BCE on one side and, on the opposite side, a list of local ephebes dating to the beginning of the 3rd cent. BCE.180 This list of navarchs is the work of different hands and was created over the years, though always under the priesthood of Dionysus, son of Philocles. It is possible that we have here a list enumerating, year after year, the members of the crew of a ship put out to sea for the Πλοιαφέσια.181 Another inscription, from the same era, also concerns

178  See supra pp. 19–22. 179  See supra p. 87, table 20. 180  Papadakis 1915, 158–169 = IG XII Suppl. 557 = SIRIS 80 = Bruneau 1975, 79–84 no. VIII with pl. XXXII = RICIS 104/0109. The beginning of this same list, with minor variants, was inscribed on another stele, this one of green schist: Papadakis 1915, 158 = IG XII Suppl. 558 = SIRIS 81 = Bruneau 1975, 84–85 no. IX = RICIS 104/0110. To explain this unusual duplication, Bruneau proposed, no doubt justifiably, that the attempt to produce an inscription on schist had proven unsatisfactory, so the effort was quickly abandoned in favor of inscribing the list, with some minor changes, on the marble stele. 181  This suggestion was already made by Bruneau 1975, 141. On these navarchs, see infra pp. 216–220.

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navarchs.182 Put together, all these documents clearly indicate that this festival was being celebrated at least by the 1st cent. BCE. The majority of scholars have wished to attribute the origin of this festival to Alexandria,183 a hypothesis that is impossible to disprove but that is not to be taken as fact in the absence of any reliable argument in its favor: after all, Byblos, as seen above, would also be a perfectly acceptable candidate. Regarding the origins of this festival, Reinhold Merkelbach established a subtle connection between the Ploiaphesia, which essentially concerned Isis, and the Ptolemaic Kikellia festival referred to in the Decree of Canopus, which was held during the month of Choiak and centered around Osiris as the preeminent divinity.184 A poem which makes an allusion to a sailing festival, inscribed on a stele found in the Isiac sanctuary at Thessalonica,185 gave Merkelbach the opportunity to reaffirm this viewpoint: Σοὶ τόδε δωμητὸν τέμενος θέτο, δαῖμον Ὀσε[ῖρι], λάρνακά τε γλαφυρὰν ἔνδοθι ναμόφορον, ἔνθα περιπλώεις σὺ κατ´ ἀστεροφεγγέα νύκτα καὶ τεύχεις ἐρατὴν Ἷσιν ἐν ἀγλαΐαις. 5 Aὐτὸς γὰρ πάμπρωτος ἐπήξαο νήïα δοῦρα καὶ πόρον εὐξέστοις τμῆξας ἔνερθε πλάταις. ἀλλ’ ἄνα, Φυλακίδηι τε καὶ υἱέï καλὸν ὀπάζοις δῶρον ἐϋκλεïης ἄμφω ἀπημοσύνηι, ὄφρα τις ἀμερίων λεύσσων τάδε θυμὸν ὀτρύνηι 10 σφωïτερομ μακάρωμ μήποτε λῆστιν ἔχειν. Δαμαίου. For you, daimon Osiris, [Phylakides] built this enclosure and, inside of it, the well-carved coffin, carried by the drift of the current, where you bring your periplous to fruition in the starry night and make Isis charming during celebrations. Indeed, first you yourself assembled the boards of the ship and made your way with polished oars. But rise, and may you allow 182  Papadakis 1915, 152–153 = IG XII Suppl. 565 = SIRIS 82 = Bruneau 1975, 86–88 no. X with pl. XXXIII = RICIS 104/0111. The priest in charge at the time was also Dionysus, son of Philocles. 183  E.g., Hani 1976, 378. 184  O GIS I, 56, l. 50 and l. 64; Merkelbach 1963, 35–41. He was followed, among others, by Castiglione 1970, 41–43. But see already the reticence expressed in Malaise 1972b, 219–220; Dunand 1973, III, 229–230. 185   I G X 2, 1, 108 with pl. IX = Totti 1985, 163 no. 72 = RICIS 113/0506. See also Bingen 1972; Merkelbach 1973, 45–49; Koemoth 2005, 42–44; Koemoth 2010.

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to Phylakides and his children the fine gift of fame, keeping them healthy so that everyone, by seeing all this, will stir his heart to never forget the gods. [Poem] of Damaius. The work of a certain Damaius, son of Hegesandrus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, this was dedicated to Osiris perhaps towards the end of the 2nd cent. BCE. The text celebrates the establishment of a temenos made of good stone consecrated to Osiris, in the interior of which was placed a larnax; next is mentioned the “periplous” of Isis’s spouse, concluded with festivities; and finally, the poet affirms that Osiris was the first one to assemble the boards of a rowing ship, which he later used. For Merkelbach, this offering was given during the Navigium Isidis festival.186 This is quite unlikely. Certainly, the “periplous of Osiris” to which allusion is made in the poem is that of 29 Choiak, which took place between the temple of Amon-grb at Herakleion and the Canopus Osireion. It must correspond to the final stage of Isis’s quest when, after having crossed the marshes in a papyrus barque to search for the dismembered Osiris,187 she brings back the god’s body by herself.188 Moreover, the reference to the festivities concluding this terrible quest clearly pertain to the festivals celebrated in honor of the retrieved Osiris, the Romans’ Inventio Osiridis. This is why I do not believe that this λάρναξ ναμόφορος must be a chest containing an urn filled with sacred water from the Nile, as he proposes,189 but rather, as Jean Bingen suggests, a reproduction of the chest of Osiris carried by the current towards Byblos.190 However, as Malaise has shown,191 nothing enables us to link the episode of Osiris floating upon the waters with the festival of the reopening of the sea to sailing. The respective elements of each festival are too different, and the discrepancies in terms of dates too irreconcilable. As for the verse-making of Osiris, to some extent, the inventor of sailing, it is modeled on the Aretalogy of Isis, an exemplar of which was found in the precinct of Thessalonica’s Egyptian sanctuary.192 This poem of Damaios therefore does not pertain to the Ploiaphesia. 186  Merkelbach 1973, 47–48, followed, among others, by Totti 1985, 163 no. 72. 187   P lut. De Is. 18. 188  P.Oxy. XI, 1380, 186–189. Compare with the Decree of Canopus: OGIS I, 56, l. 41 ἀναγωγή and l. 54 περίπλοος. 189  Merkelbach 1973, 45, accentuating ναμόφορος, in the active sense of “which carries water.” 190   P lut. De Is. 13, an allusion to the Osirian myth, when the god’s corpse, cut into pieces by Seth, was carried by the Nile’s current first into the Mediterranean, and then towards Byblos. Koemoth 2010 with previous bibliography. 191  Malaise 1972b, 219–220; Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 38–41; Malaise 1978, 704–705. 192  Osiris came to be among those included in the impressive list of inventors of sailing compiled by Plin. Nat. 7. 56. 15–17.

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The epigraphical sources that mention navarchs, trierarchs, naubates and other hieronautes in an Isiac context indirectly suggest that the festival for the opening of sailing must have been celebrated in many of the Mediterranean world’s ports: at Byzantium193 and Kenchreai, where Apuleius situated his account, but also at Eretria,194 Seleukia Pieria,195 Tomis,196 Ephesus,197 Amphipolis,198 and Kios.199 The evidence of coin issues appears to enable us to extend this list:200 in effect, we find the Isis-with-a-sail type, in addition to Byblos, among the coins struck at Alexandria, Amastris, Anchialus, Aspendos, Byzantium, Callatis, Cleonae, Corinth, Cyme, Ephesus, Iasos, Nicaea, Nicomedia, Perinthus, Lydian Philadelphia (?), Thracian Philippopolis, Phocaea, and Rome.201 The presence in this list of at least one city on a river (Philippopolis, on the Hebros River),202 added to the evidence of Pausanias regarding Tithorea,203 a city in Phocis near the Cachales River, a tributary of the Cephisus, suggests that during the Imperial Period the Ploiaphesia would likewise be celebrated upon flowing bodies of water, if not lakes. This is the hypothesis produced by Luciano Morpurgo204 regarding the two luxurious ships constructed at the order of Caligula, which he believed would have been consecrated and sent out onto Lake Nemi during a celebration of the Navigium Isidis. Deliberately sunk, it appears, after the death of the princeps, these were drawn out of the lake in 1929–1930, before being destroyed by fire in 1944. However, there is nothing to support this hypothesis, even if there were recovered from these wrecks, notably, a fragment of a sistrum, golden situlae, and a simpulum.205 Malaise has also suggested that the ceremonies marking the beginning of sailing could likewise have taken place on Lake Garda.206 Here, too, there is a lack of any concrete argument. 193  See supra pp. 205–206. 194  See supra pp. 207–208. 195  I GLS III 1, 1144 = SIRIS 355a = RICIS *402/0201. 196  Teodorescu 1918, 8–15 no. 3 = SIRIS 709 = Tacheva-Hitova 1983, 13–14 no. I, 18 = ISM II (1987), no. 98 (64) = RICIS 618/1007. 197  C IG II 2955 = SIRIS 302 = I.Ephesos IV 1213 = RICIS 304/0609. 198  Veligianni 1986a = RICIS 113/0908 = Veymiers 2009b, 515. 199  L BW 1143 = SIRIS 324 = I.Kios no. 22 = RICIS 308/0301. 200  On the meaning to be given to coin issues of the Isis-with-a-sail type, see supra pp. 86–90. 201  S NRIS, 29–32. Samos should be deleted from the table given on p. 31: the supposed Samian coin of the “Isis-with-a-sail type” is instead from Ephesus (SNRIS Suppl. I, 250). 202  The existence of this type at Philadelphia, another inland city, still needs to be confirmed; see SNRIS Philadelphia Erreur 1. 203   Paus. 10. 32. 11. See supra p. 205 n. 170. 204  Morpurgo 1931, 304. See also on this point Köberlein 1962, 23; Malaise 1972a, 65. 205  Ucelli 1950², 290–291, and 136 fig. 145 for the fragment of the bronze sistrum. 206  Malaise 1972b, 221, n. 5.

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Our more or less thorough knowledge of the festivals of this type depends on texts of varying natures: normative texts such as laws and decrees establishing calendars, the rules and requirements pertaining to their organization; performative texts, such as the hymns and prayers chanted or declaimed on these occasions; and, descriptive texts relating the elements of these ceremonies from the point of view of the spectator or participant, the elements of these ceremonies. Apart from the calendars discussed above and the brief allusions that are to be found in the works of various ancient authors, our perception of the Navigium Isidis essentially depends on a single descriptive source, often considered canonical, but which cannot be viewed as anything more than a specific exemplum, a synthetic vision formed from various experiences, or even a recreation integrating in a single authentic episode fictitious elements or those belonging to other realities. Moreover, there is no reason to think that the Navigium Isidis festival was celebrated in the same manner everywhere and in each era. This specific description, which belongs only to this work and perhaps never corresponded to reality at any ancient locale, is to be found in Book XI of the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. This narrative is a very idiosyncratic piece of evidence, a literary construction in which the main character is as much the work’s hero, Lucius, as it is the goddess. It would be methodologically dangerous to wish to find in it absolutely the normative development of these ceremonies. But with that established, it would be worthwhile to devote a moment to Apuleius’s account. The writer from Madaura, whose setting for the celebration was Kenchreai, Corinth’s eastern port, takes care to specify that the ceremony was conducted in the Greek language and according to Greek rites (sermone rituque Graeciensi), this last remark undoubtedly signifying that the sacrifice was performed with head bare.207 According to this account, the launching of the ship and rituals accompanying it (Met. 11. 16–17) would be preceded by a masked procession (Anteludia; Met. 11. 8)208 and a procession as colorful as it was hierarchically 207  On the ritus Graecus, Scheid 1995; Scheid 1998. 208  This is the sole attestation of the existence of a masquerade linked to an Isiac festival. Would this be a simple celebration, independent of the rite, or a purely Isiac manifestation, with the disguises having a symbolic meaning? For Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 172–180, who summarizes the position of numerous commentators, the festivities have nothing Isiac about them. This is not the thesis of Alföldi 1965–1966, 74–78, who sees in the Isiac festival of March 5 the origin of our carnival, an idea that several scholars reject; see, for example, Meslin 1970, 86–87. Genaille 1978 developed a rather seductive notion on this point. According to her, it was not only a matter of the people’s joy bursting at the end of winter, but also a liberative satire, in which man taunts the evil forces of nature in order to overcome them. The masquerade denounces clichés and deceptive appearances,

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structured,209 and which largely made an appeal to the senses (sight, odor, hearing) of those who were present (Met. 11. 9–11).210 It is described in the following manner by Apuleius in an account that is too lengthy to reproduce in full, and is best summarized: First some women, dressed in white, sprinkle on the ground petals and perfumes in the path of the sacred procession, while others hold mirrors for reflecting the image of the goddess Isis, with some among them miming the adorning and combing of her hair. A large crowd comprised of both sexes follows, carrying various sources of light; lamps, torches, candles. Next come the musicians and a chorus of youths who are also dressed in white, preceding the initiates in the mysteries, men with shaved heads and women whose hair is moist with perfume. They are followed by the cult’s ministers: the first holds a gold lamp in the form of a boat, with an opening at the center; the second bears a small altar; the third carries a golden palm branch and a caduceus; the fourth shows to the crowd a left hand with palm open, and carries a small gold vase made in the form of a breast, to be used for the libations of milk; the fifth holds a gold winnowing-fan filled with golden branches, and the sixth an amphora. They are trailed by the images of the gods Anubis and Isis, then two priests, one holding a sacred basket and the other one a vessel. Finally, there follows the crowd. All are heading towards the port.211 A ship bearing the name of “Isis,” decorated magnificently, is awaiting them. The high priest next pronounces the ritual prayers, purifies the ship and consecrates it to Isis; the crowd of devotees fills it with aromatics and votive offerings, pouring libations of milk mixed with cereal onto the waves. Freed of its moorings, the ship takes to the sea, undoubtedly maneuvered on this occasion by the navarchs. Once back at the temple, the grammateus pronounces some vows for the prosperity false respectability and the hypocrisy of “social” activities. This absurdity illuminates the organized beauty of the Isiac procession that follows the carnivalesque jubilation, and the true wisdom of the worshipers of Isis. This paragraph thus need not be dissociated from the procession of the Navigium Isidis. In the form of antithesis, it truly constitutes the prelude, according to the very term used by Apuleius: Anteludia. For Gianotti 1981, this shows the spectacular manner in which the religion of Isis, unifying and universal, welcomed the different types of people and their diverse social categories. According to him, Apuleius accepts without reservation the double aspects – the entertaining and the serious – that characterized popular festivals, and he knows the importance of the comic element for sustaining interest and conveying a message. 209  On the processions and their context, both urban and extra-urban, at Rome as well as in the Hellenistic cities, Benoist 1999; Fless 2004; Benoist 2008; Chaniotis 2013; Gasparini 2013; Bricault & Veymiers 2018b, with earlier bibliography. 210   Grand-Clément 2018, 341–344. 211   A pul. Met. 11. 16–17.

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of the emperor, the Senate, the equestrian order, the Roman people, and all the sailors and ships. Finally, he proclaims the Πλοιαφέσια, litterally the “launching of the ships,” and after applause and communal veneration of Isis’s statue the attendees head home.212 Still at the end of the fourth century, Vegetius (4. 39) relates that this event marking the resumption of economic activities was the occasion for diverse celebrations, including, among other elements, naval combats and a public spectacle: ex die tertio idus Novembres usque in diem sextum idus Martias maria clauduntur; nam lux minima noxque prolixa, nubium densitas, aëris obscuritas, ventorum imbri vel nivibus geminata saevitia non solum classes a pelago sed etiam commeantes a terrestri itinere deturbant. Post natalem vero, ut ita dicam, navigationis, qui sollemni certamine publicoque spectaculo multarum urbium celebratur … From the third day before the Ides of November up to the sixth before the Ides of March, the seas are closed; in effect, the shortness of the day and the length of the night, the thickness of the clouds and darkness of the air, the cruelty of the winds amplified by the rain and snow not only keep ships from the sea, but also travelers from their land routes. Finally, the anniversary day arrives, one could say, of the birth of sailing, which is celebrated by a solemn combat and a public spectacle in numerous cities. Pausanias, in his discussion of the Isiac festivals at Tithorea in Phocis (10. 32. 13– 17), briefly describes the activities, both commercial and otherwise, that would take place during the days leading up to the ceremonies themselves, and then at the same time: τοῦ δὲ Ἀσκληπιοῦ περὶ τεσσαράκοντα ἀπέχει σταδίους περίβολος καὶ ἄδυτον ἱερὸν Ἴσιδος, ἁγιώτατον ὁπόσα Ἕλληνες θεῷ τῇ Αἰγυπτίᾳ πεποίηνται· οὔτε γὰρ περιοικεῖν ἐνταῦθα οἱ Τιθορεεῖς νομίζουσιν οὔτε ἔσοδος ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον ἄλλοις 212  For the standard commentary on this passage, Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 181–233 (procession) and 259–269 (Ploiaphesia), with an imposing earlier bibliography. One can add to this, among others, Marín Ceballos 1973; Bruneau 1974, 340–341; Perpillou-Thomas 1993, 114–116; Lembke 1994, 122–124; Romero Recio 2010, 74–80; Giunio 2012–2013; Keulen & Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2015; Pfeiffer 2018. It is worth noting that Osiris is not absent from this ceremony, and that his concealed presence is to be read in the presence of diverse symbols: the cista and hydria (Malaise 1985), or the pine from which the mast of the ship is made (Met. 11. 16; Fick 1971, 334; Koemoth 1998, 149–150).

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γε ἢ ἐκείνοις ἐστὶν οὓς ἂν αὐτὴ προτιμήσασα ἡ Ἶσις καλέσῃ σφᾶς δι´ ἐνυπνίων. τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐν ταῖς ὑπὲρ Μαιάνδρου πόλεσι θεοὶ ποιοῦσιν οἱ καταχθόνιοι· οὓς γὰρ ἂν ἐς τὰ ἄδυτα ἐσιέναι θελήσωσιν, ἀποστέλλουσιν αὐτοῖς ὀνειράτων ὄψεις. (14) ἐν δὲ τῇ Τιθορέων καὶ δὶς ἑκάστου τοῦ ἔτους τῇ Ἴσιδι πανήγυριν ἄγουσι, τὴν μὲν τῷ ἦρι, τὴν δὲ μετοπωρινήν· τρίτῃ δὲ ἡμέρᾳ πρότερον κατὰ ἑκατέραν τῶν πανηγύρεων, ὅσοις ἐστὶν ἐσελθεῖν ἄδεια, τὸ ἄδυτον ἐκκαθαίρουσι τρόπον τινὰ ἀπόρρητον, καὶ δὴ καὶ τῶν ἱερείων ἃ ἐπὶ τῆς προτέρας ἐνεβλήθη πανηγύρεως, τούτων ὁπόσα ἂν ὑπολειπόμενα εὕρωσι κομίζουσιν ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ ἀεὶ χωρίον καὶ κατορύσσουσιν ἐνταῦθα· δύο τε ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀδύτου στάδια ἐτεκμαιρόμεθα ἐς τοῦτο εἶναι τὸ χωρίον. (15) ταύτῃ μὲν δὴ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοσαῦτα περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν δρῶσι, τῇ δὲ ἐπιούσῃ σκηνὰς οἱ καπηλεύοντες ποιοῦνται καλάμου τε καὶ ἄλλης ὕλης αὐτοσχεδίου· τῇ τελευταίᾳ δὲ τῶν τριῶν πανηγυρίζουσι πιπράσκοντες καὶ ἀνδράποδα καὶ κτήνη τὰ πάντα, ἔτι δὲ ἐσθῆτας καὶ ἄργυρον καὶ χρυσόν· (16) μετὰ δὲ μεσοῦσαν τὴν ἡμέραν τρέπονται πρὸς θυσίαν. θύουσι δὲ καὶ βοῦς καὶ ἐλάφους οἱ εὐδαιμονέστεροι, ὅσοι δέ εἰσιν ἀποδέοντες πλούτῳ, καὶ χῆνας καὶ ὄρνιθας τὰς μελεαγρίδας· οἰσὶ δὲ ἐς τὴν θυσίαν οὐ νομίζουσιν οὐδὲ ὑσὶ χρῆσθαι καὶ αἰξίν. ὅσοις μὲν δὴ καθαγίσασι τὰ ἱερεῖα ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον ἀποστεῖλαι πεποιημένους ἀρχήν, καθελίξαι δεῖ σφᾶς τὰ ἱερεῖα λίνου τελαμῶσιν ἢ βύσσου· τρόπος δὲ τῆς σκευασίας ἐστὶν ὁ Αἰγύπτιος. (17) πομπεύει τε δὴ πάντα ὅσα ἔθυσαν καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον τὰ ἱερεῖα ἐσπέμπουσιν, οἱ δὲ ἔμπροσθε τοῦ ἀδύτου καθαγίζουσι τὰς σκηνὰς καὶ ἀποχωροῦσιν αὐτοὶ σπουδῇ. καί φασί ποτε ἄνθρωπον οὐ τῶν καταβαινόντων ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον, βέβηλον δέ, ἡνίκα ἤρχετο ἡ πυρὰ καίεσθαι, τηνικαῦτα ἐσελθεῖν ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον ὑπὸ πολυπραγμοσύνης τε καὶ τόλμης· καί οἱ πάντα ἀνάπλεα εἰδώλων φαίνεσθαι, καὶ ἀναστρέψαι μὲν αὐτὸν ἐς τὴν Τιθορέαν, διηγησάμενον δὲ ἃ ἐθεάσατο ἀφεῖναι τὴν ψυχήν. About forty stades distant from Asclepius is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. For the Tithoreans think it wrong to dwell round about it, and no one may enter the shrine except those whom Isis herself has honored by inviting them in dreams. The same rule is observed in the cities above the Maeander by the gods of the lower world; for to all whom they wish to enter their shrines they send visions seen in dreams. In the country of the Tithoreans a festival in honor of Isis is held twice each year, one in spring and the other in autumn. On the third day before each of the feasts those who have permission to enter cleanse the shrine in a certain secret way, and also take and bury, always in the same spot, whatever remnants they may find of the victims thrown in at the previous festival. We estimated that the distance from the shrine to this place was two stades. So on this day they perform these acts about the sanctuary, and on the next day the

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small traders make themselves booths of reeds or other improvised material. On the last of the three days they hold a fair, selling slaves, cattle of all kinds, clothes, silver and gold. After mid-day they turn to sacrificing. The more wealthy sacrifice oxen and deer, the poorer people geese and guinea fowl. But it is not the custom to use for the sacrifice sheep, pigs or goats. Those whose business it is to burn the victims and send them into the shrine … having made a beginning must wrap the victims in bandages of coarse or fine linen; the mode of preparing is the Egyptian. All that they have devoted to sacrifice are led in procession; some send the victims into the shrine, while others burn the booths before the shrine and themselves go away in haste. They say that once a profane man, who was not one of those descending into the shrine, when the pyre began to burn, entered the shrine to satisfy his rash inquisitiveness. It is said that everywhere he saw ghosts, and on returning to Tithorea and telling what he had seen he departed this life.213 The Πλοιαφέσια or Navigium Isidis festival was the occasion each year of giving great visibility to the goddess, to her image, to her divine attributes, to the objects of her cult, to her cult servants, and to her devotees, all in a communal framework, before a large gathering of the public that was at the same time both spectator and participant.214 The procession, whether urban or not, which followed a well-established path with its stations and stops, interrupted by rituals from the temple to the sea (or the river, most likely, in the case of Tithorea), defined the festival’s space – a space that it made its own during the procession, but also both before and after it. There are also good reasons to think that in quite a number of places the theater was a constituent element of this space. Roman theaters were in effect places fundamental to the religious life of a city. They welcomed cults on both a permanent and periodic basis, with the latter to be seen most notably in the ludi given in honor of one or several divinites, but also in the form of ritualized spectacles. As has been quite correctly shown by Gasparini, in certain cases the role of the theater seems even to have been confined by that of a cult annex of the sanctuary to which it was connected.215 The setting for the launching of the ship (real or figurative, i.e. a small replica, depending on the places, people and financial means available), the sensory experiences (auditory, visual, olfactory), and the mythological narrative would find their places both on the shore and before the temple, but 213  Trans. W. H. S. Jones. 214  The same would surely apply as well to the autumnal Isia. 215  Gasparini 2013, with the example of Pompeii.

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also, to be sure, in the theater precinct. The presence of an Isis-with-a-sail at the front of the stage at Messene is obviously not a coincidence, and one must question its function – cultic, consecrated or purely decorative?216 The identity of the statues accompanying Isis in the same ensemble permits us to suggest that this statue would serve as a focus for the devotion of the Messenians, before which they would occasionally celebrate a cult directly connected to the imperial cult.217 But without knowing of the people and their activities it is quite impossible to achieve a complete and accurate understanding of a given space, sacred or not. Inscriptions and literary texts discusssed in the preceding pages have focused on numerous persons, individuals engaging in cult activities for marine Isis either individually or collectively. With rare exceptions, such as the priests in the list of Eretrian navarchs or the passage in Apuleius, the majority have apparently remained anonymous, whether they appeared as themselves or were well disguised behind the mask of Anubis or, symbolically, a representation of the sistrum of Isis. However, many of the titles that identify them in the texts, primarily the epigraphical ones, have been preserved for us and deserve to be investigated. So, who are these navarchs, these trierarchs, these naubates and hieronautes found at the ceremonies held in honor of Isis? The title of navarch218 poses a problem because it does not always appear in a context that is clearly Isiac, and in those cases when it is not there is a risk of confusion between this cultic title and the homonymous title that certain naval officials would bear. We must attempt to establish how to distinguish between the two. In Byzantium, the dedication to Isis and Sarapis already discussed several times comes from an individual who was navarch during the μεγάλα Πλοιαφέσια.219 Three (if not four) inscriptions from Eretria220 from the 1st cent. BCE, discovered in the local Isieion, provide the names of navarchs, notably on two (or even three) lists, one of which, especially lengthy, bears 216  Rosso 2009, 89–90. See supra p. 125. 217  Compare Rosso 2009 with the example of the assocation between August and Apollo, as well as the presence of Dionysus in the theater at Arelate. 218  On Isiac navarchs, see the pioneering study of Vidman 1966, revisited in Vidman 1970, 76–87, though with conclusions that can be questioned, as has already been remarked upon in Bruneau 1975, 137–141. 219  S IRIS 130 = RICIS 114/0703. See supra pp. 205–206. 220  S IRIS 80–82 = RICIS 104/0109–0111. See supra p. 207. Bruneau 1975, 96, points to the opinion of D. Knoepfler, for whom the Eretrian fragment IG XII 9, 254 (= RICIS Suppl. I, 104/0114) also belongs to a list of navarchs. This is based on the date of the inscription (1st cent. BCE), on the presence of women and couples in the text as well, and finally on the fact that this list is the work of several successive hands.

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95 names. This last one was inscribed over several years, during which the same priest, Dionysius, son of Philocles, who is also named in the list as a navarch, was in charge. Another list of navarchs, found at Eretria but which would have originated nearby at Chalcis, offers a new series of names, while for the first time there is named a hegemôn, by the name of Nicainetos.221 In a funerary inscription from Nicomedia, in Bithynia,222 a city which struck numerous coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type, the deceased, who lived to the age of fifty, is identified as a priest and navarch – most likely a servant in the cult of Isis. Finally, on the island of Tenos,223 during the Imperial Period, another navarch named Apollonides is known to have been the head of a cultic association with eight members, the Isiac character of which is conceivable but not certain.224 Considerably less probative are the following four sources. From Sinope comes an inscription from the Augustan era honoring a certain Caius Numisius Primus, son of Spurius, who was a navarch, priest of the emperor Augustus, aedile, two-time duumvir and duumvir quinquennalis.225 There is nothing decisive here that would permit us to associate the title of navarch borne by this individual with the ceremonies marking the reopening of the sailing season.226 It might also pertain in this situation to a municipal function. An inscription from Seleukia Pieria, the port of Antioch on the Orontes, which dates to the 2nd–3rd cents. CE, was inscribed in honor of one Flavius […]nus, (former?) navarch and prefect of the cohort.227 The text is rather mutilated and it is 221  Bruneau 1975, 94–95 no. XV with pl. XXXV.1 = RICIS 104/0204. 222  I.Bithynien 88–89 no. 88 with pl. 35 (L. Robert, RPh 17 [1943], p. 183–184, on the navarch) = SIRIS 327 = TAM IV.1 (1978) 215 = RICIS 308/0601. 223   I G XII 5, 912 = SIRIS 153 = RICIS *202/0604. 224  E. Ziebarth, BPhW 36 (1916), 388–389, attributes this text to the cult of Isis; he is followed by F. Poland, PWRE IV A, 1, col. 1080, L. Robert, RPh 17 (1943), 184 n. 6, and Vidman 1970, 79–80. 225  C IL III 6980 = ILS 2824 = SIRIS 328 = RICIS *309/0101: C. Numisio S[p(urii) f(ilio)] / Qui(rina tribu) Primo, na/uarcho, sacer[d(oti)] / imp(eratoris) Caesaris Aug(usti), // aed(ili), IIvir(o) iter(um), IIvir(o) / quinq(uennali), Numisia / Paulla filia eius. (“For Caius Numisius Primus, son of Spurius, of the Quirina tribe, navarch, priest of the emperor Caesar Augustus, aedile, twice duumvir, quinquennial duumvir, Numisia Paulla, his daughter (erected this).”) 226  For Maksimova 1956, 367–368, C. Numisius Primus was navarch of the Pontic fleet, but this is difficult to accept for the reason that it did not exist during the time of Augustus; for Starr 19602, 128 n. 8, this individual was navarch of the Roman fleet, which was contradicted by Vidman 1970, 83–84, who sees in the title a cultic function. According to this Czech scholar, Numisia honors the career of her father, recording on the one hand his cultic roles and, on the other hand, his municipal ones. 227  I GLS III 1, 1144 = SIRIS 355a = RICIS *402/0201: Ὁ δῆμ[ος τὸν δεῖνα] / Φλαουια[νόν, ἱερέα(?)] / τῶν θεῶ[ν Σεβαστῶν(?) καὶ] / Φλάουιο [---]//νον ναυαρ[χήσαντα, ἔπαρ(?)]/χον χώρτ[ης ---] / καὶ Φλάου[ιον ---] / [---]. (“The people (honor) [---] Phlaouianos, [priest(?)] of the two

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impossible to say if it pertains to a former navarch of the Roman fleet, or even a navarch linked to the Navigium Isidis.228 Finally, two figures who belonged to the imperial fleet based at Misenum, mentioned in 3rd cent. CE inscriptions from Rome229 and Misenum,230 bore the title of bis navarc(h)us. For Chester G. Starr and Ladislav Vidman,231 this title signifies that these individuals were navarchs on two occasions during the Navigium Isidis.232 This idea was rejected by Reddé, believing that it pertains to a purely military office, with the inscription from Rome specifically mentioning the Misenum fleet.233 This argument is, however, of little weight, since it is obvious that a professional sailor could serve as a navarch for a day during the Isiac festival. Vidman adds that the two terms placed at the beginning of these inscriptions, Thiasus in one and Felix in the other, indicate that the two men bearing these names were adepts of a mystery cult.234 Yann Le Bohec235 rejects this interpretation, denying any religious characteristic in these two signa, which to him are simple onomasic elements. Without going so far, and even conceding a religious significance to these signa, nothing permits them to be exclusively linked to the Isiac cults. Finally, it is worth noting that one of the two figures died at age 24 (with the age at which the other died unknown). It is certainly possible to conceive that this title of navarch could be obtained relatively early in a career, but how can the title bis navarcus be understood in a strictly military context? In the absence of more explicit language, it does not seem possible to reject one theoi [Sebastoi(?)]” and Phlaouios [---]nos, [former] navarch, prefect of the cohort, [---] and Phlaouios [---].”) See also Devijver 1976, 361–362 F 35. 228  For A. Degrassi, Athenaeum n.s. 46 (1968), 156, in his review of D. Kienast, Untersuchungen zu den Kriegsflotten der römischen Kaiserzeit, and Vidman 1970, 84, the navarchy mentioned in this text is certainly Isiac because, in the 2nd–3rd cents. CE, there was no equivalency in the cursus honorum between a navarch of the imperial fleet and a cohort prefect. However, Le Bohec 2000, 136 has underlined the importance of the military presence in Seleukia Pieria in case of a conflict with the Parthians. To him, it is possible that the navarch of this inscription had been a soldier. 229  C IL VI 32772 (p. 3842) = ILS 2843 = SIRIS 428 = Malaise 1972a, 132–133 Roma 69 = RICIS *501/0175. D(is) M(anibus). / Thiasus / Valerius Verus, / bis navarcus cla//sis pretorio Mese/ natium (sic), vixit / annis XXIIII, Valerius / evok(atus) pater et Iulia / mater filio fecerunt. (“To the divine Manes. Valerius Verus, surnamed Thiasus, twice navarch of the Praetorian fleet at Misenum, lived 24 years. His father Valerius, a veteran who had been recalled to duty (evocatus), and Iulia, his mother, made (this) for their son.”) 230  C IL X 3350 = SIRIS 500. 231  Starr 1960², 87–88; Vidman 1970, 83–84. 232  One should note that none of the 95 navarchs named in the long list from Eretria (IG XII Suppl. 557 = SIRIS 80 = RICIS 104/0109) inscribed over several years appears twice. 233  Reddé 1986, 546 n. 396, who echoes a remark in Wickert 1949–1950, 103, n. 82. 234  Vidman 1964, 60–61. For this scholar, the term Thiasus would designate the cultic association of Isiac followers rather than being a personal name. 235  Le Bohec 2000, 136. According to this scholar, Felix is a cognomen.

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hypothesis or the other. Perhaps it is even possible to advance the idea that if these two figures were each a navarch twice, it is because they had at one time held the military office and also had participated in the Navigium?236 With this having been established, we must ask, who were the navarchs and what did they do? For certain scholars, the Isiac navarchy was a type of liturgy, eventually held for a specific period.237 Navarchs are sometimes considered members of an association,238 organizers of the Ploiaphesia,239 or simple participants.240 Three hypotheses can today be discarded.241 The navarchs at Eretria in the 1st cent. BCE most likely were not holding liturgies. In effect, husbands and wives, children, and sometimes several members of the same family across three generations were named in the list close to one another, which indicates that they had participated in the same festival, during the same year, or at different festivals celebrated over several successive years. As Bruneau wrote, “It is not imagined that the financial contribution of the liturgy was shared by several members of a family, of whom some may have been minors.” This pertinent remark appears to support, in the case of Eretria, the likelihood that the cult was still private. Even so, no document permits us at this time to state that the navarchs formed an association. They never appear in the sources as such, with there being no mention anywhere of some sort of κοινόν, θίασος or σύνοδος of navarchs. Moreover, the use, on several occasions, of the aorists ἐναυάρχησαν242 or ναυαρχήσας243 indicates an action of limited duration rather than an ongoing position. However, the navarchs obviously were not just any participants in the Ploiaphesia, as Nikolaos Papadakis wrote.244 If they had been, they would not have boasted of the special title of navarch, which distinguished them from all other worshipers. During each festival there were quite a few navarchs – perhaps a dozen, though this number could have varied.245 Whatever the precise number, there were too many of them to perform an important role, with every festival apparently only seeing the 236  This idea is already to be found, treated as a hypothesis, in Le Bohec 2000, 137, who notes, in addition, that this type of wordplay was not unknown among the Romans. 237  So Vidman 1966, 277; Vidman 1970, 86; Malaise 1972b, 150, who thinks of a “kind of nonpermanent liturgy.” 238  Vidman 1966, 271; Vidman 1970, 87, for the specific case of the Eretrian navarchs. 239  Malaise 1972b, 149. 240  Papadakis 1915, 162. 241  I point to the quite justifiable remarks of Bruneau 1975, 140–141, which I expand on here. 242  R ICIS 104/0109–0110 (Eretria); Bruneau 1975, 94–95 no. XV = RICIS 104/0204 (Chalcis ?). 243   I G XII Suppl. 565 = SIRIS 82 = Bruneau 1975, 86–88 no. X = RICIS 104/0111. 244  Papadakis 1915, 162. 245  It seems difficult, in effect, to determine the number of years (and, in turn, celebrations of the Navigium Isidis) covered by the list of 95 names preserved in the Eretrian inscription (RICIS 104/0109).

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launch of at most a single vessel. Without doubt the navarchs on these occasions were among the devotees who formed the crew of this ship. Rather than being in charge themselves, they had to depend on a higher authority – either the actual helmsman of the ship or an important figure responsible for giving orders to him – unless one of the “Isiac” navarchs had genuine knowledge of sailing. This must have been the role of the ἡγεμών Nikainetos, known from the inscription attributed to Chalcis,246 but also of the Isiac trierarch from Cos, and even the bis navarcus of Misene. This role of trierarch, in the Isiac context, is attested by two (or even three) inscriptions. The first comes from Cios, in Bithynia, where in the 1st cent. BCE or CE the members of a thiasos were honoring one Anoubion, son of Nicostratus, who held, among others, the positions of trierarch247 and of organizer(?) of the Charmosyna of Isis. The proclamation of the honors awarded to him on this occasion would be repeated each year during the Isieia and other festivals by members of the thiasos, as well as during the regular communal assemblies of the association.248 From Amphipolis, in Macedonia, comes an inscription dated precisely to 67/6 BCE (fig. 132), in which a priest named Apollodôros along with the hypostoloi249 – which would seem to indicate an Isiac context250 – had offered a wreath to one Aulus Anthestius because he had properly executed the role of trierarch.251 Finally, an inscription from Elaea, near Pergamum, that dates to the Imperial Period, also honorific, could 246  R ICIS 104/0204. In the commentary which he provides for this inscription, Bruneau 1975, 95 says nothing about this title, other than that it “would be better at Chalcis, where it is the customary eponym.” 247  L BW 1143 = SIRIS 324 = I.Kios no. 22 = RICIS 308/0301. 248  Dunand 1973, III, 107–109, for the functions exercised by Anoubion. 249  On the roles of the ὑποστόλοι in the Isiac cults, Bruneau 1975, 112–113. I do not believe, contra Papadakis 1915, 149, Vidman 1969, 37 no. 75, Vidman 1970, 62 and 73, and Dunand 1973, II, 47 and III, 201, that the hypostoloi that one finds at Demetrias (IG IX 2, 1107 = RICIS 112/0703) were “secondary dressers,” which is to say the precise counterpart of the [ἀρχ]ίστολος at Ephesus (I.Ephesos IV 1244 = RICIS 304/0606). Bruneau, quite justifiably, proposed identifying these hypostoloi with the individuals dressed in long, white loincloths that one can see in the frescoes from Herculaneum. See now Malaise 2007. 250  This sole mention of the hypostoloi certainly cannot guarantee the inscription’s Isiac context. Certain hypostoloi are linked to the goddess Almopia in a rupestral inscription of the south slope of the Pangea. Balalakis 1937; Collart 1943; Veligianni 1986a, 242–243; Kravaritou 2013–2014, 211. However, a similar text from Amphipolis, where Isis and her associates were worshiped at a sanctuary from the Hellenistic Period (RICIS 113/0901– 0910), mentions a priest, hypostoloi and a trierarch, in a context that must be an isiac one: Ἔτους α´ καὶ {π}π´ / Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ ἱε/ρεὺς καὶ οἱ ὑπόστολοι / στεφανοῦσιν Αὖλον // Ἀνθέστιον τριηραρχή/σαντα καλῶς (“Year 81. Apollodorus the priest and the hypostoloi crowned Aulus Anthestius, who properly exercised the office of trierarch”). See now Veymiers 2009b. 251  Veligianni 1986a (= RICIS 113/0908).

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FIGURE 132

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Honorific inscription. Amphipolis (67/6 BCE)

likewise be connected to the Isiac cults.252 This inscription indicates that the people and individuals who were consecrated – to a divinity that may have been Isiac, though perhaps not – had honored Moschus, son of Moschus, a former trierarch.253 The first two inscriptions teach us, however, that the role of trierarch, like that of navarch, was limited for a certain period (cf. the aorist τριηραρχήσαντα at Cios). Was the role of τριήραρχος limited to the oversight of activities during the launching of the ship? Probably not. The trierarch must have been the organizer of the ceremony, the one who financed it. The reading of Apuleius indicates that on occasion, or in certain years, the boat that would 252   Hauvette-Besnault & Pottier 1880, 380–381 no. 7 (= SIRIS 315a = RICIS *302/0101). 253  Robert 1944, 12 n. 1, who cautiously links this document to the cult of Isis in comparing it with an inscription from Chios (SIRIS 324 = RICIS 308/0301). For Vidman 1970, 81, the trierarch was at the head of an association, of which the hieroi would have been the most important members after himself. This is based on an inscription from Magnesia ad Sipylum from the 1st or 2nd cent. CE, which preserves a list of Isiac therapeutai, naming in order the priest, then two hieroi, and finally the “ordinary” therapeutai. This text was published by Robert 1948, 9–13 with pl. II (= SIRIS 307 = I.Magnesia am Sipylos no. 15 = TAM V.2 (1989), 1348 = Malay 1994, no. 86, with earlier bibliography = RICIS 303/0301–0302). This proposed connection is hardly convincing, since a trierarch clearly is not to be viewed as being at the same hierarchical level as the priest.

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be put to sea was new,254 and of small size. The richness of its decoration, even supposing that it was exaggerated by Apuleius’s pen,255 required an expenditure perhaps assumed by the trierarch, who earned this title in return for this act of generosity. The inclusion of the Navigium Isidis, at least beginning in the 1st cent. CE, in the official calendar of the Roman Empire transformed these celebrations into public events organized by the servants of a cult henceforth perfectly integrated into their city’s religious life. In such a framework, the role of navarch, like that of trierarch, became a true liturgy.256 More difficult to discern are the titles of ναυβατοῦντες and ἱεροναῦται, which are only attested once in the sources. An inscription from Ephesus dating to the mid-2nd cent. CE reports the offering to Isis and Sarapis of a phiale and a libation vessel by a Roman named Marcus Pomponius Latinus. The end of the text specifies ναυβατούντων Λυκίδα καὶ Χαριδήμου τοῦ Χαρ[ιδήμου ?].257 The Isiac context has led the majority of commentators to recognize these ναυβατοῦντες as ναύαρχοι/ναυαρχοῦντες.258 As Dunand plausibly writes: Given the context, it is possible to think that ναυβατεῖν designates the same sort of activity as the term ναυαρχεῖν at Eretria, which is to say the celebration of the “Festival of Sailing.” The ναυβατοῦντες of Ephesus must be either their city’s organizers of the Navigium or participants in this ceremony, and the dedication must have been made on the occasion of its celebration.259 254   A pul. Met. 11. 16: navem faberrime factam. 255  Ibid.: Ibidem simulacris rite dispositis navem faberrime factam picturis miris Aegyptiorum circumsecus variegatam, summus sacerdos taeda lucida et ovo et sulpure, sollemnissimas preces de casto praefatus ore, quam purissime purificatam deae nuncupavit dedicavitque. (“The divine images were arranged according to the rites. A boat was there, fashioned by a worker’s hand, decorated all over with marvellous Egyptian paintings. The high priest, who after having pronounced from his chaste lips the most solemn prayers and having purified it in most holy manner with a burning torch, an egg and sulfur, named it for the goddess and consecrated it to her.”) 256  Compare the liturgical activity of the Manii Salarii at Thessalonica, studied by Nigdelis 2006, 267–273, Steimle 2008, 106–109, 114–119, and Martzavou 2010, 190–193. 257  C IG II 2955 (following a copy by Wood); O. Riemann, BCH 1 (1877), 292 no. 81; and O. Benndorf, Ephesos I, 70–73 (following a copy by Cyriacus of Ancona). The stone having been lost, succeeding scholars have followed the two main copies: Keil 1954, 223–224 no. 5 (Bull. 1955, 193; SEG XV [1958], 709) = SIRIS 302 = Salditt-Trappmann 1970, 27 no. 3 = Hölbl 1978, 47–49 no. 4 = I.Ephesos IV no. 1213 = RICIS 304/0609. 258  See, among others, Vidman 1970, 83 and 87, and Hölbl 1978, 48. We note that if the term naubatês designates solely the passengers on a ship, it can nevertheless be a synonym for “navarch” in an Isiac context, since it seems that the latter had no power of command and were no more than passangers, or occasionally members of the crew. 259  Dunand 1973, III, 70. One notes that the inscription features two names in a genitive absolute construction. According to Mora 1990, I, nos. 742 and 1261, Lykis and Charidemos

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As for the ἱεροναῦται, they are named in the company of pastophoroi in a very fragmentary inscription from Tomis dating to the beginning of the 3rd cent. CE that honored a προστάτης.260 The role of these hieronautes is hardly easy to define. This word is only attested twice in the sources, on an inscription from Delos mentioning the consecration to Apollo of images of Tyre and Sidon by the hieronautes of Tyre,261 and on a rather damaged inscription from Tomis. These “sacred sailors” from Tyre were without doubt members of a crew, or part of a crew that had brought the statues to Delos from Tyre and Sidon. These sacred envoys were probably acting on the instructions of the authorities at Tyre.262 Might the hieronautes at Tomis likewise been the group of devotees responsible for carrying the boat consecrated to Isis during the procession that preceded its launch into the waves at the Navigium Isidis festival? And, in turn, members of the sacred boat’s crew? There has been much discussion regarding the meaning of the term pastophoros found in non-Egyptian contexts. Among the hypotheses proposed by scholars, I have considered the possibility that the pastophoroi during processions would carry pieces of cloth painted with an image of Isis or one of the divinities in her circle.263 In this scenario, the pastophoroi, bearers of the sacred boat’s sails, perhaps decorated with the goddess’s image, would quite logically have accompanied the hieronautes responsible for transporting the boat itself.264 These individuals could have been brought together in a formal association,265 like the pastophoroi, of which the individual honored in the inscription from Tomi was the president. Several figural representations, paintings and mosaics were associated with the Navigium Isidis. Among the many mosaics discovered at Antioch on the Orontes there are two that are sometimes connected to the festival. In the one preserved at the “House of the Calendar,” dated to the 2nd cent. CE, the month would have assumed an annual role and are named as a means of indicating the inscription’s date. One would then be dealing with double dating: the first, and official, date is given by the paired reference to the prytany of Gaius Claudius Titianus, son of Demostratos and the (Isiac) priesthood of Gaius Sossianus; the second date, which is private, is provided by the reference to the naubaty of Lykis and Charidemos. 260  S IRIS 709 = ISM II, 98 = RICIS 618/1007. 261  C IS I, 114 = ID 50. 262  Vélissaropoulos 1980, 108–109; Bonnet 1990, 45–46; Hermary 2014, 276. Contra Elayi 1988, to whom the hieronautes were members of an association of merchants. 263  Bricault 2012, 89–91; Hoffmann & Quack 2014, suggesting that pastophoros be translated with “the one holding up/lifting the curtain,” meaning the curtain of a door, which is not incompatible with my proposal. 264  I.Pergamon 336; RICIS 301/1202; in this dedication from Pergamum, dated to the 1st cent. CE, two hieraphoroi mention the offering of numerous images of Isiac divinities (undoubtedly statues), but also an image of the goddess herself “and all that is around her” (καὶ τὰ περὶ τὴν θεὸ[ν]) painted on a linen cloth (sindon). 265  Vidman 1966, 274.

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of March is represented by a female figure wearing a white tunic and brown mantle knotted at the breast, whose hair is decorated with foliage, and who bears a cup for libation.266 Doro Levi, in his study of the mosaics at Antioch and its port of Seleucia, believes that, if this indeed is a divinity or a priestess, one can think of the Navigium Isidis ceremony. This seems quite thin, especially since in calendars it is the month of November that generally symbolizes Isis: it is thus undoubtedly better here to recognize the figure as Demeter. In the “House of the Mysteries of Isis” a mosaic that has been partly destroyed,267 datable to the 3rd cent. CE, still shows us two ships in a harbor, above which floats a Victory, as well as a figure about to board a third ship. For Levi, this undoubtedly represents an allusion to the Navigium Isidis, the house probably having belonged to a worshiper of Isis. One has to recognize that the central panel is so damaged that a secure identification seems impossible, as either a Navigium Isidis scene or something else.268 From Ostia come two panels, fragments of a large fresco269 each depicting two of the festivals on the official Roman calendar, as proposed by André Piganiol.270 The majority of scholars are in accord that on the first panel is shown the Natalis Dianae, celebrated on August 13, and also a grape harvest festival connected to Liber Pater.271 On the second panel one can see a boat or, more probably, a modelboat conveyed to the shore by a cart drawn by two children, and put to sea (fig. 133). Piganiol saw in this scene an evocation of the regattas held during the Neptunalia of July 23, but Henri Stern has proposed to see here two distinct ceremonies: the Navigium Isidis of March 5 (on the left), with Isis’s boat brought to the shore by means of a procession,272 and the anniversary of Septimius Severus, celebrated on April 11 (on the right). According to the latter scholar, 266  Levi 1947, I, 37–38 with pl. V b. For Norris 1982, 204, the goddess representing the month of March on this mosaic is more likely to represent Demeter than Isis. On Isiac presence at Antioch, Pamir 2006–2007; Aliquot 2014, 136–141. 267  Levi 1947, I, 164–165 and II, pl. XXXIII b; Campbell 1988, pl. 205. 268  Antakya Archaeological Museum inv. no. 1006. This quite fragmentary mosaic is reproduced, rather poorly and incompletely, in Pekáry 1999, 341 no. SYR-1. 269  Vatican Museum, Room of the Aldobrandini Wedding. Found in 1868 by. P. E. Visconti, probably in a hypogaeum. 270  Piganiol 1923, 44–57, who dates the fresco to the Augustan era. The panels date, rather, to Severan times; Stern 1975, 127. 271  So Stern 1975, 125–126. 272  Nogara 1907, 76–77 had already considered this hypothesis, without advocating it. Tran tam Tinh 1971, 45 n. 9, would prefer to compare this theme with similar scenes shown on the Attic oenochoes, rejecting the identification of the Navigium Isidis.

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Figure 133

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Painting from Ostia. Vatican Library (early 3rd cent. CE)

It was customary on March 5th to abandon to the waves and winds a boat without a crew, filled with gifts meant to obtain the favor and protection of Isis, goddess of the sea. It seems clear that this is the festival described in detail by Apuleius, and more specifically the central ceremony of the launching of the boat out to sea that is represented on the fresco. The sailboat, transported in a cart to the shore, has been placed on the water. Two slaves are returning, dragging behind themselves the vehicle in which they had conveyed the boat.273 The idea is seductive, but, apart from the facts that two children do not exactly constitute a procession, that Apuleius does not at any point indicate that the boat was carried in the middle of the procession, and that no element that is clearly Isiac appears in the scene, it is too unlikely that the boat launched onto the waves on this occasion was a small-scale model, one without a crew. The vessel put to sea during the ceremony has to have been a genuine ship,274 even if of small size, on which there served a real pilot assisted by the navarchs, whose knowledge of sea-faring certainly varied. This is why it is difficult to see in this scene an illustration of the central episode of the Navigium Isidis. At Rome, excavations undertaken in the area of the church of St. Sabina brought to light what appears to have been an Isiac meeting place, rather 273  Stern 1975, 126. 274  Gwyn Griffiths 1975, 46–47. For this scholar, the ship headed towards a specific destination, which could have been Delos in the case of the festival at Kenchreai. This does not seem all that probable. If the crew of the ship was constituted, as I believe (see supra pp. 207 and 220), partly or wholly of Isiac “navarchs,” it is hard to imagine them setting off on a journey of long duration.

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than an actual Iseum.275 Constructed outside of the city, near the city walls, at the beginning of the 1st cent. CE, its walls were covered with graffiti and paintings of mediocre workmanship that have been poorly preserved. Among them, a nautical scene could pertain to the Navigium Isidis festival, or some other event. Finally, eight murals representing a naval battle (rather than a procession), painted on the peribolos of the Iseum at Pompeii,276 evoking for some the festival of the Navigium Isidis,277 which to me seems quite contestable. No source other than the On Military Science of Vegetius, which he wrote at the end of the 4th century, in effect permits us to confirm that a naumachia would take place as part of ceremonies marking the annual beginning of navigation. Without doubt, these paintings are primarily emphasizing Isis’s sovereignty over the seas and the protection she was able to provide for all sailors.278 Another painting from this temple, found in the sacrarium, also deserves mention,279 since it shows two Egyptian barques: in one of these is a female figure, very likely Isis; in the other one finds a chest with a falcon atop it. Several scholars have wanted to see in this a representation of the Navigium Isidis,280 which makes little sense. Rather, it is a scene representing Isis’s quest, in which the falcon must be Sokar-Osiris.281 One final artefact is to be added to this collection: a dish, an Africa terra sigillata, decorated with three onlays, which may date to the 4th cent. CE (fig. 134).282 In the upper part of the dish there is featured a barque with neither a sail nor oars. On its deck are five female figures, four standing and one seated, as well as an animal. The figure enthroned towards the left is dressed in a chiton and himation knotted at the breast, wearing what appears to be a

275  Darsy 1968; Versluys 2002, 365–366, with previous bibliography. 276  Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale inv. nos. 8519, 8527, 8529, 8530, 8541, 8552, 8554 and 8590. Schefold 1962b, 178; Tran tam Tinh 1964, 98–100; Moormann 2007; Moormann 2011, 152–153 and 250 fig. 79. 277  For example, Merkelbach 1965, 145; Croisille 1988, 131 with pl. X; Capriotti Vittozzi 2000, 137. 278  See also Moormann 2007, 150–151. 279  Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale inv. no. 8929. Tran tam Tinh 1964, 143–144 with pl. 10, 1. 280  Merkelbach 1965, 145; Capriotti Vittozzi 2000, 137; Bommas 2005, 68. 281  Gwyn Griffiths 1974, 135–136; Koemoth 2005, 44–45. 282  Cologne, Römisch-Germanisches Museum inv. no. KL 551 (formerly in collection of Karl Löffler). La Baume & Salomonson 1976, 151 no. 601 with pl. 60.2; Ensoli & La Rocca 2000, 517 no. 145.

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Figure 134 Dish with onlays (4th cent. CE)

lightly crushed basileion,283 and brandishing a sistrum in the right hand: this must be Isis. Behind her, a figure wreathed in laurel, standing towards the left, holds in her hands two objects which may be a patera and a situla. Before the goddess, three other figures are playing music, with the first two playing an aulos (perhaps a double-aulos), while the third appears to hold a baton (?) At the center of the scene, on a pedestal, one can see in the background the Apis bull heading to the left, while in the background there is a closed cista mystica. In the lower part of the dish two fish reinforce the scene’s marine character. The interpretation of this ensemble is not straightforward, but the overall impression provided by this scene appears to associate it with the launching of the ship during the March festival, a ship on which the young woman representing Isis and some of the musicians who had accompanied her during the procession were positioned. But the scene could also correspond to an episode from the Isia, or even to a generic image that perhaps could have been from a festival honoring Isis. In that case, the dish might have belonged to a set of vessels decorated with different onlays each reflecting a type of ceremony, as must been the case with the famous paintings at Herculaneum.284 As this survey has shown, it is necessary to recognize that not a single artistic representation that can be confidently identified as the Navigium Isidis has come to light.285 283  “Una corona de loto” in the view of F. Naumann-Steckner in Ensoli & La Rocca 2000. 284  Bricault 2013a, 231–232, and 330–332. 285  In an inscription painted on the left wall of the Grotta Regina near Palermo, above the representation of a boat with two rows of oars, can be found the name of Isis written in

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This festival for the opening of the sailing season was still celebrated during the 4th century, as is attested, in addition to the Chronography of 354, by certain medallions known as contorniates286 issued at Rome in the second half of that century.287 The significance of this is explained, as Isis declares to Lucius,288 by the fact that: diem (…), quo sedatis hibernis tempestatibus et lenitis maris procellosis fluctibus nauigabili iam pelago rudem dedicantes carinam primitias commeatus libant mei sacerdotes. On this winter day when winter takes flight with its tempests, when calm has returned to impetuous waves, when the high seas once again become navigable, my priests, in dedicating to me a new ship, offer me the first fruits of trade. Beyond navigation itself, it is peace and prosperity in the Empire that the goddess ensures. The public vows formulated during the course of the festival are: principi magno senatuique et equiti totoque Romano populo, nauticis nauibus quaeque sub imperio mundi nostratis reguntur For the great Emperor and the Senate, for the equestrians and all the Roman people, for the sailors and ships and for all those ruled by authority within our world. Neo-Punic characters, together dated to the 1st cent. BCE or CE. Rocco 1969a and 1969b, fig. 6–7; Sfameni Gasparro 1973, 251–252 no. 273 with fig. 84; RICIS 518/0101. B. Rocco thought to see in this an allusion to the Navigium Isidis. Bartoloni 1978, 34–35, followed by Coacci Polselli et al. 1979, 96–98, has demonstrated that it is, in fact, an image of a warship. This image was probably made by a sailor as an act of devotion. Isis, if it is indeed her name that is to be read here, could have been the name of the boat.    Nor can a connection be made between the Navigium Isidis and the scene shown on a cretula from Seleucia on the Tigris published in Bollati 2000, 34 and Bollati 2004, 178 (inv. no. S6–1180; 82 fig. Eg 2), which has been dated c. 250–100 BCE. According to this scholar, the two divinities featured on it, hieratic, wearing a small polos and standing on a boat, are to be identified as Isis and Osiris participating in that ceremony. 286  Alföldi 1976, I, no. 112 with pl. 38; Cameron 2011, 691–698. 287  For Alföldi 1937, 42–58 and Alföldi 1965–1966, 74–78, beginning in the 3rd cent. CE the Navigium Isidis would have been celebrated with anticipation during the Vota publica of January 3 so as to identify the vows for the emperor with the festival of the renewal of nature. This thesis, among others, was rejected with conclusive arguments by Vidman 1970, 77–78 and Malaise 1972b, 220–221. 288   A pul. Met. 11. 5 and 11. 17 for the following citation.

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The cult of Isis, if not the Isiac cults collectively,289 thus clearly became a Roman cult in full, even if, on occasion, this or that ceremony could still accommodate a ritus aegyptiacus. As Nicole Belayche writes, “the naturalization is effective during the 1st century of our era. The Navigium Isidis is inscribed on the calendar and, as was rightly signalled by Minucius Felix at the end of the 2nd century,290 ‘this formerly Egyptian cult (haec tamen aegypta quondam) is also in our times a Roman cult (nunc et sacra romana sunt).’”291 5.3.2 The Sacrum Phariae In the Menologia Rustica (Colotianum and Vallense) for the month of April there are mentioned two festivals, at least one of which has to have been associated with marine Isis:292 the Sacrum Phariae293 and, probably celebrated on the same day, if not at the same time (item), the Serapia. This last festival is to be found in the Chronography of 354, where it is revealed to have fallen on April 25.294 Merkelbach has already remarked that this date would correspond with 29 Pharmouthi in the calendar then in use at Alexandria, which was the day before 1 Pachôn – a date on which in Egypt there would be a celebration, justly, of an important harvest festival.295 I have elsewhere established the relationship between these two festivals of April 25 and the annona,296 notably thanks to an important archaeological source: the room known as the “Sacellum of Silvanus,” an integral part of Ostia’s Caseggiato dei Molini (reg. I,

289  On this distinction, see my remarks in Bricault 2000a, 91, further developed by those of Malaise 2005, 29–30. 290   M in. Fel. 22. 1. Merkelbach 1995, 131–146. 291  Belayche 2000, 574–575. The popularity of these festivities was so important that some pastiches were created, as is strongly suggested by a singular erotic scene on a medallion with onlay from the 2nd–3rd cent. CE discovered at Place des Célestins in Lyon. The scene shows a bearded man kneeling on a boat with a sail, holding his companion in a position of coitus a tergo, accompanied by the legend NAVIGIUM VENERIS. Lyon, Musée de la civilisation gallo-romaine inv. no. CEL 6745; Marquié 1996, 471 with fig.; Desbat & Savay-Guerraz 2011, 28–29 fig. 52 (drawing) and 142 fig. 54 (ph.). The same expression was applied by Thouvenot 1977 to a unique scene revealed by a mosaic at Volubilis which shows Venus navigans; the connection with the Navigium Isidis is in this last case very tenuous, however, despite Neira Jiménez 2006. 292  Bricault 2000b, 141–143. 293  C IL I, 1 p. 358 = CIL VI 2305–2306 = CIL I2 p. 280–281 = RICIS 501/0219. 294  C IL I2 p. 262 = RICIS 501/0221; Stern 1953, 99 and 103. 295  Merkelbach 1963, 43; in this work it is not a question of the Sacrum Phariae; see, equally, the parallel made by Malaise 1972b, 229 and, more generally, Perpillou-Thomas 1993, 132–133. 296  Bricault 2000b, 142–145.

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ins. III, no. 1), a complex now identified as a bakery.297 The Sacellum served as a workplace shrine, with decorations that can be dated to around 210–235 CE. Its side walls feature an extremely interesting painting ensemble. On one of these walls three groups of figures can be distinguished: a first painting with a horse and the Dioscuri; then a second one with Augustus, Harpocrates holding a cornucopia, Isis brandishing her sistrum, Fortuna with a cornucopia and a rudder, Annona holding the tessera frumentaria and a rudder, a Genius (that of the emperor?) holding a cornucopia, and Alexander the Great; and, lastly, a third painting in which one can make out at least one person and Silvanus. On the opposite wall, one finds the same figures, with the difference that Isis is no longer represented, having been replaced by a masculine figure holding a patera in his right hand.298 The ensemble is assigned to the reign of Caracalla, especially since a graffito marks the presence of two people (Marius and Anna) there on 25 April 215 CE, the same date as the Sacrum Phariae and Serapia.299 Moreover, Jan Theo Bakker300 reminds us quite rightly that on this same date in the 1st cent. CE at Ostia the Robigalia festival was celebrated in honor of Robigus (or Robigo), a divinity who protected growing grain from rust.301 It is tempting to consider that in the 3rd century the Serapia partly replaced this ancient festival. This pictural ensemble clearly associates the Isiac divinities with the arrival of the annona at Ostia and reaffirms the direct link existing then between the imperial cult (with Caracalla as a new Augustus and new Alexander) and the Isiac cults. It is thus not surprising to find Isis, Harpocrates and perhaps Sarapis in a shrine adjoining a bakery at Ostia. We are unaware, however, of who commissioned these paintings – an ordinary baker, the corpus pistorum, or even a relgious association? It it useful to note that among the fifteen statuettes found at the site there are two bronzes representing Sarapis.302 Finally, it should be remembered that Tertullian, who wrote his Apologeticus in

297  Bakker 1994, 134–167, 251–261; Moormann 1994; Moormann 2011, 140–142. 298  Bakker 1994, 152, suggests a Genius; I would be more willing to consider Sarapis. 299  One can connect to this date a coin issued under Caracalla, for which both aurei (RIC IV, 1 no. 257a–b) and sesterces (RIC IV, 1 no. 544) were struck, with a reverse type that is only precisely attested for the year 215 CE. This reverse featured the emperor standing to the left, wearing a cuirass and paludamentum, holding a lance and resting his right foot on a crocodile; Isis, facing him and also standing, advances towards the right, and holds the sistrum in her left hand and with her right offers him two ears of what. 300  Bakker 1994, 166. 301  C IL XIV 4547. On this festival, the establishment of which was traditionally attributed to Numa, Ov. Fast. 4. 905–942; Var. R. 1. 1–2 (p. 90 ed. Bip), L. 6. 16; Plin. Nat. 18. 285; Festus, s. v.; see also Vistoli 2009; Palmer 2018 with earlier bibliography. 302  Bakker 1994, ch. 5B.

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197 CE, in referring to Isis gave her the name Ceres Pharia,303 clearly associating the epiclesis with agrarian fertility. Therefore, if one admits that from the 2nd cent. CE Isis Pharia became the protectress of the anonna, much of which is known to have come from Egypt,304 and in turn that the goddess guaranteed, with her companion Sarapis, the resupplying of Rome and the well-being of the inhabitants of the Urbs,305 the other elements can be easily explained. Sarapis, the principal companion of Isis during the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, present on the coins that have just been examined, was frequently associated with votive or dedicatory acts. It is for this reason that we have returned to him several times since the beginning of this study, which is first and foremost devoted to Isis. It is now the time to focus on Sarapis, and to see to what extent he himself would function as a marine god – independently of Isis, or not. 303   T ert. Apol. 16. 304  Pavis d’Escurac 1976, 206–207; Reddé & Golvin 2005, 44–46. According to Flavius Josephus (B. J. 2. 386), Egypt was believed to provide four months’ worth of grain to Rome. 305  As I believe I have shown in Bricault 1999. On the distributions of public wheat in Rome, Virlouvet 1995.

CHAPTER 6

Sarapis and the Sea 6.1

Sarapis: Fulfilling the Need for a God

6.1.1 Sarapis, from Memphis to the Mediterranean A relatively persistent claim among modern scholars has held the cult of Sarapis and the god himself, despite having been native to Egypt, to be a Greek creation rather than a product of the ancient Egyptian religious spirit. Forged in the Alexandrian fashion by Macedonian dynasts who drew their inspiration from Memphite traditions – more or less vaguely – the cult subsequently spread throughout the Hellenistic world from the so-called “Alexandrian customs,” to use Jean Leclant’s expression.1 That scenario, still followed by many scholars, ignores the fact that Memphis under the Ptolemies remained an important center for Egyptian cults, especially for those of Isis and Sarapis.2 This center was probably at the origin, among other things, of the Hellenization of the goddess and her Aretalogy.3 So conceived, this scenario results from an insufficiently critical reading of the passages of Tacitus, Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria concerning the origo of Sarapis, reflecting a confusion between the god’s standard image and the functionality of the gods associated with him by these three authors (Zeus, Dis, Asklepios, etc.).4 Problematically, these Greek and Latin authors were trying to explain the Greek origin of the iconography of the cult statue of Sarapis in his great Alexandrian sanctuary centuries earlier. Yet, by reading them without pretending or wanting to ignore that this had happened in Egypt and not in Greece, it is clear that these ancient authors all assumed the pre-existence of a god called Sarapis and the possibility of an interpretatio, as Philippe Borgeaud and Youri Volokhine have shown in their fundamental study published in 2000.5 By the Ptolemaic era, ritual practices – funerary but also magical, medical and mantic – developed at the entrance of Apis’s necropolis in Saqqâra, outside of the city of Memphis. This multifaceted form of popular piety existed on the 1  Leclant 1981, 10. 2  Malaise 2005, 128–139. 3  See supra pp. 43–46. 4  On the many facets of this old problem, e.g. Dunand 1999; Malaise 2005, 128–139; Pfeiffer 2008b; Dunand 2013; Quack & Paarmann 2013; Smith 2017, 390–394. 5  Borgeaud & Volokhine 2000; Belayche 2011.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_008

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margins of the solemn and traditional funerary cult that continued to be given to the dead Apis, divinized as Osiris-Apis or Osorapis (or Oserapis in Greek).6 During this period (6th–4th cents. BCE), the veneration of Osiris-Apis in the Memphite necropolis was not only open to natives, but also to strangers, such as the Greeks settled in the region under the pharaoh Amasis (571–526 BCE).7 This is attested by some Carian steles referring to the Apis bull and dedications given by Carians and other groups recording names that do not belong to Egyptian onomastics. Due to the Ptolemaic dynasty’s needs, the Osiris-Apis from Memphis ended up contributing his name, transcribed as Sarapis,8 probably under the influence of the powerful Memphite clergy,9 in a time when state and temples did not represent two antagonistic groups.10 This name at least in part refers to a new figure that ancient authors sought to explain as either a Hades or Zeus from the Black Sea – Sinope, precisely – or as an Asclepius or an infernal Dionysus, according to different variants of a legend undoubtedly dating well after the reign of Ptolemy Sôter. This legend is due to the author of a book called Aegyptiaca, who may be identified as Apion or Chaeremon,11 and it was immediately incorporated by Plutarch and Tacitus to legitimize the new power of Vespasian. The concern with showing Sarapis’s cult image as particularly ancient and important justifies the stories that assign the origin of the statue to a distant and foreign sanctuary. This rather late narrative, however, must not conceal another aspect of the promotion of Sarapis by the Ptolemaic dynasty, namely the Ptolemies’ attempt to have their “legendary kinship” with the royal house of Argos, the Argead dynasty, and consequently with Alexander the Great, be recognized. According to a certain tradition, was it not Apis, king of Argos, son of Phoroneus and descendant of Inachos, who had founded Memphis?12 The combination, within the same mythological tale, of these different origins was probably the result of the combined efforts of Manetho and Ptolemy Sôter.13 6  Devauchelle 2010; Devauchelle 2012, with previous literature. 7  Świderek 1975. 8  I am not convinced by Kessler’s hypothesis about the etymology of Sarapis’s name, which according to him may have derived from the Egyptian sr-Hp, “Apis who gives oracles”; Kessler 2000, 189; Schmidt 2005, 191. See the useful overview by Renberg 2017, 404–405. 9  Quaegebeur 1980. 10  Thompson 2012 (2nd ed.), 99–143 ‘Ptolemies and Temples,’ and 176–196 ‘Apis and Other Cults’; in general Gorre 2009. 11  Borgeaud & Volokhine 2000. 12   A ristipp., Arkadika, 1, apud Clem.Al., Strom., 1. 21. 106, and Euseb. Praep. evang. 10. 12. 24; see Veymiers 2011b, 112–113. 13  Aufrère 2011, esp. 51–53.

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A new cult was thus created which was followed primarily, if not exclusively, followed by Egypt’s Greek population, and especially by those in the royal court.14 Sarapis was promoted as the tutelary god of Alexandria along with Isis, who became his wife and the mother of Harpocrates. Conceived as a healing, oracular,15 funerary and sovereign entity, the god should be recognized as the Greek transformation of an ancestral Memphite figure, completely anthropomorphized. This resemantisation happening at the end of the 4th or, rather, beginning of the 3rd cent. BCE was conducted under the influence of an ideology willing to promote the image of a divine and universal sovereign capable of imparting, in a Hellenized fashion, a prestige comparable to that of the ancient Egyptian divinities, Osiris in particular. The creation of Sarapis’s cult, or rather its new iconography, was certainly a way for the Ptolemies to provide the diverse inhabitants of the new city with a common cult of Egyptian origin.16 If Osiris-Apis was chosen, it was because this native divinity had already attracted the interest of Greeks before the establishment of the Ptolemaic regime. Moreover, this loan from a Memphite cult closely related to the monarchy offered the opportunity of establishing a connection between the old capital (Memphis) and the royal house in Alexandria. Sarapis may have attracted some Egyptians, but the goal was definitively not to integrate Greeks and the indigenous population under this new cult. Sarapis is only new in appearance, and even his appearance was not entirely new. His “invention” illustrates the complexity of the relationship established between the Self and the Other from the moment when expatriate Greeks interacted with a “foreign” belief system.17 One can thus wonder to what extent the dynamic that had led to the combination of an Egyptian theological substratum with a Greek iconography in order to give birth to this new image of Sarapis18 had not functioned similarly for Isis, goddess of the seas. In this framework of a complex but decisive process of cultural and political interaction, the Memphite clergy and the royal court in Alexandria probably participated, together, in the extention of these two puissances en action that are Sarapis and Isis, for the greater benefit of each party. The priests of Memphis benefited from the financial generosity of the Ptolemies, who, for their part, found considerable support in the development 14  Clarysse & Paganini 2009. 15  Renberg 2017, 403–423. 16  Even if this role of tutelary god does not appear in our sources with certainty before the Roman age. 17  Bricault & Prescendi 2009. 18  Borgeaud and Volokhine 2000; Belayche 2011.

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and establishment of monarchical ideology and a dynastic cult.19 As for Alexandria, home to that royal court, it undoubtedly from that time onwards was placed under the double protection of Sarapis and Isis, goddess of Pharos. If the cult of Isis seems to have become established outside of Egypt at an earlier point, which would have been between the beginning of Alexander’s reign and the first years of the reign of Ptolemy II, Sarapis’s cult, in turn, had soon spread through the whole of the eastern Mediterranean due to various factors, following routes that are rather complex, which I shall develop elsewhere.20 However, one can distinguish three types of contexts favorable to this diffusion and which evidently are not mutually exclusive, at the same time combining commercial, social, cultural, and political factors.21 One can indeed observe that the first sanctuaries to be established were: – in port cities (Peiraeus, Eretria, Delos, Keramos, etc.);22 – or, in cities having direct contact with Ptolemaic Egypt, which had freely consented to an Egyptian sanctuary or had one imposed upon them by circumstance (Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Chaeroneia, Orchomenus); – or, in cities that were militarily occupied – not necessarily by the Ptolemies (Rhamnous, Ephesus, Stratonicaea, Priene) – and where the soldiers sometimes clearly would play the role of vectors of propagation.23 Quite often, Sarapis rejoined his companion in the sanctuary that was consecrated to her, and together they enjoyed the adoration of their worshipers, a good number of whom from the beginning were very likely sailors and merchants. 6.1.2 Sarapis and the Solar Barque Before proceeding further, we must dismiss from our sources an interesting group of intaglios with a magical character, the significance of which has been precisely explained by Veymiers.24 On these objects, each fashioned from 19  Pfeiffer 2008a and 2008b. 20  See already Bricault 2004b and Glomb et al. 2018 for a global network analysis of the spread of Isiac cults in the Aegean Sea region during the 3rd cent. BCE. 21  Bricault 2008. 22  One might add to this list the Sarapieion at Puteoli, the existence of which in 105 BCE is attested by a law issued by the authorities concerning its enlargement (CIL X 1781 = RICIS 504/0401), but the founding of which can be assigned maybe to the 3rd cent. BCE, when the god’s cult was establishing itself among nearby Sicily’s eastern Hellenic communities. This site was very likely facing the sea, since it appears to be shown on two engraved glasses that provide a panoramic view of the city and its port. Tran tam Tinh 1972, 5–11; Painter 1975; Ostrow 1979; Bejarano Osorio 2005; Golvin 2008. See supra p. 124–125. 23  R ICIS 101/0502. 24  Veymiers 2009, 162–164.

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FIGURES 135–137 Magical gems (1st–2nd cents. CE)

jasper or lapis-lazuli,25 Sarapis generally sails with Harpocrates, who is doubly represented in the forms of a scarab and a falcon, on a barque from the Nile formed from bundles of papyrus, decorated at each end with busts of Isis and Nephthys (figs. 135–137). A winged scarab sometimes replaces Sarapis’s calathos in order to present him as a solar god (fig. 137).26 On one gem,27 the god is crowned with the atef of Osiris and accompanied by Cerberus. The barque is thus that of the Sun, which is identified with Osiris during its nocturnal voyage in the twelve regions of the Duat. At the side of this Osirianized Sarapis, towards the bow, a Harpocrates in the form of a scarab with a human head bearing the solar disc suggests the daily rising of the Sun. At the end of the night, the Sun is reborn as Horus in the form of the scarab Khepri. This rebirth is doubly emphasized when Harpocrates-scarab appears on a lotus. Always on his barque, but this time towards the stern, one usually finds an anthropocephalous Harpocrates with the body of a falcon, crowned 25  I bid., nos. V.CB 1–4, 9, 11, 13, 15 with pl. 58 and XXI. 26  I bid., nos. V.CB 2, 4 and 9. 27  I bid., no. V.CB 11 with pl. 58.

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with the pschent or the solar disc, and holding a cornucopia as well, sometimes, as a rudder. This composite form evokes the ba-birds of deceased individuals that mount upon the solar barque in the underworld. Recognizable from their crown, generally a basileion, the busts of Isis and Nephthys, wearing their hair in Greek style or, in a few cases, an Egyptian wig instead, stand at the craft’s bow and stern to ward off harmful forces, assuming their traditional role of Djerty beside Osiris’s mummy.28 It is such a scene that a Demotic magical papyrus, dated to the 3rd cent. CE, evokes in its description of “Osiris on his boat of bright papyrus, Isis at his head, Nephthys at his feet, and the other gods and goddesses near him.”29 Sometimes the bust of Helios (fig. 137), a star (fig. 135) and an inscription Ἀλδαβαῖμ/Ἰαλδαβαῖμ (fig. 136) confirm the solar character of the scene, which therefore is not to be linked to the marine prerogatives of Sarapis. One can associate with this series a hematite mounted in a silver ring, formerly in the collections of Montigny and then Southesk (fig. 138), and some years ago sold on the antiquities market.30 It shows Sarapis, wearing a calathos, enthroned on the left in a barque of papyrus heading towards the left. The god holds in his left hand a long scepter and extends his right hand above the head of Cerberus. The bow as well as the stern are both surmounted by a falcon bearing a vegetal wreath and looking towards Sarapis.31 These birds of prey, sometimes wearing the pschent, are identifiable with Isis and Nephthys, who appear in the same position and role on the gems discussed just above (figs. 135–137), and which quite often borrow the appearance of hawks.32 This scene might also, however, be related to the ceremonies that would be held each year during the inundation, when the god’s statue would exit from his temple, following the example of Osiris embarking on the river in order to visit his divine neighbors and participate in their respective festivals. The two birds would then be the god’s protectors during his journey: they are to be found in other compositions, in the same manner watching over the barque of Osiris or that of Harpocrates.33 28  Djerty, the two kites, refers to the birds into which the goddesses Isis and Nephthys transformed themselves in the search of Osiris after his murder and dismemberment. 29  P. London BM, 10070 and P. Leiden, I, 383, v°, col. VI, 31–32. 30  Carnegie 1908, I, 119–120, K 2 with pl. X; Veymiers 2009, 289 no. II.C 1 with pl. XIV. 31  Contrary to what is indicated in Hornbostel 1973, 302 and n. 3, there does not exist, to my knowledge, a numismatic parallel for this intaglio. The reference to Dattari 3528 is erroneous: the god is not fully represented there “alone on a Nile barque,” but surrounded by Isis and Demeter. 32  Delatte & Derchain 1964, 98. 33  For Osiris, Bonner 1950, 253 with pl. I no. 2; for Harpocrates, Delatte & Derchain 1964, 116 no. 146, and 120–123 nos. 155, 156, 158, 159 and 162.

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Figure 138 Southesk intaglio (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

One final source is also worth noting. On the obverse of a two-sided jasper of green, brown and yellow, today preserved in Paris,34 one can see within an ouroboros a solar barque, its hull decorated with fish bones, which carries seven figures. On the bow, which terminates in the form of a ram’s head, Helios stands, radiant, and raises his left hand to the height of his face while holding a whip in his right. Hermes, nude and standing to the right, holds in his right hand a caduceus and in his left a fawnskin(?), and faces Helios. Anubis, cynocephalic and carrying a key, appears at mid-body. On his right a nude man, standing to the left and wearing a hat with a wide brim, brings a two-edged instrument towards the mouth of Sarapis, wearing the calathos, who stands to the right before him.35 Sarapis is leaning with his right hand on a scepter surmounted by a coiled uraeus and lowering his left hand over Cerberus. Behind him, a second Anubis holds in his left hand a scroll and in his right three ears of wheat. Finally, at the stern, a pilot operates the rudder. Another scene with four figures decorates the reverse. We find here once again the specific context of the nocturnal journey of the solar barque.36 All these sources connected to the Egyptian solar barque are not to be linked to Sarapis’s marine prerogatives.

34  Paris, Cabinet des Médailles inv. no. S 390 (from the Schlumberger collection). Delatte & Derchain 1964, 215–217 no. 294; Hornbostel 1973, 303, n. 8; Tran tam Tinh 1983, 96–97 no. IA 17 with fig. 18; Kiss 1994, 136 no. 4; Veymiers 2009, 344 no. V.CC 5 with pl. XXII. 35  According to Delatte & Derchain 1964, 216, this object would be “one of the instruments which were used in Egypt for the Opening of the Mouth ritual, by which mummies were ‘animated,’ and which could have been performed in temples for Osiris.” 36  Veymiers 2009, 167.

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A New Field of Action for Sarapis

6.2.1 The Premises No maritime prerogatives appear to have been associated with Sarapis’s divine nature originally, and it was only towards the end of the Hellenistic Period that the god seems to have become linked to the sea. The most ancient source for this may be a Rhodian inscription found in the territory of Camiros, a thankoffering for Hekate and Sarapis by a certain Hermias of Soloi (Cyprus) for having been saved from “great dangers.”37 This inscription can be dated to the end of the 2nd or the 1st cent. BCE. Uncertainty regarding the nature of the dangers remains; however, if this involves a Cypriot making a dedication on the island of Rhodes that is addressed to Hecate, patron goddess of crossroads, one can suppose that there is an allusion here to the dangers encountered during both terrestrial and maritime voyages. I have mentioned above the dedication to Sarapis, Isis, Anubis and Apollo set up at Sarapieion C on Delos by Protos of Cos, who also was saved from a number of great dangers at sea c. 150 BCE.38 Two other Delian texts, associating Zeus Ourios, the god of favorable winds,39 with the Isiac family, are equally to be viewed in connection with the maritime world. Both dedications were made at Sarapieion C, with one given by two Athenians around 112/1 BCE40 and the other by an inhabitant of Nymphaion, in Chersonesos Taurike, for all sailors in 105/4 BCE.41 Other inscriptions, which 37   I G XII 1, 742 = SGDI 4143 = GIBM IV, 2 (1916) 967 = SIRIS 198 = RICIS 204/0218: Ἑρμίας Ἀθαναγόρα / Σολεὺς Ἑκάται, / Σαρπιδι χαριστήριον / σωθεὶς ἐγ μεγάλων // κινδύνων (“Hermias, son of Athanagoras, of Soloi, to Hecate (and) Sarapis, as a thank-offering for having been saved from great dangers”). The “great dangers” in question, according to votive texts, would most often be maritime: see, for example, the dedications from Coptos and Alexandria, respectively, for the Great Gods of Samothrace and for Boubastis and Harmachis (Breccia 1911, nos. 109 and 121, Egypt); see also, on such inscriptions, Habicht 2001 and Habicht 2002. 38   C E 72 = ID 2119 = RICIS 202/0230. See supra p. 185. 39  On Zεὺς Οὔριος, in Latin Jupiter Secundanus (ID 1754,7), see Aesch., Suppl. 594. For the Delian inscriptions, RICIS 202/0295, 202/0324, 202/0330, ID 2305 and 2415–2416, see Arena 1987 and Cordano 1993. 40   C E 129 = ID 2179 = RICIS 202/0295: [Ἀ]θη[ναγό]ρα[ς] καὶ Λε[ωνίδης / οἱ Ἀ]θηναγόρ[ου] Ἀθ[ηναῖοι] / Διὶ Οὐρίωι, Σαράπι[δι, Ἴσιδι / Ἀ]νούβιδι, Ἁρποκράτε[ι] (“Athenagoras and Leonides, the sons of Athenagoras, Athenians, to Zeus Ourios, Sarapis, Isis, Anubis (and) Harpocrates”). 41   C E 153 = ID 2128 = RICIS 202/0324: Εὔτυχος Ἀπολ[λ]ωνου Νυμφαΐδη[ς] / ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ Εὐβόλου / καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν πλοιζομένων πάντων / Διὶ Οὐρίωι, Σαράπιδι, Ἴσιδι, Ἀνούβιδι, Ἁρ//φοκράτει, θεοῖς συννάοις καὶ συμ/βώμοις, ἐπὶ ἱερέως Θεομνήστου / τοῦ Θεογένου Κυδαθηναιέως, / ζακορεύοντος Νυσίου, /χαριστήριον (“Eutychus, son of Apollonius, of

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also name the Dioscuri,42 are to be understood in the same way: Sarapis in these cases is considered a savior god, helpful and attentive to the demands of his followers, on the land as on the sea. Sarapis in addition benefitted from associations with other divinities at his main Delian sanctuary, notably Isis, who, in a certain way, contaminated him. It was undoubtedly thanks to his companion that this function, originally not an element of his personality, developed into an important aspect, but not a major one. The growing part played by certain sanctuaries – among them, without doubt, Sarapieia – and greater popularity associated with this development can be linked to maritime credit and the financing of sea commerce. This is perhaps the reason for which shipowners and traders reserved for Sarapis a tithe from their profits, as several Delian texts show,43 but also granted him an actual associate status (with equal share) in their maritime enterprises, as Aelius Aristides later reported in his Hymn in Honor of Sarapis.44 Nymphaion, on his own behalf and that of his son Eubolus, and for all sailors, to Zeus Ourios, Sarapis, Isis, Anubis, Harpocrates, and the gods who share the same temple and the same altars, during the priesthood of Theomnestus, son of Theogenes, (of the deme) of Kydathenaion, with Nysias having been zakoros, (gave this) as a thank-offering”). 42   C E 110 = ID 2123 = RICIS 202/0273: Πόπλιος [καὶ ---] / Τουτώρ[ιος ---] / ὑπὲρ [ἑαυ]τῶν κα[ὶ]/ τῶ[ν ἰδ]ίων, Σαράπ[ιδι], // Ἴσιδι, Ἀνούβιδι, Ἁρπ[ο]/χράτει, Διοσκούροις, / ἐπὶ ἱερέως / Στασέου τοῦ Φιλο/κλέους Κολωνῆθεν (“Publius [and …] Tutorius […], for themselves and theirs, to Sarapis, Isis, Anubis, Harpocrates (and) the Dioscuri, during the priesthood of Staseas, son of Philocles, (of the deme) of Colonus”). One of these dedicants might have been Publius Tutorius Antiochus, who died at Delos (Couilloud 1974, no. 497), and was undoubtedly a sailor, and a Poseidoniast as well (ID 1751, 4–10). 43   I G XI 4, 1241; CE 57 = RICIS 202/0182: Ἀρίστων Ἀριστίωνος / Κορκυραῖος δεκάτην Σαράπ[ι] (“Ariston, son of Ariston, of Corcyra, (consecrated) the tithe to Sarapis”). But Sarapis was not the only beneficiary of this sort of tithe: it was sometimes associated with Isis and Anubis. IG XI 4, 1220 = CE 2e = RICIS 202/0118: Σαράπιδι, Ἴσιδι, Ἀνούβιδι Γλαυκίας Καλλιφάνου Ἀμόργιος δεκάτην, ἐπιμεληθέντος Δημητρίου τοῦ Διάλλου (“Glaukias, son of Kalliphanes, of Amorgos, (consecrated) the tithe to Sarapis, Isis and Anubis, when Demetrius, son of Diallus, was epimeletes”). It could also be consecrated to Osiris: IG XI 4, 1248; CE 7 = RICIS 202/0125: Βασιλεῖ Ὀσείριδι / Κτησίας Ἀπολλοδώρου / Τήνιος ἀπαρχὴν / ἀπὸ τῆς ἐργασίας δεκάτην (“To King Osiris, Ctesias, son of Apollodorus, of Tenos, offers the tithe from his profits in maritime commerce”). These three inscriptions, coming from Sarapieion C, date to the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 2nd cent. BCE. The diversity of the beneficiaries seems to indicate that protection over maritime activities was not the sole reason for the payment of this tithe. Bricault 2013a, 308–311. 44   A ristid., Orat. XLV, In Serapidem, 28: Παραπλησία δὲ καὶ ἠ κατὰ τὰ ἄλλα πρὸς αὐτὸν κοινωνία, ὁμοτίμων πρὸς ὁμότιμον, οἷον ἐμπόρων καὶ ναυκλήρων, οὐ μόνον δεκάτας ἀναγόντων, ἀλλὰ καὶ μερίτην ἐξ ἴσου ποιουμένων, ὥς πρὸς συνέμπορον καὶ κοινωνὸν τῶν διὰ μέσου πάντων‧ ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ἀνθρώποις ἐγκαταμέμικται. (“The partnership with him (= Sarapis) in other transactions is always the same, an association between equals. For example, merchants and captains of ships not only pay tithes to him, but they also permit him to partake of

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It is, in fact, not before the Antonine era that Sarapis’s involvement in maritime matters is confirmed, on the basis of some scattered texts attesting to this evolution. In the middle of the 2nd cent. CE, a new recruit from the classis Misensis named Apion wrote in a letter addressed to his father Epimachus that while en route to Misenum he was saved from shipwreck by the salutary intervention of Sarapis.45 During the same era, Aelius Aristides, having been saved from a tempest through the help of the god he had invoked at the height of the storm, gave thanks to him in the hymn mentioned above: Οὐ μóνον δὲ τὰς ἐν τῇ γῇ πάσας ἔχει δυνάμεις (…) ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν θαλάττῃ μέγας οὗτος ὁ θεὸς – καὶ ὁλκάδες καὶ τριήρεις ὑπὸ τούτῳ κυβερνῶνται – καὶ ἐν αἰθέρι καὶ νεφέλαις. Not only does he [= Sarapis] hold all power over the land (…), [but] he is also a great god of the sea – he guides trading vessels and triremes – as well as of the air and clouds.46 This concept is further developed when he writes: οὗτος ὕδωρ ἀνῆκε πότιμον ἐν μέσῃ θαλάττῃ, οὗτος κειμένους ἀνέστησεν, οὗτος περισπούδαστον ἡλίου φῶς τοῖς θεαταῖς ἔδειξεν In the middle of the sea he made potable water well up, he calmed the waves, he showed to those who were present to see it the greatly desired light of the sun.47 Aristides concludes the subject by declaring: Ὦ τὴν καλλίστην ὧν ἐφορᾷς κατέχων πόλιν, ἥ σοι τὴν δι᾽ ἔτους πανήγυριν πληροῖ, ὦ κοινὸν ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις φῶς, ἡμῖν τε δὴ πρώην περιφανῶς γενόμενος, ὅτ᾽ ἐπιρρεούσης τῆς θαλάττης καὶ πολλῆς πάντοθεν αἰρομένης καὶ οὐδενὸς the profits equally, as they would do for any merchant or partner associated with them in the same enterprise. Such is his degree of involvement in human affairs.”) On this hymn, Goeken 2012, 547–581. 45  B GU II, 423 = Select Papyri I, 305–307 no. 112: Eὐχαριστῶ τῷ κυριῷ Σεράπιδι, ὅτι μου κινδυνεύσαντος εἰς θάλασσα ἔσωσε εὐθέως. Ὄτε εἰσῆλθον εἰς Μησενούς (…). (“I give thanks to Lord Sarapis because when I was in danger at sea he saved me immediately. Upon my arrival at Misenum (…)”). 46   A ristid., Orat. XLV, In Serapidem 23. 47  Ibid., 29.

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ὁρωμένου πλὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος καὶ σχεδὸν ἤδη παρόντος ὀλέθρου, χεῖρα ἀντάρας, οὐρανόν τε κεκρυμμένον ἐξέφηνας καὶ γῆν ἔδωκας ἰδεῖν καὶ προσορμίσασθαι, τοσοῦτον παρ᾽ ἐλπίδα ὥστ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἐπιβᾶσι πίστις ἦν. O, you who dwell in the most beautiful city of the ones you behold, which every year celebrates a solemn feast in your honor! You, universal light for all men! You who just lately became manifest, when the great sea was rising from all sides and rushing in upon us, when nothing was visible to us except for our imminent and nearing destruction. You extended your hand, revealing the hidden sky, and permitted us to see land and reach port, so much beyond hope that we did not completely believe it even when we had disembarked. Apart from the rhetor’s general discourse on the cosmic, oracular and healing powers of Sarapis, this handful of lines seems to be an expression of a personal connection between Aristides himself and the god, a divine protector of men confronted by perils at sea.48 Such a situation probably explains as well the engravings on a black jasper intaglio originating at Alexandria and dating to the 3rd cent. CE (fig. 139). On the obverse one finds an anchor, and on the reverse the inscription MΕΓΑC | CΑΡΑΠΙC.49 This acclamation in the nominative provides a good example of the rhetorical communicative aproaches by means of which these competitive societies would exalt an exceptional being, whose power they would thus glorify, most often after having experienced it.50 In the Mediterranean region, their usage grew beginning in the 2nd cent. CE. Such formulas would permit one on multiple objects, especially small ones that were easily transportable, to express in few words the intensity of the privileged relationship with the divine power in which one placed one’s confidence. These rather rare sources, concerning Sarapis alone, attest to a novel situation during the Imperial Period, which saw the Alexandrian god expand the range of his areas of jurisdiction noticeably. Before then, it would have been 48  Sfameni Gasparro 1998, 249. It is more to the gods as protectors of soldiers on campaign than simply as protectors of men at sea that a thank-offering inscribed on a wall of the Bouleuterion at Stratonikeia in the 2nd or 3rd cent. CE is addressed. CIG II 2716 = LBW 516 = SIRIS 280 = I.Stratonikeia no. 1104 = RICIS 305/0503: Ζηνὶ Πανη[μερί]ῳ / καὶ Ἡλίῳ Διὶ Σεράπει / σωθέντες ἐκ πο/λέμων μεγάλων καὶ // ἀλλοδαπ θαλασσῶν / εὐχῆς ἵνεκε ταῦτ᾽ ἐπέ/γραψαν ὑφ᾽ ἓν οἱ τέσσα/ρες ἄνδρες, Ζωτικός, / Ἐπίκτητος, ἠδ᾽ Ἀντί//οχος, [ἠδ᾽] ἅμα Νεῖλος (“In honor of Zeus Panamaros and Sun Zeus Sarapis, for having been saved from great wars and campaigns on foreign seas, the four men Zôtikos, Epiktetos, Antiochus (and) Neilos, fulfilling a vow, have together commissioned this inscription”). 49  Oxford, Ashmolean Museum inv. no. Fortnum 88. Henig & MacGregor 2004, 117.13.29. 50  Chaniotis 2009; Chaniotis 2010, 122–128; Belayche 2010; Veymiers 2014c.

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Figure 139

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Intaglio (3rd cent. CE)

difficult to find evidence for Sarapis playing a role as divinity protecting sailing and sailors: none of the epicleses attached to his name indicates one; no cult site appears to have been consecrated to a Sarapis Pelagius; and, there are only a few representations of the god alone on a ship,51 while I know of no iconographic type for Sarapis comparable to that of Isis-with-a-sail. It is, however, possible to compile a sufficiently rich collection of documentary sources to support and analyze this unexamined aspect of his divine power. 6.2.2 The Assertion: Sarapis, the Annona … and Isis From the beginning, the most ancient crown for Sarapis was certainly the atef he borrowed from Osiris,52 which Isis’s companion was still wearing on the tetradrachms of Ptolemy IV from the end of the 3rd cent. BCE and the drachmas struck at Myndos, in Caria, during the 2nd cent. BCE.53 It is probably in the 2nd or 1st cents. BCE that the god was given a second type of headgear, the calathos, which was most often represented as rather large and enveloped in olive leaves. This symbol of abundance then attributed to Sarapis – and which one can suppose was a loan from Demeter, so often seen wearing the calathos, especially in Egypt54 – accompanied the evolution that contributed to distancing him progressively, both at an iconographical and a theological level,

51  See e.g. infra p. 255 figs. 152–153. 52  As already suggested by Castiglione 1978; on this subject, Malaise 2009a. 53  S NRIS Alexandria P02 and Myndos 1–29; Bricault 2019 (forthcoming 2). 54  Herrmann 1999.

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from his Egyptian Osirian origins.55 The growing role played by Alexandria as a port of embarcation for the ships filled with wheat heading from Egypt to their destination in Rome and Italy explains the association of Sarapis, the city’s tutelary god, with an attribute which in contrast to the atef – too closely linked to the Egyptian Pharaonic kingdom and the Ptolemaic monarchy – was perfectly identifiable from one end of the Mediterranean to the other: the calathos that made him an agricultural fertility divinity of the highest importance. The maritime vector associated with this new prerogative was certainly not foreign to his new status.56 A few centuries later, on a bronze medallion celebrating homonoia between Ephesus and Alexandria Artemis Ephesia and Sarapis were represented standing facing frontal on the bow and stern, respectively, of a galley sailing to the left, its sail inflated by the wind, with the walls of Ephesus and a temple in the background (fig. 140).57 This remarkable issue belongs to a large group of coins struck under Marcus Aurelius and especially Gordian III that clearly make an allusion to close relations, notably commercial, between the two great cities.58 If Sarapis, the patron god of Alexandria, was abundantly represented on this specific coinage, Isis was not absent. She could be shown standing, facing frontal, beside Sarapis and Artemis (fig. 141), or else alone, velificans, heading towards the right, sometimes with a lighthouse – that of Alexandria – standing behind her (figs. 142–143). Alexandria thus appears to have been the place that saw the emergence of a Sarapis whose power would extend – concretely – to maritime and fluvial spaces. We have already seen59 on the Egyptian boat-shaped lamps of Alexandrian production that Sarapis is quite frequently represented in the company of the Dioscuri, and that the latter likewise appear on the boat-shaped lamp of Puteoli.60 The association of the god and twins, venerated in Egypt as else55  On Sarapis and the construction of a new civic identity in Roman Alexandria, Caneva 2016a, 214–216. 56  We should recall the dedication from Phoenix on Crete, given by the commander of an Alexandrian merchant ship, the Isopharia, to Iovi Soli Optimo Maximo Sarapidi (SIRIS 171 = RICIS 203/0701; see supra p. 166). 57  Nollé 1996, 56 no. 19; SNRIS Ephesus 20. 58  See the numerous examples collected in Franke & Nollé 1997; SNRIS Ephesus 3 (Marcus Aurelius) and 4–26 (Gordian III); on these issues, Nollé 1996 and Spoerri Butcher 2013, 243–245. 59  Supra p. 192. 60  Outside of a direct maritime context, it is not rare to see Sarapis associated with the Dioscuri, whether on coins, gems or even the walls of certain temples in Egypt; see Deubner 1947. During the excavations undertaken at Magdola, in the Fayoum, P. Jouguet (1902, 355–359) believed that he had found the Dioscuri, each armed with a lance and

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Figures 140–143 Ephesus. Gordian III (238–244 CE)

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where as protectors of seafarers,61 is to be found in the city’s coinage: the first issues associating them with Sarapis appear during the reign of Antoninus, in 138/9 CE,62 and continue until 164/5 CE (figs. 144–145).63 We can readily add to these an intaglio conserved at Dresden (fig. 80) which represents Sarapis on the deck of a ship, with Isis on both sides of him, and two stars engraved in the upper field that clearly symbolize the Dioscuri,64 in an iconographic combination directly linked to the protection of ships ensured by these divinities. And finally, from the Serapeum of Ostia, port of debarkation of the grain fleet from Alexandria during the Imperial Period, comes an ex-voto to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Serapis and the Castores, perhaps to be viewed in connection with the maritime prerogatives of the gods in question.65 holding the bridle of a horse, in the decoration of the façade of a temple transformed into a Sarapieion at the end of the 1st cent. BCE. In fact, as was recognized by É. Bernand, I.Fayoum III, 56, the god represented is Heron. On this divinity, Will 1990, esp. 392 for Magdola; Bernand 1992; Poulin 1994; Bingen 1994, 41 and 44–45 for Magdola; Kiss 1996; Nachtergael 1996; Rondot 2013, 283–300. 61  Fraser 1972, I, 18–19; II, 49 n. 101 and 108. The Dioscuri also appear as protectors of the annona fleet: Amm. Marc. 19. 10. 4 (in 359 or 360 CE); Ethicus, XXIV (ed. Riese, Geog. Lat. Min., p. 83); and the calendar of Polemius Silvius in 449 CE (CIL I, 2 p. 257, for 27 January). 62  In Year 2 of Antoninus (BMC Alexandria, 131.1108 with pl. XV; here fig. 144): on the reverse, a draped bust of Sarapis wearing the calathos, facing frontal; to either side the Dioscuri, each crowned with a star, are standing, facing frontal, turning their heads towards him, while holding spears and whips. It does not seem that the association between Sarapis and the Dioscuri appears earlier. On the reverse of a coin from Year 11(?) of Trajan (RPC III 4217) are shown the Dioscuri, nude, standing and facing frontal while holding spears; between them, a female figure (possibly Demeter, but not Sarapis as proposed in Dattari 1034), wearing the calathos, standing facing frontal. The date is not clear and possibly can be read like L IH (Year 18) or L IΘ (Year 19) rather than L IA (Year 11). 63  One coin issue was common to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus: Sarapis standing frontal with his head turned to the left, holding taenia(?) over a lebes; to either side of him the Dioscuri, each crowned with a star, stand facing frontal, their heads turned towards him, with one holding a bridle(?) and whip, and the other crowning Sarapis with a wreath, and also holding a whip (fig. 145). Marcus Aurelius: BMC Alexandria, 157.1299; Dattari 3529– 3529bis; Geissen 3, 2104; Emmett 2182(5). Lucius Verus: Dattari 3779; Milne 2526; Emmett 2430(5). 64  See supra pp. 102 and 105. 65  S IRIS 549 = Pellegrino 1988, 228 no. 16 = RICIS 503/1129: I(ovi) o(ptimo) m(aximo) S(erapidi) / Castoribus / (Marci quattuor) Iuli(i) Chry/sophorus sevir // Aug(ustalis) idem q(uin) q(uennalis) cum / Aeliano qui et Sa/rapione fil(io) et Zosi/mo et Philippo fil(io) / v(oto) s(uscepto) r(eddiderunt) (“To Jupiter Best and Greatest Serapis (and) the Dioscuri, Marcus Iulius Chrysophorus, sevir Augustalis, quinquennial duumvir, with Marcus (Iulius) Aelianus (who is also Sarapion), his son, and Marcus (Iulius) Zosimus as well as Marcus (Iulius) Philippus, his son, fulfilled the vow they had undertaken.”) (end of 2nd-early 3rd cent. CE).

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FIGURES 144–145 Alexandria. Antoninus (138/9 CE) and Marcus Aurelius (164/5 CE)

A large number of Alexandrian coins and gemstones discussed above feature on their reverse, upon the deck of a ship, a crew varying in number, among which one regularly finds Isis-with-a-sail at the bow or Isis(-Tyche)-with-a-rudder at the stern, with Sarapis enthroned at the center of the composition and, often, Demeter holding a torch.66 Among all of the variants that could be identified,67 one iconographical type from the middle of the 2nd cent. CE stands out, which presents the following scene (fig. 146):68 Demeter, at the bow, turns towards Sarapis, who is enthroned, while at the stern there stands a goddess holding a cornucopia and rudder, which is likely to be identified as Isis(-Tyche)-with-a-rudder. One also finds this scene, for example, on an Alexandrian issue showing the Nile on the obverse69 and on a green jasper belonging to a private collection (fig. 147).70 The central place occupied by Sarapis in these compositions is even more noticeable on an intaglio from the Hermitage Museum (fig. 148).71 While the 66  See supra pp. 104–106. 67  Veymiers 2009, 138–141 and 332–337 nos. V.BBC 4, 6, 8, 12, 19, 22–23 and 26 with pl. 55–56 and XX; Veymiers 2011a, 241 and 253 nos. V.BBC 37 and 39–40 with pl. 12; Veymiers 2014a, 221 nos. V.BBC 44–46 with pl. 12–13. 68  S NRIS Alexandria 294a (138/9 CE) (fig. 146); 294b (141/2 CE); 294c (144/5 CE); 438a (162/3 CE); 438b (166/7 CE); 385 (167/8 CE). 69  Dattari 6490. 70  Priv. coll.; Wagner & Boardman 2003, 43 no. 268; Veymiers 2009, 337 no. V.BBC 34 with pl. 56. 71  St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum inv. no. Ж 6721; Veymiers 2009, 358 no. VI.DA 7 with pl. 65.

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Figure 146 Alexandria. Antoninus (138/9 CE)

Figure 147

Gem (2nd cent. CE)

iconography on the obverse is quite similar to the previous ones, with the exception of the addition of Cerberus at Sarapis’s feet, on the stone’s reverse is inscribed the acclamation EIC ZEΥC | CAPAΠΙC (“There is one Zeus-Sarapis”). This formula of acclamation defines the relationship between the gods and reveals the identity, but not the unicity, of the two divinities without introducing, except perhaps for the sake of euphony, a hierarchy or precedence between the two gods.72 In some sense, the two gods are the same but not wholly identical. The formula proclaims the superior and complete power of gods so exalted. In the present case, this power is exercised in a specific domain, that of the production and transport to Rome of Egypt’s frumentary wealth. One 72  On this formula, Belayche 2010, esp. 157–158.

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Figures 148a–b Intaglio. Hermitage Museum (1st–3rd cents. CE)

FIGURE 149 Carnelian. Aquileia (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

probably finds such an expression of a dynamic henotheism on an engraved gemstone most likely originating at Aquileia (fig. 149). On this carnelian can be seen a composition similar to the preceding ones, this time enriched by the presence of a dolphin. The scene is accompanied by a Paleo-Hebraic inscription signifying Adonai (“My Lord”).73 Associated as fruit-bringing divinities, henceforth identified by a common attribute, the calathos, Sarapis and Demeter appear together in a number of Alexandrian sources,74 including coins emanating from the provincial mint, 73  Veymiers 2011a, 241 and no. V.BBC 39. This scholar suggests connecting this inscribed stone with a series of magic gems on which Sarapis navigans is accompanied by the theonym Aldabaim/Ialdabaim for Ialdabaôth, one of the names of the Hebrew god; Veymiers 2009, 164–165 and 340–343 nos. V.CB 2, 4, 9, 11 and 13 with pl. 58 and XXI. 74  Veymiers 2009, 121–122; Bricault 2013b.

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Figure 150 Alexandria. Trajan (109/10 CE)

beginning with the reign of Trajan. This iconography has prompted a number of comments, some of which must be corrected, however. The reverse of several coin issues, known for the years 12, 13 and 20 of his reign, thus show Demeter, Sarapis and Tyche within a tetrastyle temple (fig. 150).75 Soheir Bakhoum in her book about the Egyptian gods in Alexandria has concluded that there is present in the decoration of the pediment a barque, and connects this coin issue to the existence of a temple that she believes would have been dedicated to the three divinities, whose cult would have given rise to ceremonies in a barque on the Nile or to processions involving model barques, or even those held at a sanctuary “dedicated to the sacred barque.”76 However, her commentary features a bad reading of the image: rather than any barque, the pediment shows the traditional solar disc flanked by two winged Nikes and leads us to to recognize in this divine trio the overseers of Egyptian grain production and its conveyance towards Rome. As these together show, the Alexandrian grain fleet was clearly placed under the triple protection of Demeter, Sarapis and Isis(-Tyche)-with-a-rudder.

75  S NRIS Alexandria 135a = RPC III 4335 (Year 12 = 108/9 CE); SNRIS Alexandria 135b = RPC III 4448 (Year 13 = 109/10 CE) (fig. 150); SNRIS Alexandria 135c = RPC III 4954 (Year 20 = 116/7 CE). The same divine trio appears on several Alexandrian issues: SNRIS Alexandria 131, 384, 411, 436, 464 and 524. 76  Bakhoum 1999, 54–55, citing Dattari 1151 (where the Italian collector correctly identifies two Nikes instead of a “barque”). We should retain only a little of what is in the superficial, irrelevant and confused comments of this richly illustrated work.

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Reginald Stuart Poole,77 in the volume devoted to the British Museum’s collection of Alexandrian coins, on the other hand, saw in this crew composed of Sarapis, Isis and Demeter a representation of the story of the arrival in Alexandria of Sarapis’s statue from Sinope, for which Tacitus and Plutarch provide versions, but for which contemporary accounts are lacking.78 To him, Sarapis enthroned with Cerberus at his feet corresponds to the statue created by Bryaxis for the Alexandrian Sarapieion. The presence of Demeter at his side may recall the role of Timotheos the Eumolpid, arrived from Eleusis, in the introduction of Sarapis’s cult to Alexandria. Moreover, the chthonic character of these two divinities may explain their cohabitation on the barque. Isis, placed on the craft’s bow, would then have played the role of guide. The significance of this iconographical composition is rather different, as we have seen. But it is today possible to write that the translatio of the statue of Sarapis is not unknown from the iconographic repertoire. Let us recall this episode before proceeding.79 In reaction to a dream, and following the advice of influential members of his retinue, among them Timotheos the Eumolpid and the Egyptian Manetho, a Ptolemy sends to Sinope, in Paphlagonia, a delegation seeking the statue of Zeus-Hades, the arrival of which would “be a happy matter for the kingdom” (laetum id regno … fore). While the people of Sinope balk at parting with their statue, after years of talks, this divine image on its own goes to the shore and places itself aboard one of the Ptolemaic embassy’s vessels.80 Tacitus even writes that: maior hinc fama tradidit deum ipsum adpulsas litori nauis sponte conscendisse: mirum inde dictu, tertio die tantum maris emensi Alexandriam adpelluntur From here the story is more impressive, since it substantiates the tradition according to which the god himself of his own will embarked upon the vessels lying ashore. Thus, another miracle! The third day came, and despite the enormity of the sea voyage the fleet had been brought back to Alexandria.

77   B MC Alexandria, xciv. 78   Tac. Hist. 4. 83–84; Plut. De Is. 28. See supra pp. 232–233. 79  Borgeaud & Volokhine 2000; Bricault 2013a, 34–41; Quack & Paarmann 2013, esp. 247–249 and 261–269; Renberg 2017, 92 n. 142 with previous literature. 80  Barat 2010, with previous literature; see also Burstein 2012; Bricault 2019 (forthcoming 1).

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And so it is that, after much time and multiple complications, a statue of chthonic Zeus was brought to Alexandria and installed in a temple at Rhacotis, an ancient village or port installation that may have preceded the city founded by Alexander.81 Plutarch adds that after having identified this effigy as Pluto, the king’s entourage had given it the name then in use for Pluto in Egypt: Sarapis. Clement of Alexandria, writing at least a half-century after Plutarch, briefly mentions this version, and also another according to which the statue was a gift of the people of Sinope demonstrating their gratitude to Ptolemy (II) Philadelphus for having sent Egyptian wheat when they were suffering a famine.82 The accounts of Tacitus and Plutarch represent neither a moment of fusion between two cults – an Egyptian and a Greek one – nor the historical foundation in a Greek context of a cult of Sarapis that was distinct from Egyptian religion. These accounts are based on the motif of revelation and represent a reworking of the Egyptian genre of the Königsnovelle, in which a king – here Ptolemy – is the main character. Written twenty years apart, the versions of Tacitus and Plutarch must stem from a common origin. One can consider, without great risk of being mistaken, that this source need not have dated much earlier than the end of the 1st cent. CE. The names of the two Alexandrian grammarians, Apion and Chaeremon, were both noted in such a way that it is not possible to privilege either one as the likely source. This account appears to be a text of the Königsnovelle genre, but written in a particular context – that of a certain Greco-Egyptian mode that was en vogue in Rome in the mid-1st cent, in the wake of Caligula’s and Nero’s Egyptophilia.83 It was reprised by Tacitus with a specific ideological goal: to anchor in history, by providing a prestigious precedent, his account of the visit made by Vespasian to the Alexandrian Sarapieion on the eve of his triumph, and in so doing to legitimize his taking power. Therefore, nothing in this passage can be considered reliable. But these texts are nonetheless richly informative, even if just for their very construction. Concluding his discussion of this episode, Tacitus emphasizes three major aspects of this divinity: his function (a healer, like Asclepius), his cultural origin 81  The very existence of Rhacotis before the establishment of Alexandria (of which it would become a quarter) is denied by Chauveau 1999, Chauveau 2001 and Depauw 2000, for whom the Greek toponym derives from the Egyptian r3-̔-qd(t), which signifies “building site”, which is to say that of Alexandria as it was under construction. For his part, Baines 2003 asks if the name of Rhacotis does not refer to an earlier reality, perhaps an ancient port installation. 82   C lem. Alex., Protr. 4. 48. 2–3. 83  van der Horst 1987; Borgeaud & Volokhine 2000, 42–46; Zimmermann 2003, 100–103; Manolaraki 2012, 40–42, 107–108.

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Figure 151 Sinope. Caracalla (212/13 CE)

(Egyptian, like Osiris), and his stature (at the top of the divine hierarchy, like Dis Pater). But let us now go back to Sinope, and address two issues evident there, known to me from two unedited specimens. The first is preserved in the Berlin Coin Cabinet,84 and belongs to the issue of Year 255 of the city’s local era (209/10 CE). The second example, dated to Year 258 (212/3 CE), was on public sale in London in 2013 and presented as a coin from Cyzicus (fig. 151).85 The iconographic type and legend on the reverse, however, necessitate the rejection of this identification and ensure its attribution to Sinope as well.86 On both of these bronze coins featuring the name and image of Caracalla, which belong to two different issues, the god, wearing the calathos and holding in his left hand a long scepter, is seated towards the left on a throne carried by a galley with six rowers that sails to the left, while Cerberus stands at his feet. Sinopean coinage, from the foundation of the colony to the disappearance of the civic mint under Gallienus, is paradigmatic of the question of the maintenance of Roman status by a colonial elite progressively being absorbed into the dominant Greek culture.87 If, just up to the end of Nero’s reign, imperial themes relaying the political ideology of central power seem to prevail, beginning with the Flavians and their successors’ civic themes revealing the identity and politico-cultural aspirations of the colony and its magistrates were taken up rather quickly.88 In certain cases, quite rare, it is to be seen in colonial coinage that imperial and local identifying elements could be combined, and this 84  Manisse 2015, 78 no. 362. I thank P.-D. Manisse for having brought this specimen to my attention. 85  London Ancient Coins, Auction 27 (25 juil. 2013), 176; same (wrong) attribution in the SNRIS Suppl. I, 262 (Cyzicus 3A) with pl. 16. 86  Bricault 2019 (forthcoming 1). 87  Casey 2000, 129–131. 88  Katsari & Mitchell 2008, 228.

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well before the 3rd century CE, when they were beginning to become more and more confused.89 It is in this framework that is to be posed the questions of the choice of Sarapis, of the context of his appearance, and of just what such a choice might have signified in the conception that the Sinopean elite had of their romanitas and of the manner in which they wanted to affirm its identity and maintain its reality. For the magistrates of Sinope, beginning in Flavian times, choosing Sarapis (and Isis) was to affirm their attachment to the person of the new princeps. Elected by Alexandria’s divine couple, Vespasian, followed by his younger son, added Isis and Sarapis to their familial pantheon, placing the new golden age promised to the Empire under their benevolent gaze.90 Sinope paid homage to them for special reasons. First, because in the widely disseminated story of Sarapis’s legitimation, Sinope played a role that was hardly negligible, and one that the city certainly had not sought. If one believes Tacitus and Plutarch, it was from Sinope that the protector god of the new Flavian dynasty had embarked for Alexandria a long time ago. And even if, before the arrival of Vespasian on the scene, there is little doubt that few Sinopeans had already ever heard about Sarapis, the opportunity was too good to include the distant Paphlagonian colony in the Great History of the Empire. The recurring presence of Isis and, especially, Sarapis in the civic coinage of Sinope beginning with the reign of Vespasian – with the two remaining prominent for two centuries on a scale that could only be found, probably, at Alexandria itself – and the creation of new iconographic types are the strong symbols of the adoption by the colony’s elite of this story of imperial legitimation. It does not matter if the history of the god’s origin was authentic or, much more likely, a skilfully created fable. Sinope appropriated it in order, at one and the same time, to convey the colony’s loyalty to Rome, but also to boast, in the face of the other cities of the region, of a singular identity drawing its roots from a prestigious past that linked it to the Vrbs itself. Sinope made this “invented tradition”91 its own, even going so far as to create, for coins in the image of Caracalla, the philosarapiac emperor,92 a new type of coin, found only in this city, that featuring the transport of the statue of the god from Sinope to Alexandria, his adopted city.

89  See, for example, the case of Alexandria Troas studied by Weiss 1996; to be compared with the situation in Pisidian Antioch analysed by Krzyżanowska 1968. 90  Bricault & Veymiers 2018c, with earlier bibliography. 91  On the concept of ‘invented tradition’: Hobsbawm 1983; Boschung et al. 2015. On certain (invented) traditions (re)appropriated in the Isiac sphere, Bricault & Versluys 2014, 26–34. 92  For the links between Caracalla and the Alexandrian god, e.g. Łukaszewicz 1998; Rowan 2012, 137–152; Bricault 2013a, 114–118; see also infra pp. 261–263.

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FIGURES 152–153 Medallions of Commodus (190 CE)

As we have seen before, two festivals with direct connections to Alexandria, were probably celebrated on the same day, April 25, if not at the very same time: the Sacrum Phariae and the Serapia,93 which associates Isis and Sarapis with the arrival of the annona at Ostia. I am tempted to link these ceremonies with an issue of orichalcum medallions dating to 190 CE (under Commodus), which offers several iconographical variants (figs. 152–153).94 On the reverse of the first variant, one sees Commodus offering a sacrifice (sacrum) before the foot of a four-story lighthouse, at the entrance of a port which must have been that of Ostia.95 Towards him are heading five ships, two 93  C IL I, 1 p. 358 = CIL VI 2305–2306 = CIL I2 p. 280–281 = RICIS 501/0219; see supra p. 229. 94  Gnecchi 1912, II, 71 no. 174 with pl. 89,6–8 (for the reverse); Küthmann & Overbeck 1973, no. 152; Szaivert 1986, nos. 1139–3/46; on the meaning to be attributed to these medallions, Alföldi 1937, 48–49; Alföldi 1965–1966, 54–57. 95  For several scholars, including Picard 1952, the lighthouse of the port of Ostia would have been modeled on that of Alexandria, as would be shown in a mosaic of the Palazzo dei Conservatori that was found on the Quirinal (88–89 with fig. 12), or in addition the

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galleys with sails fully spread and three smaller boats, with one of the three featuring four rowers and the other two a single rower, who must have served as their helmsman. Sarapis sits at the stern of the largest galley, recognizable by his calathos, while a vexillum stands at the bow. At the emperor’s feet can be seen a bull, which should be understood as a sacrificial victim, especially since a patera is represented before the animal.96 The second variant differs from the previous one by the presence, on the reverse, of a priest holding the acerra beside the emperor, who this time appears veiled (fig. 153). The legend on the obverse, which accompanies the portrait of Commodus, is also likewise different. As the legend on the reverse attests, this issue is to be placed in relation with the Vota felicia which Alföldi had first thought of identifying with the Vota publica of the New Year, or else with the Navigium Isidis of March 5, which is not acceptable.97 Jean Beaujeu considered that these Vota felicia were better understood in relation with the Felicitas of imperial propaganda, intimately linked to the annona. In effect, in 189 CE a devastating famine had shaken Rome, provoking riots during which Marcus Aurelius Cleander, the emperor’s favorite, had perished.98 The supply of wheat to Rome, which was so crucial, was thus officially placed under the protection of Sarapis and Isis at the beginning of 190 CE, in order to avoid such a great tragedy being repeated. One can thus consider the possibility this issue was made on the occasion of the festivals of the Sacrum Phariae and the Serapia of April 25. The fleet suggested by Torlonia relief originating at Ostia and showing Portus (88 with fig. 13). The port scene on the sarcophagus lid of Iulius Filocyrius (91–92 with fig. 14), dating to the second half of the 3rd cent. CE, found at Ostia, likewise evokes Alexandria by means of several details. One might add that the temple that can be distinguished at the far left of the scene may well have been the Iseum. J. Leclant, IBIS III (1985), no. 1087, in addition has noted that the deceased figure on a clipeus is wearing the Egyptian lock of childhood, which would distinguish the young boys consecrated to Isis – an interpretation which demands to be reconsidered. On this object, von Gonzenbach 1957, 147–148 no. K 16 with pl. 15; Musso 1989–1990 (AE 1991, 312); Merkelbach 1995, pl. 126; RICIS 503/1122. For the symbolism of Nilotic and port scenes in general, see the remarks of Leclant 1950. This Alexandrian influence on port landscapes was, it seems, already perceptible at Puteoli, which preceded Ostia as a destination for Alexandrian commerce in Italy; Picard 1959. 96  Gnecchi 1912, II, 71 no. 175 with pl. 89.7 (for the reverse); SNRIS Roma 19A. 97  Martin 1982, 361 adds that one can find here “simply one of the principal concerns of the time, the resupplying of Rome and Italy, with Serapis and Neptune being the divinities protecting the fleets during their voyages.” One should also note that in the present case the ships are entering the port, which would not make sense if the scene were of a ceremony associated with the opening of the seas to navigation. 98  Beaujeu 1955, 379–381. This scholar even thinks to identify (381 n. 4) these vows with the Vota decennalia which would have had to be celebrated in 190 CE.

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Figure 154 Sestertius. Commodus (192 CE)

the ships represented on these medallions could equally have been the classis Africana Commodiana Herculea created during the same period by this emperor, if one believes the Historia Augusta.99 Anyway, as protector of the annona fleet and savior of the people of Rome and thus of Commodus’s power, Sarapis was subsequently hailed by the title of conservator Augusti on coins struck by Commodus in 191 and 192 CE.100 During the final year of his reign (192 CE) there even appears a new type of reverse, with Commodus sacrificing before Isis and Sarapis (fig. 154). This issue may also have been connected to the same April 25 ceremony.101 To all these sources one can add a red jasper inserted into a ring, now at the Hermitage Museum (fig. 155), that dates to the 2nd–3rd cents. CE and which bears an image of Sarapis, wearing the calathos and enthroned to the left on a ship sailing left upon the waves while facing Isis, who stands to the right, wearing a basileion and brandishing the sistrum with her right hand and holding a lowered situla with her left, with Mercury-Hermes standing to the left behind the god, a short cape resting on his right arm, and holding a purse with his left

99  S HA Comm. 17. 7–8; Pavis d’Escurac 1974; Vera 2010, 214. 100  R IC III no. 601, with Serapidi Conserv(atori) Aug(ustus) Co(n)sul VI P(ater) P(atriae) S(enatus) C(onsultum) as the legend on the reverse, as well as nos. 605 and 607 for the year 191 CE. See likewise no. 261 (191–192 CE) with Serapidi Conserv(atori) Augustus as the legend on the reverse. 101  R IC III nos. 246, 614a–b, 621, 628 and 630 (192 CE); on the reverse Commodus stands to the left, crowned by Victory, his hands extended above the altar, facing Sarapis, who wears the calathos, and Isis, who stands to the right while holding the sistrum.

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FIGURES 155A–B Gem and its impression. St. Petersburg (2nd–3rd cents. CE)

hand and a caduceus with his right.102 The presence of Hermes, protector of travelers, is not surprising in a composition pointing to the maritime role of the Isiac pair. Several sources, as we have seen, more or less directly associate Sarapis with the successful conveyance of the annona to Rome.103 The god is sometimes associated in these with Demeter, and most often with Isis, with whom he forms a divine pair under whose protection would occur the supplying of Rome with food, by means of maritime convoys primarily from Egypt and Africa, upon waves calmed by the power of these gods. 6.2.3 Sarapis and Neptune The connection between Sarapis and Neptune/Poseidon could therefore appear to have been inevitable. Nevertheless, only three sources appear to attest to it directly, each in a particular context. A coin from Alexandria dating to Year 12 of Trajan (fig. 156) illustrates this identification of Sarapis with Neptune. On the reverse, one can recognize Sarapis wearing the calathos, facing forward, partly turned to the left, holding a long scepter in his left hand and raising his right in a gesture of greetings towards an object or a face impossible to identify, unfortunately. The god is standing in a biga drawn by two Tritons.104 However, 102  Neverov 1998, 468–469 with fig. 2. The use of fig. 2 on p. 468 is poorly considered, the figure on the obverse evidently not being Horos; the caption on p. 469 is correct. The ship in question, provided with a rudder but lacking oars or a sail, cannot be a “Nile barque,” as the scholar writes at p. 468. 103  The treatment of this question in Auffarth 2012 and 2014 is much too systematic and lacunose, and does not take sufficient account of the chronology. 104  R PC III 4322 (Year 12 = 108/9 CE). The calathos ensures the identification of the figure as Sarapis, contra Curtis 1956, 45 with pl. XXXIII, who wrote “Emperor in chariot drawn by two tritons, facing,” following Dattari’s description of his no. 731 as “Imperatore (?).”

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FIGURE 156 Alexandria. Trajan (108/9 CE)

I do not have an exact explanation to propose regarding the iconography on the reverse which, to my knowledge, was never reused in any of the coinage of antiquity. The other two sources are two inscriptions, one from Carthage and the other from the Danubian limes, which both clearly identify Sarapis as Neptune. The first is inscribed on the bow of a ship carved from marble that supports a raised right foot, the likely vestige of a large statue, posed in a manner directly associated with Neptune/Poseidon (fig. 157).105 Sarapidi / Neptuno / Aug(usto) sacr(um). / P. Aurelii // Pasinici / cum suis / s(ua) p(ecunia) f(ecerunt) d(ecreto) d(ecurionum). Consecrated to Sarapis Neptune Augustus. Publius Aurelius Pasinicus and Publius Aurelius Pasinicus with their households made this at their expense, according to a decree of the decurions. The dedication, datable to the 2nd cent. CE, was commissioned by two identically named individuals belonging to a family well known for its attachment to the Serapeum in Carthago, indicating that the god represented was (Sarapis-) Neptune.106 In Africa, Neptune is a great god of the sea and the patron of 105  C IL VIII 1002 = 12462 = ILS 4390 = SIRIS 770 = RICIS 703/0102; see Laporte & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming). 106  The foot resting on a bow, or sometimes a rock, is a pose well known in the iconography of Neptune. It is in this manner that he is represented on an engraved glass at the Cairo’s Egyptian Museum (see supra p. 99), on an intaglio of blue glass showing him beside the Pharos lighthouse and Isis-with-a-sail (see supra p. 98), or, moreover, on certain late coins celebrating the Vota publica (Alföldi 1937, 46 and nos. 1 [Diocletian], 4 [Constantius Chlorus] 5 [Galerius] and 14 [Constantine I], and SNRIS Roma). On these coins, Isis, who brandishes the sistrum, is shown beside a god holding a trident in one hand and a

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Figure 157 Dedication to Sarapis-Neptune. Carthage (2nd cent. CE)

several port cities, among them Hadrumetum.107 A marine divinity, he was equally a god of waters found on land, notably springs. As such, when a spring dolphin in the other, his left foot resting on the bow of a ship. This figure was identified by A. Alföldi as Sarapis-Neptune, which seems questionable given the absence of any attribute characteristic of Isis’s companion, not even the calathos, leaving an identification of Neptune as most likely. 107  See a Greek inscription from Thapsus (mod. Ras Dimas-Bekalta) in which is mentioned, among other gods, Poseidon Karpodotes (AE 1987, 1016). Beschaouch 1985 sees in this an identification with Frugifer and reports that Neptune was the genius of Hadrumetum. On Neptune as patron of Hadrumetum (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Frugifera Hadrumetina), Foucher 1964, 113–114.

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demonstrated therapeutic properties, he was able to be worshiped there as a healing god,108 which also linked him to Sarapis(-Asclepius). In the case of the Carthaginian dedication, one can reasonably suppose that the dedicants, probably of Alexandrian origin,109 were actively involved in maritime commerce, perhaps with Rome. The second inscription is engraved on an altar discovered at the site of modern Piliscsév, in Pannonia Inferior, along the banks of the Danube:110 Iovi optimo [max(imo)] / Neptuno Serap[idi] / pro salut[e et] victor[ia] / et perpetuitate // [I]mp(eratoris) Caesaris / [M. A]urel(ii) [[Antonini]] / [Pii] Felicis Aug(usti) / [L. Al]fenus Avitianus, / [leg(atus)] eius pr(o) pr(aetore) // prov(inciae) Pann(oniae) inf(erioris). To Jupiter Best and Greatest Neptune Serapis,111 for the well-being, victory and perpetuity of the emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius [[Antoninus]] Pius Felix Augustus, Lucius Alfenus Avitianus, his legatus pro praetore of the province of Pannonia Inferior. This inscription was given by the provincial legatus pro praetore Lucius Alfenus Avitianus, member of a Spanish family of senatorial rank, who was governor of the province of Arabia before joining the college of the Arval Brothers in 218 CE.112 This dedication must date to 214 CE, and would have coincided with the visit of Caracalla to this area, the headquarters of a Roman garrison. The invocation addressed to the divinity represents as much a call for the emperor’s safety amidst the perils of war, both on land and on sea, as for his protection from illness, and for his army’s land and river forces.

108  Ben Baaziz 1985. Note, for example, in the region of Thala, at the heart of a thermal baths complex that is still frequented, the discovery of an altar to Neptune on which the god is represented holding his traditional trident in one hand and in the other a staff enwrapped by a serpent, the standard attribute of Asclepius. For M. Le Glay (1992, 81), this reflects a “tendency in the Roman religion of North Africa to associate different divinities in order to form new ones: Saturn-Jupiter, Mercury-Silvanus, Neptune-Asclepius,” to which I would add Sarapis-Neptune. 109  Laporte & Bricault 2019 (forthcoming). 110  C IL III 3637 = Wessetzky 1961, 51–52 with pl. XV.19 = SIRIS 670 = RIU III (1981) no. 800 = RICIS 614/0201. 111  Contra Reddé 2014, 72 n. 26, who believes that one here is in the presence of three different divine beings. 112  Caballos Rufino 1990, 45–46 no. 9.

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6.2.4 Sarapis, the Emperor and the Roman Army Whether or not associated with Neptune, it is not rare to find Sarapis acting as protector of Caracalla and, by extension, the troops under him. Among the numerous Isiac iconographic types issued by the city of Serdica from 211 to 217 CE, the obverse of a coin bearing the emperor’s image, from a private collection, suffices as an example. Caracalla is represented as a bust, draped and cuirassed, holding a spear and a shield, with the latter having been decorated not with the traditional gorgoneion, but rather a bust of Sarapis. This iconography is unique, to my knowledge, but it perfectly conveys the very strong link uniting the emperor, his army, and this god (fig. 158).113 The protection accorded by Sarapis to the imperial army was in force on the land as on the sea, as is emphasized in several civic coin issues minted in the provinces during the 3rd cent. CE. On the reverse of a coin from Nicaea dating to the reign of Caracalla (fig. 159),114 one finds Sarapis on the bow of a galley, standing to the right, wearing the calathos, making a gesture of greeting with his raised right hand and holding his scepter in the left, while facing the seated emperor, who holds a scepter and patera. On the bow is represented the imperial eagle and, on the stern, a vexillum.115 This issue must be placed in relation with a military campaign conducted by Caracalla in the East. After having crossed the Danubian provinces and Thrace, Caracalla and his army embarked

Figure 158

Serdica. Caracalla (c. 214 CE)

113  S NRIS, Serdica 22. 114  Rec.Gén., 458 no. 469; SNRIS Nicaea 21. 115  This scene is to be connected to certain Roman coins, on which the ship alone is represented in order to evoke an imperial voyage. This is the case, for example, with issues of Hadrian (RIC II, 351 [134–138 CE]) or Lucius Verus (RIC III, 1325 [162/3 CE]).

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Figure 159 Nicaea. Caracalla (c. 214/5 CE)

Figure 160 Perinthus. Severus Alexander (c. 231 CE)

at Perinthus in order to reach Asia Minor, with the emperor escaping a shipwreck during one of his two crossings of the Hellespont, in 213 or 214. After the second one, he then spent the winter of 214/5 CE at Nicomedia, before leaving for Alexandria.116 A coin issue from Perinthus, in Thrace, which presents a more complex motif is similar in meaning and even clearer (fig. 160).117 On the deck of a galley sailing towards the left one finds Isis at the bow, standing to the left, her head facing, holding a sail in her two hands, in the direction that the ship is sailing. In the middle, Severus Alexander, dressed in a toga, stands frontal with his head turned to the left, making a gesture of greeting with his raised right hand while holding a scepter in his left. At the stern, Sarapis, standing frontal on the right, wearing a calathos atop his head and dressed in a long pallium, crowns the emperor with his right hand and with his left holds the boat’s rudder. This issue must date to 231 CE and commemorate Severus Alexander’s embarkation 116  Johnston 1983, 58 and 76; Halfmann 1986, 224; Christol 2012. 117  S NRIS Perinthus 14.

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from Perinthus for his campaign against the Sassanids. The expedition, beginning with the crossing of the Hellespont, was thus placed under the protection of Isis and Sarapis, guarantors of a victory that would not escape the Romans. The same link between Sarapis, the emperor and a fleet is to be found, in a very different context, on several coin issues from the Cologne mint for the Gallic emperor Postumus (aurei and antoniniani) that give honor to Hercules, but also Sarapis. The god is qualified as comes Augusti (“Companion of the Emperor”) on coins that are currently dated to 266–267 CE.118 Putting aside the variants in detail, one can distinguish two types: the first, which is traditional, shows Sarapis standing, his right hand raised and holding a scepter; the second, which is original, has a ship’s bow represented before Sarapis, who is always in the same pose (fig. 161). I would be tempted to associate this last image with the role of protector of commerce on the Rhine River which the god must have assumed at Cologne beginning in the 2nd cent. CE, as seems to be shown by a dedication inscribed I(ovi) o(ptimo) m(aximo) et Serapi et Genio loci given by a beneficiarius who was stationed in the city in 179 CE.119 The qualification of comes Augusti applied to Sarapis – as done inter alia for Hercules, Neptune, Mars and Sol120 – emphasized that the emperor directly interacted with the god,121 who is at the same time a companion and a conservator.122 When, during the final years of the first tetrarchy, the imperial authority decided to include some new iconographic types on the reverse of small coins issued for the purpose of distribution during the Vota publica on January 3rd, one of the first – if not the first – to be chosen (fig. 162) showed Isis standing to 118  Elmer 1941, 49 nos. 382 (without the bow), dated to 266 CE; 383 (with the bow), dated to 267 CE by Besly & Bland 1983, 56. 119  C IL XIII, 12052 = SIRIS 717 = Grimm 1969, 138–139.19 with pl. 31 = Galsterer 1975, no. 75 with pl. 16 = RICIS 610/0101: I(ovi) o(ptimo) m(aximo) et Serapi et Genio loci L. Caesius Florentinus b(ene)f(iciarius) co(n)s(ularis) pro se et suis v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito) imp(eratoribus) Comm(odo) II et V[er]o II co(n)s(ulibus) (“To Jupiter Best and Greatest, Sarapis and the Genius of the place, Lucius Caesius Florentinus, consular beneficiarius, for himself and his own, has fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly, the emperors Commodus and Verus being consuls for the second time”). 120  Turcan 1978, with all the numismatic references. 121  Turcan 1978, 1022, justifiably rejects the opinion of Nock 1947, who had wished to restrict the range of meanings of this term to “protector” and not “companion.” 122  The specimen published by Besly & Bland 1983, no. 2968 is an imitation of an antonianus of Victorinus, who took power soon after the murder of Postumus. The obverse copies an obverse type used by Victorinus, while the reverse uses one of Postumus. In fact, it does not appear that Victorinus ever struck coins featuring Sarapis, perhaps due to a lack of findings. But we know five specimens of an aureus of Victorinus (Calico 3849) which copy on the reverse the image of Isis lactans and the legend that appeared on denarii of Julia Domna (RIC IV,1, 170 no. 577; 178 no. 645).

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Figure 161 Cologne. Postumus (266/7 CE)

Figure 162 Rome. Maximian Hercules (c. 304/5 CE)

the right at the bow of a ship sailing to the right, looking behind while holding a sail, while Sarapis, wearing a calathos, is seated on the right, at the stern, holding the ropes of a second sail.123 This motif, which may have been inspired by the medallions of Commodus issued in 190 CE,124 is also found on engraved gems, with the same meaning. The well-established link to Egypt, based on the choice of images, is so strong that one can even see the appearance on imperial coinage of what would have seemed inconceivable some centuries earlier: dog-headed Anubis himself enthroned on the deck of a ship bringing the annona to Rome (fig. 163).125 In a similar manner, an intaglio of red jasper, 123  Alföldi 1937, 2 with pl. I.1 = SNRIS Roma V002 (Diocletianus) and Alföldi 1937, 3 with pl. I.2 = SNRIS Roma V003 (Maximianus Herculus). For the date, Bastien 1965, 98. It is likely that coins in the name of Galerius and Constantius Chlorus would have been struck with the same die. 124  See supra p. 255 figs. 152–153. 125  Alföldi 1937, 18 with pl. XIX.18; Ramskold 2016, 216 nos. 8–11 with pl. 1.

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Figure 163 Rome. Constantinus (314–315 CE)

Figure 164 Intaglio. Berlin (1st–3rd cents. CE)

formerly at Florence and now in Berlin (fig. 164),126 appears to feature a bust of Sarapis with calathos to the right, at the stern of a boat equipped with a sail and rows and sailing towards the right, while on the deck a figure (the pilot) stretches his right arm forwards, and a vexillum stands at the bow. If Harpocrates is absent from this monetary and sculptural iconography, the same is not true for the coroplastic, as we have already noted regarding a lamp from Aleria, on Corsica.127 From the ancient site of Vertillum, in Gaul,128 there 126  Berlin, Antikensammlung inv. no. FG 8618. Reinach 1895, 33 no. I-58–1 with pl. 29 (drawing); Veymiers 2009, 279 no. I.H 5 with pl. 32 (drawing); Veymiers 2014a, 210 no. I.H 5 with pl. 1 (ph.). 127  See supra pp. 142–143 fig. 103. 128  A vicus situated on a rocky spur dominating the valley of La Laigne, in Burgundy, active from the 1st to the 5th cent. CE.

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Figure 165 Mold from Vertault (impression)

comes a fragment of a terracotta mold featuring an original motif with the gens isiaca (fig. 165). One can recognize in a boat, from right to left, Sarapis seated on the left, wearing a calathos and holding a long scepter, with Harpocrates standing on the left while holding a cornucopia in his left hand and raising his right index finger to his mouth, and finally Isis on the right, undoubtedly standing.129 It is probable that we are dealing with a mold, perhaps local, that was inspired by those used, beginning in the 1st cent. CE, for the fabrication of numerous Rhodanian medallions with onlay that feature Isiac themes.130 The theme of the Isiac family in a ship could have known some amount of popularity in the Rhone valley, where riverine commerce was essential for so many. Without doubt, the presence – attested for Lyon – of Greek-speaking potters, glassmakers and bronzesmiths from the East helped to establish the popularity of the Isiac cults in this part of Gaul.131

129   Châtillon-sur-Seine, Musée du Pays Châtillonnais, with no inv. no., acquired in 1894. Alföldi 1965–1966, 71 no. 10 with pl. 15.2; Vertet 1969, 100; Tran tam Tinh 1990a, 773 no. 166; Arslan 1997, 556 no. VI.9; Podvin 2014a, 125 no. 31 with pl. 5.31. 130  Podvin 2014a. 131  See, while waiting for the long-term synthesis being prepared by G. Clerc and J. Leclant, the numerous scattered sources collected in Bricault 2001, 96–107; for a short synthesis, Bricault 2011.

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The assertion of the powers of Sarapis in the maritime sphere, his ability to protect ships and sailors, perhaps led some of them to join together in specific professional associations. It is this that we can assume regarding the epitaph of a nauklêros who died at Aternum, on the west coast of the Adriatic, at the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd cent. CE. This man was a member of a collegium in Salona, in Dalmatia, at least partly composed of sailors, brought together by their shared worship of Sarapis:132 L. Cassio Hermodoro nauclero, qui erat in colleg(io) Serapis Salon(itano). Per // freta, per maria tra/iectus saepe per und(as), / qui non debuerat / obitus remanere / in Atern(o). Set mecum // coniunx si vivere / nolueras, at Styga / perpetua vel rate / funerea utinam / tecu(m) comitata // fuissem. Ulpia Candi/da domu Salon(itana) con(iugi) b(ene) m(erenti) p(osuit). For Lucius Cassius Hermodorus, nauklêros, who had belonged to the Salonitan association of Serapis, one who had often crossed the waves, the seas, the waters, (and) who should not have died at Aterni and remained there. But since you had not wished to live with me as a spouse, would that I might accompany you to eternal Styx, even on a funerary boat. Ulpia Candida, domiciled at Salonae, erected (this) for her husband, who well deserved it. From this same Aternum, the port of Teate Marrucinorum, in Samnium, comes a fragmentary inscription placed above a representation of a ship (fig. 166). It probably concerns a nauklêros who was also a member of an Isiac association.133 A small lead tessera, to my knowledge unique, may have been connected to this type of association (fig. 167). The single decorated face shows Sarapis standing, holding a scepter in his left hand and raising his right hand – an attitude quite familiar beginning with the 1st cent. CE. The legend CTOΛOC (στόλος) (“fleet, maritime convoy”) that accompanies the image points to the marine functions of the god as protector of fleets, whatever they are. All these sources clearly indicate that, sometimes alone but usually associated or assimilated with other marine divinities (the Dioscuri, Neptune, Isis), Sarapis also became Pelagius, at least by the Imperial Period.134 132  C IL IX 3337 = SIRIS 677 = RICIS 615/0401; see Bugarski-Mesdjian 2004, 624 and 628. 133  C IL IX 3338 = RICIS 508/0501. 134  It might perhaps likewise be necessary to link to his maritime prerogatives the Roman dedication IG XIV 1030 = IGRR I 107 = SIRIS 406 = IGUR I 193 = RICIS 501/0145: Ἀγαθῇ Τύχῃ. / Διὶ Ἡλίῳ μεγάλῳ / Σαράπιδι καὶ τοῖς / συννάοις θεοῖς Στάτιος // Κοδρᾶτος ὁ κράτιστος, / νεωκόρος, ἐκ μεγάλων / κινδύνων πολλάκις / σωθεὶς εὐχαριστῶν / ἀνέθηκα (“For Good Fortune.

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Figures 166a–b Inscription from Aternum (1st–2nd cents. CE)

Figure 167 Tessera

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Isis and Sarapis, Figureheads and Names of Ships

It is most likely deservedly that the god appears as the figurehead135 of a ship on a fresco (fig. 168) today preserved at the Palazzo Grosso in Rome, and originating at a thermal bath complex at Pietra Papa, along the Tiber in immediate proximity to the river port of the Urbs.136 The baths are dated to the reign of Hadrian, according to the evidence of brick stamps. The fresco shows a marine scene in which there are six ships represented, named alpha, beta, etc. by Giulio Jacopi. The bow of ship alpha is decorated with a representation of Sarapis enthroned, facing frontal, wearing a calathos and leaning with his left hand on a scepter while extending his right hand above Cerberus, and flanked by Demeter on his left holding an unidentified object137 and Isis on his right brandishing the sistrum.138 As Jacopi rather justifiably wrote, “We should not marvel at the presence of these divinities on the bow of our small Roman ship during the second century, in a period during which this cult was greatly expanding and establishing itself, especially in the milieu of sailors, fishermen, associations of workers at ports and on rivers, which together form, so to speak, the setting in which our pictorial scene at Pietra Papa developed.”139 The same applies to Isis. In a similar manner, the eponymous ship in the story The Ship, or The Wishes by Lucian of Samosata bears on both sides of its bow a representation of the goddess Isis, who gives her name to the ship,140 as may well have been the case with the ship dedicated to Isis which was borrowed by the heroes of Petronius’s Satyricon.141 Isis’s name was applied to ships in the real world as well, as is to be seen in the case of the ship bearing Isis To Zeus Helios great Sarapis and the other gods sharing the same temple, I, the most excellent Statios Kodratos, neokoros, saved from great dangers repeatedly, consecrated (this column) to give thanks”). 135  On the παρασήμον/parasemum, Reddé 1986, 67–68. 136  Jacopi 1940; Jacopi 1943; Palmer 1981, 387; Rossetti & Tella 1991. 137  Jacopi 1943, col. 51, only discusses a “figure with a scepter, thyrsus or torch, dressed in a whitish chiton with a yellow chlamys,” but in col. 73 he justifiably identifies this divinity with Demeter. The presence of the latter in the company of the marine gods Isis and Sarapis is not surprising. See supra pp. 247–251. 138  Jacopi 1940, pl. I; H. Fuhrmann, AA (1940), 485–486, fig. 36; A. W. van Buren, AJA 44 (1940), 379, fig. 4; Jacopi 1943, cols. 50–51, fig. 52 with pl. III-IV; Bianchi Bandinelli 1970, fig. 285; Hornbostel 1973, 89 n. 5 with pl. XXIII.34. 139  Jacopi 1943, cols. 80–81. 140  On this text, Casson 1950, and for the figurehead Husson 1970, II, 15–16. 141  See supra pp. 128–129.

Sarapis and the Sea

Figure 168

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Fresco. Pietra Papa (Rome) (c. 117–138 CE)

Pharia as a device (parasemo Isopharia), which was commanded by Dionysius, son of Sostratus, of Alexandria, who made a dedication to Sarapis when the ship made a port call at Phoinix, on Crete.142 We also know of a certain number of ships bearing a name derived from that of Isis or, more rarely, Sarapis, beginning in the mid-3rd cent. BCE, if not earlier:143 a boat (κυβαία) used for transporting wheat from the Arsinoite Nome to Alexandria,144 another employed in the same manner but along an unknown route,145 a trireme from the fleet based at Misenum,146 a boat for grain shipments (caudicaria) painted on the

142  C IL III 3 = RICIS 203/0701; see supra p. 166. 143  For the origin of names being given to ships, Casson 1991², 348–360. A bibliography on the subject is provided by Vélissaropoulos 1980, 67–68. 144  P.Cair.Zenon III 59320,3 (c. 28 January 249 BCE). On the types of boats used for shipping on the Nile, Arnaud 2015a, esp. 111–112, and chiefly Arnaud 2015b. 145  P.Heid. VI 368,4 (29 April 212 BCE). 146  See the funerary inscriptions for sailors who had served aboard this ship: CIL VI 3123 = RICIS 501/0218; CIL X 3615 = RICIS 504/0501; CIL X 3618 = RICIS 504/0502 and CIL X 3640 = RICIS 504/0503. These texts must date to the end of the 1st cent. or the 2nd cent. CE. On the names of the ships in the classis Misensis and the classis Ravennas, Tomorad 2005, 59–60.

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Figure 169 Isis Geminiana. Ostia (end of the 2nd-beginning of the 3rd cent. CE)

walls of a tomb in Ostia’s Via Laurentina necropolis (fig. 169),147 or even a boat from the Nile (παράσημ(ον) Ἶσις) bearing the name or image of the goddess.148 Wishes expressed for the successful navigation of ships named Demeter and Serapis have come to us from the island of Imbros,149 and for a ship named Philoserapis from the island of Syros:150 Εὔ[πλοια τῇ Δή]/μητρι κ[αὶ τῷ] / Σεράπι κα[ὶ ---]. For the successful sailing of the Demeter and the Serapis, as well as [---]. Εὔπλοια / τῷ Φιλο/σέραπι / τῷ Ἷουλι//ανῷ / Ἇρτεμισίου / Μειλησίου. For the successful sailing of the Philoserapis (and) of Julianus, son of Artemisius, of Miletus. 147  C IL XIV 2028 = RICIS 503/1132. Before the bow, one can read the name of the boat, Isis Giminiana, while above it, behind the head of the steersman, Farnaces magister, and above the three men loading the grain, Arascantus. The painting is dated to the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd cent. CE. The inclusion of the epiclesis Geminiana (derived from the name Geminius) suggests that at that time one could not simply name a ship Isis at Ostia, due to the potential trouble in differentiating it from other boats bearing a name derived from that of the goddess. 148  P SI IX 1048,9 (Oxyrhynchus, 3rd cent. CE). 149   I G XII 8, 584 = RICIS 201/0201 (2nd–3rd cents. CE). It can be compared with the inscriptions IG XII, 8 581–583 and 585–586, which include the same type of vow for ships bearing the names of Herakles, Poseidon, Asklepios and Artemis. 150   I G XII 5, 712 no. 25A = RICIS 202/0703 (Imperial Period).

Sarapis and the Sea

Figure 170

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Dedication to Isis. Coptos (1st–3rd cent. CE)

At Coptos, there is a dedication dating to the Roman era that is addressed to Isis,151 the “greatest” goddess, seeking successful sailing for the ship Sarapis (fig. 170):152 θε[ᾷ μεγ]ίστη / Ἴσιδι ὑπὲρ / εὐπλοίας / πλοίου Σαρά//πιδος Ἐρμα/[ – ]. For Isis, greatest goddess, on behalf of the successful sailing of the ship Sarapis, Herma[ – ].

151  The goddess is, with Min, the titulary divinity of the city’s great temple. See the exhibition catalog, Coptos. L’Égypte antique aux portes du désert, Lyon 2000, 60–91. 152  UC London inv. no. 14764; I.Portes, no. 94. W. Dittenberger, OGIS II, 696, believed that the genitive Σαράπιδος depended on πλοίου, thus indicating that the ship was consecrated to the god, and saw in this dedication a parallel with a passage in the Decree of Canopus referring to the ritual procession of a sacred barque of Osiris (OGIS I, 56, l. 51). The context here is quite different, however, and Sarapis is without any doubt the name of the ship, as was rightly noted by Sandberg 1954, 33 and A. Bernand (I.Portes), 256. Compare the dedication I.Alex.Imp 83, for the successful sailing of the Nikastarte.

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A trireme from the Misenum fleet would have borne the double name153 Iove et Serapion.154 A papyrus fragment, datable to the 2nd cent. CE, preserving part of a registry of ships entering a port – unfortunately, one that is not identified155 – mentions two ships bearing double names, one of them featuring “Sarapis.”156 Finally, an akatos from Ascalon, mentioned in a papyrus from Theadelphia(?) in the Fayoum, bears the triple named Antinous Philosarapis Sôzôn.157 The deciphering of graffiti inscribed on the walls of the Grotta Regina, to the northwest of Palermo, has revealed, if the reading is correct, the name of Isis written in Neo-Punic.158 The text’s first editors connected this name’s presence here to the celebration of the Navigium Isidis. However, the representation of a Carthaginian warship in close proximity to the graffito instead permits us to see in the name Isis either that of a ship or of the goddess herself, invoked as mistress of the waves in a place that appears to have served as a cult site frequented by sailors beginning at least as far back as the 5th cent. BCE.159 In addition, we can eliminate from this list as a “ghost” the name of a ship drawn on the south wall of the Chapel of St. Vartan, in the Armenian part of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was erroneously read as Isis mirionimus by the original editors. The cleaning of the wall permitted the improved reading of Domine ivimus.160

153  This practice of double names, or even triple, is attested by papyri from the Roman era: see, for example, P.Oxy. XXIV, 2415,49 (3rd cent. CE) or SB XIV 11850,5 (149 CE); one finds these double names inscribed on anchor stocks (see infra p. 275). 154  C IL X, 3638, but it is possible that the inscription bearing this name is a fake. 155  It would have been either Pelusium or, more likely, Alexandria. 156  Heilporn 2000, ll. 5 and 19. It pertains to a boat (akatos) named Sarapis-(and)-Tyche, originated at Aigai, in Cilicia, and another called Asclepius-(and)-Sarapis, arriving from Gagai, in Lycia. 157   S B VI 9571 = XIV 11850,6 (13 February 149 CE). 158  Rocco 1969; RICIS 518/0101: 2nd–1st cents. BCE. 159  It is certainly the same for two Neo-Punic graffiti incised on the walls of the Grotta del Pozzo, on the island of Aethusa (Favignana), during the 1st cent. BCE or 1st cent. CE; Rocco 1972, 14–15 nos. 4–5 with fig. 8–9; RICIS 518/0201–0202. 160  Bennett & Humphreys 1974; Helms 1980, 105–120. The reading of DOMINE IVIMVS can be associated with Psalm 122, “In domum domini ibimus,” and even Gospel of John 6, 68, “Domine, ad quem ibimus?” It represents, in fact, the ex-voto of Christian pilgrims who had arrived healthy and safe in Jerusalem. The drawing and inscription that accompany it date to the years 326–335 CE, between the destruction of the temple of Venus and the completion of the basilica; Broshi & Barkay 1985, 125–128 with pl. 17 fig. C; Zawadzki 1995.

Sarapis and the Sea

Figure 171

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Anchor from Malta

We also know at least three lead anchors found in the sea bed of the western Mediterranean which bear the name of Isis. The first two were found off the southern coast of Sardinia, in the Sinus Caralitanus,161 the third off Maghtab, to the north of the island of Malta (fig. 171).162 Each anchor bears two divine names engraved on the lead stock, one to each side of the central cavity into which the wooden shank would fit, with one name being Isis’s and the other that of a second divinity, both in the nominative: Isis / Mercuri[us ?]; [I]s[i]s / Ceres; and, Isis / Sarapi[s]. The three divinities named along with Isis (Mercury, Ceres and Sarapis) are familiar to us, and point to the prerogatives analyzed above. The use of the nominative, in the present examples,163 suggests that we have here the name of each of the three ships, the Isis-(and)-Mercury, Isis-(and)-Ceres, and Isis(and)-Sarapis. It is, however, difficult to determine if the ships named by these anchors were equipped with them, or if the anchors were thrown into the sea before the launching of each ship, during a one-time propitiatory ceremony. The discovery spots of these three anchors do not help to resolve the matter. Other anchors, both with and without such engraving, have been found in the same waters, signifying that this area may well have been a dangerous site responsible for causing shipwrecks rather than a place for vows.164 161  Cagliari, Depositi della Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici per le province di Cagliari e Oristano, with no inv. no. Gianfrotta 1980, 109–110, fig. 20; Gianfrotta 1994, 603; Gavini 2014, 36, with the (meager) bibliography relative to these two Sardinian documents; RICIS Suppl. IV, 519/0102–0103. 162  Gatt 2009, 69 (ph.); RICIS Suppl. II, 517/0101. The width of the anchor’s stock is 2.30 m. I am unaware of the anchor’s present location. 163  The names of the divinities are sometimes written in the genitive (which would reveal them as divine owners of the ship) or dative (which would designate the gods to whom the ship had been dedicated); see also Fenet 2016, 302–323. 164  For other anchors bearing divine names, see e.g. Gianfrotta 1980, 110, n. 36 (Venus and Jupiter); Romero Recio 1999 (from Cap Palos; Zeus Kasios Sôzôn and Aphrodite Sôzousa); Tito 2012, 81–82 (Zeus Kasios and Aphrodite); Fenet 2016, 563–573, who presents a small

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If figureheads and the names borne by some ships generally would either evoke divinities who were expected to bring good auspices, provide aid, save and protect, or even evoke allegories that were equally propitious, the relatively frequent appearance of images of Isis or Sarapis in these context can give us a good idea of their popularity in this role during the Greco-Roman era.165 catalogue of 25 anchors (pp. 572–573 nos. I22–I23 for the two from Cagliari; the one from Maghtab is not catalogued). 165  A full list of known Roman navy ships’ names is found in Spaul 2007, 74–83. For McDonough 2003, 267, during the Battle of Actium Cleopatra’s flagship, the Antonias, “sported on its stern a depiction of Isis together with her iconic animal, the swallow,” a hypothesis that is ingenious, but overly bold.

CHAPTER 7

Disappearance and Renaissance of Marine Isis and Sarapis The period from roughly 250 to 400 CE has hardly provided any sources attesting to the continued domination of the Isiac couple overseas.1 This situation can be interpreted as the result of quite different factors.2 It is thus possible to consider that if the sources are rather scarce at this point it is simply because the Isiac cults themselves had lost the appeal they had had over several centuries. The evolutions of polytheisms, their changes, the tension between henotheistic trends and segmentation into multiple more or less philosophically inspired communities and sects, the increased competition between the various and sometimes new religious offerings – these necessarily had an impact on the cults of Isis and the divinities in her circle.3 Much more prosaically, the crisis throughout the Roman Empire of the 3rd cent., manifesting itself in the form of invasions, destruction, epidemics, usurpations and financial problems, affected even the nature of our sources. In contrast to the supremacy long granted to written sources, whether epigraphical, papyrological or literary, the randomness of archaeological discoveries offers for analysis sources that are uneven and quite frequently biased. The scarcity of the documentary sources themselves poses a methodological problem that is sometimes difficult to overcome. Thus, the steep rise in prices that the 3rd century saw caused the depreciation of silver imperial coinage, provoking the disappearance of bronze coinage, both imperial and provincial. In 298 CE, Diocletian’s suppression of the revolt led by Domitius Domitianus prompted the emperor to halt the striking of local coin issues at the Alexandrian mint, putting an end to the Romans’ last provincial coin issues, and at the same time causing the disappearance of a type of source that has proven especially rich for our area of investigation. At the same time, the 1  Certain identifications merit reconsideration. Thus, for example, one cannot follow Polzer 1986, 88–90 with fig. 2 in recognizing Isis on a frieze decorating a vase in the British Museum, as Jentel 1990 has quite convincingly shown: instead, it is more likely Euthenia. Nor can one follow Polzer regarding the possible representations of Isis(-Aphrodite) as a goddess of the seas on sarcophagi and mural paintings from the second half of the 3rd cent. and beginning of the 4th cent. CE, as his confusing argument is hardly convincing. 2  Bricault 2014b. 3  Chuvin 1990; on these changes, Bricault & Bonnet 2013.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_009

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decline in the number of inscriptions written on stone, combined with the difficulty of dating the majority of those from the 3rd or 4th cents. CE with confidence, has in turn reduced the amount of information that one might obtain from them.4 The same difficulty in dating lamps as well as carved and sculpted objects likewise seems to have deprived us of reliable sources. Also problematic is the ambiguity to be found in the archaeological sources indicating that some sanctuaries were still standing during the 4th cent. here and there, without revealing if they were still active or had fallen into disuse, due to lack of excavations or pertinent finds. Finally, the loss of whole areas of non-Christian literature from Late Antiquity has deprived us of much potential information. Even so, the work of collating the sources undertaken for almost half a century and which today continues on a large scale5 shows that the idea of a seeming disappearance of the Isiac cults beginning in the second half of the 3rd century is now no longer tenable. Even if the detailed study that will draw on the majority of the hundreds of scattered sources revealing the persistence of the Isiac cults in the 3rd cent. CE and even, in many places, through the middle of the 4th cent. remains to be written, let us observe in passing that: under Gallienus, no less than twenty-two cities in the East continued to represent Sarapis, and sometimes Isis, on coins issued in their name;6 that after 298 CE Sarapis still appears, a dozen years later, on the folles of Alexandria, Antioch, Nicomedia and even Heraclea Pontica struck in the name of Constantine, Galerius, Licinius and above all Maximinus Daza;7 that the image of the gods continued to be present on multiple objects produced in dozens of workshops in Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, and transported by those voyaging across the Empire and even beyond its boundaries; that the spring and autumn festivals were celebrated from one end of the Mediterranean to the other; that a number of sanctuaries, temples, and meeting locations of Isiac associations were continuously active in both East and West, notably at Alexandria and Rome; that the Christian polemics targeting Isis, Cybele and even Mithras would hardly have been considered worthwhile if the cults in question were nothing more than vague memories gathered on the dusty shelves of time and memory; and, finally, that at Rome, during most of the 4th cent. CE, the coins

4  MacMullen, 1982; Witschel 1999, 69–70, with earlier bibliography. 5  An assessment of the preceding fifteen years of research can be found in Bricault & Veymiers 2012. 6  S NRIS, 247–248. 7  van Heesch, 1975; van Heesch 1993; Ehling 2011.

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and tokens distributed during the public vows of January 3rd were all adorned with Isiac motifs.8 On these coins, featuring the bust of the emperor, which would have been appearing between the reigns of Diocletian and Gratian (305–379 CE precisely, according to Alföldi), the legend on the obverse identified the emperor. On the Vota publica coins lacking such a name that subsequently would appear for fifteen years, two legends can be found on the obverse: Deo Sarapidi if it pertained to Sarapis alone or to the couple Sarapis/Isis, and Isis Faria if it pertained to Isis alone. The multiple Isiac types decorating the reverses of these coins – whether Isis or Sarapis (or both) or even Anubis navigans,9 or Isis riding Sothis, Isis lactans, Harpocrates holding the cornucopia, Anubis holding the palm and caduceus – all connect to the themes of the New Year’s vows (health, peace, sustenance, prosperity, birth), placed under the auspices of the god Sarapis and Isis Pharia. It is also significant that the small coins struck at Rome did not disappear after 331 CE, when the decision was made to reserve Egyptian wheat for the needs of Constantinople.10 The patronage of Isis and Sarapis was still extended to all the ships and grain fleets, as we have seen, of which Africa’s became the most important to Rome. In this context, the decision made by Valens, Gratian and Valentinian II to give back to the goddess Isis (at Portus) her temple and portico is not surprising. It was the clarissimus vir Sempronius Faustus,11 prefect of the annona,12 operating under the orders of the city prefect (praefectus Urbi), at that time in charge of the opera publica at Ostia and Portus, who had ensured the building project’s proper execution.13 This restitution of her temple to the goddess could have been accompanied by a restoration if the temple had been abandoned for some amount of time. The involvement of these three emperors assigns the date to between 376 and 378 CE. Since another prefect of the annona is known for 377 CE, when the prefect of the city was a pagan,14 Tarracius Bassus,15 the date of the temple’s restoration would be the beginning of 376 or of 378 CE. It is thus tempting to link this to a proclamation of Gratian, issued on the 8  Alföldi 1937; Alföldi 1964; Alföldi 1965–1966; See now Bricault & Drost 2019 (forthcoming), featuring a new annotated catalog of this invaluable source. 9  See supra p. 66 fig. 18, 71–73 figs. 28–31, and 265 fig. 162. 10  Piganiol 1947, 48–51. 11  P LRE p. 329 (Sempronius Faustus 9). 12  On this function, Pavis d’Escurac 1976, a study that stops at the beginning of the 4th cent. CE. 13  S IRIS 562 = RICIS 503/1223. See also Chastagnol 1969; Vidman 1970, 161–162; Vidman 1971. He was not the only one working on this matter at the time: Kahlos 1995. 14  Chastagnol 1960, 50–53. 15   A mm. 28. 1. 27. PLRE p. 158 (Tarracius Bassus 21).

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kalends of January 376,16 which insistently calls for the magistrates in charge to keep the ancient buildings in good condition through proper maintenance so that they would not need to be rebuilt from the ground up.17 Since the time of the edict of 364 CE,18 the senators and urban prefect seem to have had carte blanche for undertaking restorations on their own initiative, the construction of new buildings being the emperor’s prerogative.19 The temple of Isis at Portus must have belonged to this program. It is probable that by this date the emperor was no longer the true sponsor of these coin issues for the New Year. Instead, the senatorial aristocracy of Rome must have taken over the striking of coinage featuring Isiac types, as was undoubtedly the case with the contorniates,20 some of which feature types related to marine Isis.21 Under Gratian, most likely in 379 CE,22 the association of the emperor’s portrait with an Isiac type on the Vota publica issues finally came to an end. The successive edicts of Theodosius in 391 and 39223 probably do not mark the end of this sort of coinage, which can be assumed to have continued at least into the reign of Eugenius. His defeat at the Battle of the River Frigidus on 5 September 39424 brought to an end the long Isiac presence on Roman imperial coinage and, more generally, the coinage of antiquity, though perhaps not the celebration of the Navigium Isidis. In effect, if one believes Vegetius25 and

16   C. Th. 15. 1. 19. 17  Lizzi 2001, 697–701; Kalas 2010. 18   C. Th. 15. 1. 11. 19  Niquet 2011, 143–144. 20  Bollard 2006. The metallurgical analysis undertaken on the contorniates of the Cabinet des médailles de Paris reveals that the contorniates were an official release, organized and assigned to the workshops that would produce coins, primarily those at Rome. However, it also reveals that the contorniates’ function differed from that of the medallions issued under imperial authority, which belonged to the Roman monetary program, since they were clearly issued under the authority of the Senate in order to be distributed on the occasion of certain festivals that have yet to be identified with confidence: vows for the New Year, games, etc. 21  Alföldi 1976. The production of these medallions most likely occurred between the years 358–364 and 472 CE. 22  A complete die study of these coins may bring answers to these chronological questions; Bricault & Drost 2019 (forthcoming). 23   C. Th. 16. 10. 10 (24 Feb. 391); 16. 10. 12 (8 Nov. 392). 24  Wytzes 1977; Chuvin 1990, 74–76. 25  Epitoma rei militaris 4. 39 (c. 400 CE).

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John Lydus, this festival, always under the patronage of Isis, was still celebrated at the turn of the 5th cent. CE, or even during the first half of the 6th cent. CE.26 This patronage of Isis over the sea in later times was not made to come to an abrupt halt, but instead continued in one form or another, under the protection of Isis or another. So it is that there has been a wish to find in the Sicilian festival of St. Agatha at Catania, which each year attract thousands of people at the beginning of February, a survival from the festival of the Navigium Isidis.27 The city’s patron saint, often represented as the successor to the goddess Isis, is honored there for four days, during which religious offices and processions succeed each other. The latter witness the cart conveying the effigy of St. Agatha, drawn by the faithful, who wear white tunics that are not without some similarity to those worn by the Isiac worshipers, just as the name of the saint is reminiscent of one of the epicleses of Isis.28 But certain communal traits do not prove a legacy, and it seems quite difficult to detect some sort of perennial survival of Isiac elements in these ceremonies – which do not have anything to do with the opening of the sailing season – as is true of the other communal Christian religious festivals after the suppression of polytheism. At most, one can consider the possibility that at Catania, as elsewhere, the polytheistic communities of the Empire subtly adapted their ancient festivals to the dominant religion while, at the same time, the ecclesiastical authorities integrated into the votive festivals of the new religion the dates, places, objects and actions from the ancient cults. These cross-influences and fluid interactions appear to be attested by an Alexandrian-Coptic Ivory plaque on which one can see the goddess Isis standing at the center of a complex scene, but clearly holding in her left hand a cornucopia which is surmounted by an image of Harpocrates seated inside a tetratstyle temple, and in her right hand raising a boat that has three men aboard (fig. 172).29 Brought to Europe, it was integrated into the decoration of the pulpit of the cathedral of Aachen, and is now to be found displayed as 26  Mens. 4. 45 (middle of the 6th cent. CE): τῇ πρὸ τριῶν νωνιῶν Μαρτίων ὁ πλοῦς τῆς Ἴσιδος ἐπετελεῖτο, ὃ ἔτι καὶ νῦν τελοῦντες καλοῦσι πλοιφέσια (“On the 3rd day before the Nones of March, the ‘sailing of Isis’ was celebrated, which is performed even to this day, and called the Ploiaphesia”). 27  Chuvin 1990, 194–195, 270–272. 28  I am grateful to L. Beaurin, who recently attended these festivals as part of her postdoctoral research, for the precious and precise information that she shared with me. 29  Volbach 1976, 59 no. 72 with pl. 41; Baltrušaitis 1968, 124–125, fig. 85; Merkelbach 1995, 580–581, fig. 102; Lepie & Münchow 2006, 45; Amoroso 2019 (forthcoming), for a very detailed analysis of this object and its reuse in Medieval times.

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Figure 172 Ivory plaque. Aachen (6th–8th cents. CE)

prominently as another plaque featuring an image of Jesus surrounded by the apostles. The ensemble bears an inscription dating to the reign of Henry II (1002–1014) and was restored during the 12th cent.30 In his study of this Ivory plaque,31 Laurenz Lersch developed a strong connection between that restoration and the great procession of 1132, during which a large boat on wheels was drawn through the streets of Aachen. As described by Rudolf, the abbot of Saint-Trond, in his Chroniques:32

30  Lersch 1846. 31  Ibid., 115. 32  Chroniques de l’abbaye de Saint-Trond (ed. C. de Borman), Liège 1877, I, 222–223.

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The weavers of linen and wool at Linden [in Saxony] would go, with the magistrates’ permission, into the neighboring forest. There they would cut the wood for the construction of a vessel that they would place on wheels and drag from city to city, from Linden to Aix-la-Chapelle, from Aix-la-Chapelle to Utrecht, from Utrech to Tongres. The boat was provided with sails and flags. The ceremony would be conducted with pomp. An enormous crowd of both sexes would follow this procession while singing. Some women would dance half-naked. The plaque, this text, and some other sources as well have led a number of scholars to establish more or less plausible connections between the Medieval carnivals and the Navigium Isidis, to which they blithely invite comparison with Apuleius’s well-known description of the procession at Cenchreai and the reference to the famous liburna of the Suebi in Tacitus.33 Even if a direct link between the two seems difficult to accept, one cannot help but recognize a general influence, though not an exclusive one, for which the intermediaries remain undetected.34 During the Renaissance, antiquarians and scholiasts, mostly German, increased in number through the 15th, 16th and 17th cents., the etymologies of toponyms referring to the name of the goddess. There then were drawn up lists of cities and rivers which would derive their name from that of Isis, from Asia Minor to Europe, and even Africa.35 From among all of these learned but nevertheless fantastical etymologies, one of the most curious is perhaps the one associating Isis with ice (Eis). It is found in a work on Atlantis by the Swedish engineer and mythographer Olof Rudbeck,36 who made Scandinavia the cradle of Isis (Lapponica). Drawing from the last edition to date (1670 in Amsterdam) of the work of Lorenzo Pignoria on the Mensa Isiaca, an elaborate table of bronze with enamel and silver inlay acquired in Rome in 1527 by Cardinal Bembo that is of Roman origin but imitates Egyptian style,37 Rudbeck creates a rather surprising image. Isis can be seen in this drawing standing, holding a sistrum in her right hand and sailing on a piece of ice equipped with

33   Tac., Germ. 9. 1; Baltrušaitis 1968, 109, with the earlier bibliography at n. 10. See supra pp. 211–213. 34  Genaille 1978; Moog 2009; see supra pp. 211–212. 35  Baltrušaitis 1968, 112–115. 36  Rudbeck 1689. 37  Pignoria 1670; Leospo 1978; Sternberg-El Hotabi 1994; Budischovsky 2018. The Mensa Isiaca was discovered c. 1525.

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Isis on the ice. Drawing (17th cent.)

a sail (fig. 173),38 in imitation of the Alexandrian coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type, an example of which Pignoria reproduced.39 This iconography probably originated in the image of Fortune sailing on a shell, which spread beginning in the 16th century in allegorical imagery.40 This same Pignoria was also the editor of a work that knew great success in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Imagini delli Dei degli antichi of Vincenzo Cartari (c. 1531–c. 1571), the first edition of which dates to 1556.41 In this work that has been reedited and augmented multiple times there are shown two images of Isis directly inspired by Ovid and Apuleius (figs. 174–175).42 Whatever the engravings published in the course of the editions,43 the goddess always holds a boat in her right hand, while the legend identifies her as Iside dea Egittia, la dea de Naviganti. One finds, in the edition of 1626 prepared by Pignoria, a label inscribed according to the traditional image on coinage of Isis-with-a-sail, 38  Rudbeck 1689, 275 fig. 56; reproduced by Baltrušaitis 1968, 117 fig. 76. 39  Pignoria 1670, 9. 40  Bérard 1981, 52–53. 41  On Cartari, see the website of the Università di Bergamo, http://dinamico2.unibg.it/cartari/edizioni.html. 42  On the engravings inserted into the various editions, Volpi 1992. 43  Compare Castelli in Arslan 1997, 606, and 614 no. A15.

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FIGURES 174–175 Cartari, Imagini degli Dei (edns. 1608 & 1626)

which seems in this case to have been inspired by a coin from the Roman Vota publica rather than an Alexandrian coin, contrary to the engraving retained in his study of the Mensa isiaca. The considerable success of the work anchors in the mind this image of the goddess, from which Athanasius Kircher received inspiration for his Oedipus Aegyptiacus some decades later. In 18th-century France, around the same time that John Paul Jones captured the Serapis,44 Antoine Court de Gébelin attributed to contemporary tastes the claimed Isiac origins of Paris, when he wrote: In this [Île de la Cité] was the Temple of Isis on the ruins of which the Church of Notre-Dame was erected. […] Since it [Paris] was on a river and devoted to sailing, it took for a symbol a Vessel and for Tutelary Goddess Isis, Goddess of sailing: and this Vessel was the same Vessel as Isis’s, symbol of that goddess (…); the name of this vessel also became the

44  See supra p. 5.

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name of the City: it was called Baris and, in the strong pronunciation of the northern Gauls, Paris.45 The connection is ancient,46 but the campaigns of Napoleon made it one of contemporary interest. In 1810–11, a commission, placed under the direction of Louis Petit-Radel, inspired by Court de Gébelin’s text, officially “demonstrated” the Isiac origin of Paris. Isis was then chosen to be represented on the city’s new coat of arms (fig. 176), as described by letters of patent dated 29 January 1811: “of gules on an ancient vessel, the bow surmounted with a figure of Isis, seated, fashioned

Figure 176

Paris’s coat of arms (1811)

45  Court de Gébelin 1773, I, 165; see also Leclant 1969, 82. 46  Baltrušaitis 1968, 62–64.

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from silver, supported by a sea of the same and accompanied by a silver star, the upper part sewn with the foremost cities of the Empire.”47 The coat of arms was retained until Louis XVIII, by means of his ordinance of 26 September 1814, decided to return to one in use before 1789.48 But Isis, goddess of the seas, was not forgotten, as many examples show. Among these is a medallion struck in order to reward the eight feminine winners of the Ladies’ Challenge Plate during the Henley Regatta, which on the obverse features side by side the busts of a female figure with long hair and of a bearded and hairy male figure, identified by the legend as ISIS ET TAMESIS (fig. 177).49 Here Isis, rather than simply being the goddess, is the alternate name of the part of the Thames River above its confluence with the Thame

Figure 177 Medallion. Henley-on-Thames (1924)

47  Tisserand 1874–1875, I, 34–38, 149–152 and Appendix XLVIII. The selected drawing is visibly inspired by the Mensa Isiaca brought to light in Rome in 1525 and frequently reproduced since then; see the exhibition catalog Egyptomania, Paris-Ottawa-Vienna 1994–95, 64–66 no. 13. 48  Humbert 2001, 164. On Isis and Paris, Malaise 2003b, 198 and 223. 49  The medallion, of silver, measures 43 mm. in diameter and weighs 48.5 grams. The example illustrated here (fig. 177) was struck in 1924 (private collection).

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River. For Gwyn Griffiths, this name derived from the two final syllables of the Latin name Tamesis.50 Perhaps. But England during the 18th century was not unaware of the marine prerogatives of Isis, as evidenced by the ship christened in her name. Thus, the name given to this part of the river is probably to be connected to the role of protectress of sailing that was allotted to this goddess, whose face was then sculpted, probably in 1786, on the side of the Henley Bridge facing towards Oxford.51 The Henley Regatta, a rowing competition annually conducted on the Thames since 1839,52 was opened to women in 1845 and took the name “Ladies’ Challenge” some years later. The advent of women in this athletic competition, which is more nautical, evidently could only be accomplished under the auspices of Isis.

50  Gwyn Griffiths 1964. 51  Humbert 2000, 164, n. 5. 52  Specifically, at Henley-on-Thames (Oxfordshire). Established in 1839 by the mayor and population of Henley as an additional attraction during a communal festival, the regatta soon was a success. Contested each year around the end of June and beginning of July, except during the two world wars, the event was expanded to two days beginning in 1840, then three in 1886, four in 1906, and finally five in 1986. Since 1851, the date of the visit of Prince Albert, this competition has received royal patronage. On this history, one can consulted the website of the Henley Royal Regatta: http://www.hrr.co.uk.

Conclusion In this volume I have attempted to understand better how and why Isis and then Sarapis were treated as marine divinities during Antiquity, and, where, when and by whom this sphere of activity became not only one of theirs, but also among the most important. Several points have emerged from this investigation. In Pharaonic Egypt, the connections associating Isis with the aquatic element, whether riverine or maritime, or both, were tenuous. If one is to seek for their deeper roots, it is undoubtedly better to look to Phoenicia and Byblos, and even Naucratis. However, it was only at the beginning of the 3rd cent. BCE that Isis truly gained her maritime, if not marine, prerogatives. She probably owed these to the personality of Arsinoe II and her admiral, Callicrates of Samos. It was from a queen, a divinized one to be sure, that the goddess would have received a function leading her to a great future: from Arsinoe-Aphrodite Euploia was born Isis Euploia, after a transfer of competence that was especially innovative. This new function was picked up on, theorized and canonized by the authors of the famous Aretalogy of Isis, making it one of the most original elements disseminated by this hybrid text, skillfully developed and with a formidable efficiency. The invention of her maritime activities, which one finds in several parts of the aretalogical narrative, might have been related to the Gebalite episode of Isis’s quest and its insertion into the Osirian myth, which was undoubtedly contemporaneous with the redaction of the Aretalogy, and have played a role in the expansion of the goddess’s marine-oriented nature. A specific trait characterizes, undoubtedly a posteriori, this aretê of Isis: the invention of the sail, which permitted difficult crossings to be made. The account of this invention was soon embellished by emphasizing a brilliant innovation said to have been made by the goddesss: the conversion of her mantle into the first sail. The iconographic translation of this remarkable theological evolution is to be seen from the beginning of the 2nd cent. BCE, with the advent of the Isis-with-a-sail type, which may have started in Byblos rather than Alexandria, before spreading throughout the Mediterranean world. But this type of representation was not the only one used to show Isis as the goddess of the seas: to Isis-with-a-sail was added Isis-with-a-rudder, an image which conveys the appropriation of this divine puissance by individuals. This duality of forms is found in coins and jewelry, as well as sculpted objects and other statuary. A statue discovered at Messene and numismatic sources from Corinth appear

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413900_010

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to support the existence of statuary representations of Isis-with-a-sail, which had been strongly put into doubt forty years ago by Philippe Bruneau. Alexandrian coinage and several gems convey this double iconography and clearly establish a link between Isis and the Alexandrian grain fleet, which was placed under the triple protection of Demeter, the goddess of crops, Sarapis, a god of vegetation and protector of sailors, and finaly Isis, at the same time a dispenser of wealth (she holds the cornucopia), guarantor of the successful transport of the cargo (she holds the sail or rudder, or both), and good fortune (she is, in fact, assimilated with Tyche). Just as there are multiple images determining this, there are also different names that are attributed to Isis for manifesting the diverse facets of this aspect. But these names cannot be used as synonyms. It is undoubtedly necessary to reserve Pharia for Isis of Alexandria, iconographically most often accompanied by the lighthouse, who was the protectress of the grain fleet transporting wheat from Egypt to Italy. Euploia, employed especially during the Hellenistic Period, and Pelagia, which was mainly used during the Imperial Period, both generally refer to Isis as discoverer of sailing and protectress of sailors. The polysemic “Sôteira,” notably in the Aegean Sea, would certainly apply on occasion to the same function of savior, and would be used when addressing her after a successful crossing. The other qualificatives studied above appear as poetic and literary creations. Isis Pelagia was able, as at Corinth, to be the titulary divinity in a sacred space that was her own but also, undoubtedly most often, to be venerated in a shrine integrated into a more important Isiac sanctuary. Contrary to euploia or sôteira, Pelagia served as a cultic name of the goddess, venerated at various sites around the Mediterranean. The existence of places devoted to her cult could, a priori, have been considered solely for port sites. The sources from Corinth and Messene, from Benevento and Rome, show that this was not the case. As a marine goddess, Isis would receive distinctive types of offerings. Before departing on a voyage, some would give her small votive reliefs of the sort that would have been formed from the matrix found in the Athenian Agora that features the image of Isis-with-a-sail. There were other objects as well: small anchors, representations of marine animals, perhaps lamps. Following a successful crossing, individuals would visit cult sites and dedicate objects as exvotos, notably paintings, which sometimes would signal the fulfillment of a vow after it had been heard and heeded by the goddess, as is to be seen in the epithet epêkoos that was often used for marine Isis. Gems, intaglios or even coins of the Isis-with-a-sail type that had a hole permitting them to be worn like an amulet on a chain could all have played the same role.

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The case of boat-shaped lamps, on the other hand, poses a problem. Even if nothing permits us to confirm that these played a specific role in the cult of Isis, notably during processions, it is quite difficult to believe that their owners or whoever else placed them in temples or tombs had no connection to the maritime world, as is indicated by the provenances of the examples brought to light (Ostia, Puteoli, Carthage, Gigthis, etc.). Two festivals are to be linked to the goddess’s marine nature: the Navigium Isidis and the Sacrum Phariae. The first, celebrated beginning in the 1st cent. BCE in the eastern Mediterranean, and perhaps even before that, in the following century was integrated into the Roman Empire’s official calendar, falling on March 5. This soon became a significant public festival, organized by the servants of a cult that from that time was fully Roman. During the course of this celebration there would be involvement on the part of the navarchs, who were none other than worshipers who formed the crew of the ship put to sea during the ceremony, and were probably placed under the command of a higher authority – perhaps the helmsman, an important figure who was charged with giving order to the trierarch. The second of these festivals, the Sacrum Phariae of April 25, must certainly be viewed in relation with the arrival at Ostia of the grain fleet that was officially placed under the protection of Isis and Sarapis. Deprived of a direct connection with the maritime world, Sarapis – sometimes alone, more frequently associated or assimilated with other marine divinities such as the Dioscuri, Neptune and Isis – himself also became a Pelagius during the Imperial Period, if not before, with prerogatives that seem to have concerned the successful conduct of commercial and military affairs. From the end of the Hellenistic Period, the popularity of Isis and Sarapis as divinities propitious to the maritime world could be read in the small but significant number of ships bearing some form of one of their names, thus adding them to the small group of protector divinities of the polytheistic world. Their popularity in this context would continue to be reflected up to the present day, if one considers the British Royal Navy and the rowing competitions of Oxford.

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Index of Ancient Sources 1. Inscriptions RICIS 101/0101 40n183 101/0204 38n178 101/0213 55n6 101/0216 147n3 101/0402 39n179 101/0502 235n23 102/0101 172n14 102/0102 173n16 *102/0201 179n55 102/0405 42n196 104/0109 207n180, 216n220, 218n232, 219n242, 219n245 104/0110 207n180, 216n220, 219n242 104/0111 208n182, 216n220, 219n243 104/0204 217n221, 219n242, 220n246 109/0101 181n70 112/0703 220n249 113/0506 208–209 113/0545 43n2 113/0552 179n56 113/0556 129n202 113/0908 210n198, 220n251 114/0202 44n3 114/0601 40n186 114/0703 203n153, 205n171, 206, 216n219 115/0302 24n105 115/0401 23n96 201/0201 272n149 202/0101 45n10 202/0118 240n43 202/0125 240n43 202/0170 158n48 202/0182 240n43 202/0186 38n178 202/0230 185n93, 239n38 202/0242 21n84 202/0273 27n111, 240n42

202/0295 239n39, 239n40 202/0324 239n39, 239n41 202/0329 150 202/0330 239n39 202/0365 21n84, 40n185, 150n16, 159n49 202/0423 185n95 202/0424 185n95, 186n102 202/0428 186n102 202/0433 185n95 *202/0604 217n223 202/0703 272 202/1101 43n2 202/1201 31n142 202/1801 44n3, 48n25 203/0701 166, 244n56, 271n142 204/0108 159n51 204/0218 239n37 204/1004 159n52 205/0302 152 301/1202 129n202, 223n264 *302/0101 221n252 302/0204 18n62, 35n163, 43n1 303/0301–0302 221n253 304/0606 220n249 304/0609 210n197, 222n257 305/0503 242n48 305/1402 153 305/1403 154n35, 186n100 305/1702 39n180 306/0201 43n2 308/0301 210n199, 220n247, 221n253 308/0601 217n222 *309/0101 217n225 401/0501 194n121 *402/0201 210n195, 217n227 402/0501 133n214 402/0601 158n48 501/0111 127n196 501/0131 180n63 501/0132 155–156, 171n4 501/0137 157–158 501/0145 268n134 *501/0175 218n229

362 501/0177 162n70 501/0218 271n146 501/0219 229n293, 255n93 501/0221 229n294 503/0301 129n200 503/1122 256n95 503/1129 246n65 503/1132 271n147 503/1204 164 503/1212 165n79 503/1223 279n13 504/0218 185n91 504/0401 235n22 504/0403 191n112 504/0501 271n146 504/0502 271n146 504/0503 271n146 508/0501 268n133 508/0801 169n110 510/0101 186n102 511/0701 129n200 518/0101 228n285, 274n158 518/0201–0202 274n159 519/0301 145n243 602/0201 129n202 603/0101 129n202 603/0401 156 610/0101 264n119 614/0201 261 *614/0301–0302 94n63 615/0401 268 618/1007 210n196, 223n260 701/0103 44n3 703/0102 259 Suppl. I 104/0114 216n220 Suppl. I 111/0301–0302 27n111 Suppl. I 113/1201 43n2 Suppl. I 504/0407 125n190 Suppl. II 517/0101 275n162 Suppl. III 501/0111 127n196 Suppl. IV 519/0102–0103 275n161 AE 1987, 1016 260n107 Breccia Iscrizioni 103 163–164 Breccia Iscrizioni 109 and 121 239n37

Index of Ancient Sources CIG III 5119 163n72 CIL I2 p. 338 203n158 CIL X 3350 218n230 CIL X 3638 274n154 I.Akôris 3 and 12 13n18 I.Akôris 13 14n19 I.Akôris 16, 18 and 19 13n16 I.Akôris 19 14 I.Alex.Imp 83 149n15, 273n152 I.Alex.Ptol 13 37n173 I.Alex.Ptol 18 38 I.Alex.Ptol 21 37n175 ID 1754 239n39 ID 2305 160n54, 239n39 ID 2401 160n54 ID 2415–2416 239n39 ID 2433 160n54 I.Delta I 232 no. 2 35 I.Delta I 236 no. 7 38 I.Delta I 296–299 164 I.Delta II 744–45 no. 5 22n91 IG V 1 1551 151n21 IG XI 4 1303 31n140 IG XII 2 513 31n140 IG XII 3 462 and 1386 31n140 IG XII 5 16 and 264–266 31n140 IG XII 4, 1, 290 31n142 IG XII 7 99 and 263–264 31n140 IG XII 9 254 216n220 IG XII Suppl. 156 31n140 IG XIV 926 and 1043 151n23 I.métriques 643 no. 175 3n11, 18n56, 21n84, 48n26 I.Milet I, 7 no. 288–289 31n140 I.Pan du désert 48 109n120 I.Philae II 168 162 I.Portes 48 185n94 I.Portes 94 273 OGIS I 56 273n52 OGIS I 60 38 OGIS I 69 185n94 OGIS II 696 273n152 OGIS II 706 164 SB I 429 35 SB I 977 149n15 SB I 2136 38 SB I 2250 23n92

363

Index of Ancient Sources SB III 7173 49n28 SB V 7785 30n133 SB V 8282 164 SB V 8296 38 SB V 8542 163 SB VI 9299 and 9301 37n173 SB VI 9300 37n175 SB VI 9571 274n157 SB XIV 11850 274n157 SEG XL (1990), 783 31n140 SEG LIV (2004), 1723 36n171, 37 SIRIS 500 218n230 2. Ancient authors and works Aesch. Suppl. 594 239n39 Amm. Marc. 19. 10. 4 246n61 Amm. Marc. 28. 1. 27 279n15 Apul. Met. 1. 1. 3 174n30 Apul. Met. 2. 12 174n30 Apul. Met. 11. 3 129n200 Apul. Met. 11. 4 183n80, 200n141 Apul. Met. 11. 5 204n164, 228 Apul. Met. 11. 8–17 9n45, 211–212 Apul. Met. 11. 9 204n164, 212 Apul. Met. 11. 10 183n80, 212 Apul. Met. 11. 15 141n232 Apul. Met. 11. 16 175, 204n164, 212n211, 213n212, 222n254–255 Apul. Met. 11. 17 203n154, 212n211, 228 Apul. Met. 11. 18 and 20 175n33 Apul. Met. 11. 25 51n34 and n37 Apul. Met. 11. 27 174n33 Aristid. Or. 45. 23 241 Aristid. Or. 45. 28 240n44 Aristid. Or. 45. 29 241–242 Aristipp. Arkadika 1 ap. Clem. Al. Strom. 1. 21. 106 233n12 Artem. 2. 37 152n25 Ath. 7. 318b–c 29n130 Ath. 11. 497d 30n131 Aus. De feriis romanis 24 204n162

Avien. Phaenom. Arat. 282 168n99 Callim. Aetia IV Fr. 110 29n124 Callim. Epig. 5 184n86 Callim. Epig. 6 35n164 Callim. Epig. 14 29n130, 30n132 Callim. Epig. 55 (= AP 6. 148) 200–201 Callim. Epig. 57 (= AP 6. 150) 148n7 Carmen in paganos IV 99 161n69 Cassiod. Var. 5. 17 52–53, 88n42 Catul. 66. 54–58 29n124 Claud. De Isidis navigio 204n159 Clem. Al. Strom. 1. 21. 106 233n12 Clem. Al. Protr. 4. 48. 2–3 252n82 C.Th. 13. 9. 3. 3 205n168 C.Th. 15. 1. 11 280n18 C.Th. 15. 1. 19 280n16 C.Th. 16. 10. 10 280n23 C.Th. 16. 10. 12 280n23 D.C. 51. 8 182n73 D.S. 1. 25. 2 169n110 D.S. 1. 27. 3–4 43n2 D.S. 1. 87. 2 130n205 Epiph. De fid. 12. 1–4 165n79 Ethicus xxiv 246n61 Euseb. Chronica apud Sync. 237. 6–9 (Schoene) 160n61 Euseb. Mart. 11. 30 204n165 Euseb. Praep. evang. 2. 1. 30 169n110 Euseb. Praep. evang. 5. 7. 5 161n66 Euseb. Praep. evang. 10. 12. 24 233n12 Fest. s.v. Robigalia 230n301 Fulg. Myth. 1. 20 204n160 Geogr. Rav. 3. 2 168n93 Hdt. 2. 41 21n80, 41n192 Hdt. 2. 42 1n4

364 Hdt. 2. 43 12n5 Hdt. 2. 50 12n5 Hedyl. 4 30n131 Hom. Il. 5. 330 30n132 Hp. Prog. 20 169n107 Hyg. Fab. 277 52, 88n42 Jos. BJ 2. 386 231n304 Juv. 6. 92–94 169n110 Juv. 6. 540–541 184n88 Juv. 12. 26–28 184n90, 185 Juv. 12. 81 186n96 Lact. Div. inst. 1. 11. 21 203n157 Lact. Div. inst. 1. 17. 6 52n41 Lact. Div. inst. 1. 21. 24 52n41 Luc. DDeor 3 35n162 Luc. Nav. 14 201n148, 270 Lyd. Mens. 4. 45 12n5, 203n155, 281n26 Macr. Sat. 1. 20 16–17 36n168 Mart. 10. 48 160n59 Minuc. 21. 1 161n67 Minuc. 22. 1 52n41, 229n290 Moschus Europa 129–130 88 Ov. Am. 2. 13. 9 161n64 Ov. Ars am. 3. 635 160n58 Ov. Fast. 4. 905–942 230n301 Ov. Fast. 5. 619 160n58 Ov. Met. 2. 28 161n65 Ov. Met. 9. 773–774 161n64 Ov. Pont. 1. 1. 38 160n58 Paus. 2. 2. 3 171n3, 175–178 Paus. 2. 4. 6 154, 171n3, 172 Paus. 2. 32. 6 40n189 Paus. 4. 32. 6 125 Paus. 10. 32. 13–18 205n170, 213–215 Petr. 12–14, 105, 114, and 117 128–129 Philip of Thessalonica (= AP 6. 231) 40n185, 184 Plin. Nat. 2. 47. 122 204n166, 205 Plin. Nat. 5. 64 41n192 Plin. Nat. 7. 56 209n192 Plin. Nat. 8. 184 130n205 Plin. Nat. 9. 25 184n86 Plin. Nat. 18. 285 230n301 Plin. Nat. 32. 1 184n86 Plin. Nat. 36. 29 54n2

Index of Ancient Sources Plut. Ant. 74 182n73 Plut. De Is. 13 20n78, 209n190 Plut. De Is. 14 130n205 Plut. De Is. 16 19n70, 20n72, 51n38 Plut. De Is. 18 209n187 Plut. De Is. 27 36n168 Plut. De Is. 28 251n78 Plut. De Is. 32 12n5 Plut. Quaest. conv. 8. 2 12n5 Poll. 1. 86 40n182 Posidipp. 12 29n123, n126, and n130 Posidipp. 13 29n123, 30n132 Posidipp. 36–37 29n123, 30n130 Posidipp. 39 29n123 and n129, 33n153 Posidipp. 119 32n152 Schol. Apoll. Arg. 1. 1089a 40n182 Sen. Ep. 77. 1 166n83 SHA Comm. 17. 7–8 257n99 Stat. Silv. 3. 2. 101–122 129n205 Stat. Silv. 3. 2. 102 160n62 Stat. Silv. 3. 2. 112 161n63 Stat. Silv. 5. 3. 244 161n63 Stat. Theb. 1. 254 160n60 Stat. Theb. 7. 244 129n200 Steph. Byz. s.v. Zεφύριον 29n124 Str. 17. 1. 16 29n124 and n127 Str. 17. 1. 20 41n192 Suet. Nero 20. 2 204n164 Sync. 237. 6–9 (Schoene) 160n61 Tac. Germ. 9. 1 182, 283n33 Tac. Hist. 4. 83–84 251n78 Tert. Apol. 16 160n56, 161n68 Third Vatican Mythographer Script. rerum mythicarum 3. 5 204n161 Tib. 1. 3. 27–28 185n91 Tib. 1. 3. 32 160n57 Var. L. 6. 16 230n301 Var. R. 1. 1–2 230n301 Veg. mil. 4. 32 205n167 Veg. mil. 4. 39 204n163, 213, 280n25

Index of Ancient Sources Verg. Aen. 5. 366 Verg. Aen. 9. 627

184n89 184n89

3. Papyri BGU II 423 241n45 BGU VI 1216 41n194 P.Cair.Zenon 383 50n32 P.Cair.Zenon III 59320 271n144 pCarlsberg 585 35n161 P.Enteux 26 30n134 P.Giess. I 1 168n95 PGM IV 2892 50n33 PGM XII 234 50n33 P.Heid. VI 368 271n145 P.Hibeh I 39 168n95 P.Hibeh II 199 28n120 P.Lit.Goodspeed 2 30n135 P.Lond VII 1973 24n97 P.Lond.Lit 239 50n32 P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 29n123

365 P.Oxy. XI 1380 14n20, 18n56, 27n111, 41n191, 48n23, 49n30, 50n32, 149, 151n20, 158n48, 159n50, 168n94, n97 and n101, 170n112, 209n188 P.Oxy. XV 1796 50n33 P.Oxy. XXIV 2415 274n153 P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2863 166n85 P.Oxy. XLII 3051 166n86 PSI IX 1048 272n148 P.Sorb. inv. 2440 28n119 P.Tebt. I 61 50n32 P.Tebt. III 768 50n32 P.Tebt. III 826 50n32 P.Tebt. III 867 168n93 P.Tebt.Tait 14 51n39 P.Yale I 46 32n152 SB III 7173 49n28 SB VI 9571 274n157 SB XIV 11850 274n153 and n157

General Index Aachen Isis holding a boat and Harpocrates on an Ivory plaque found in 281–283 (fig. 172) Ab Isem Pelagiam Aedituus – on a funerary inscription from Rome  155–156 (fig. 106), 179–180 Acrocorinth Sacred precincts of Isis Aigyptia, Isis Pelagia and Sarapis of Canopus on the road in 154, 171–173 Adonai The inscription – on a carnelian from Aquileia 249 (fig. 149) Adonis Association between the myth of – and that of Osiris 20n75 Agatha Festival of St. – in Catania 281 Agathodaimon Sarapis- – on the engraved glass preserved in Cairo 99–100 (figs. 72–73) Relief with Sarapis- –, Isis-Thermouthis and a dedication to Isis epekoos Pharia 163–164 – (?) emerging from a cista mystica 145n242 Lamp with an 197–198 (fig. 129), 202n150 Akôris Dedications to Amon in 13–14 Aleria Lamp with Isis-with-a-sail and Harpocrates in 142–144 (fig. 103), 266 Alexander the Great –, Isis, Annona et alii on a painting at the “Sacellum of Silvanus” in Ostia 229–230 The Ptolemaic dynasty and 233 Alexandria The fleet of 13, 14, 30 Foundation plaques from 38 – Pharos see Pharos The Pharos designates – 161 Sarapis, tutelary god of 234, 244–245 (figs. 140–141)

Coins from – with – Isis-with-a-sail 9–10, 57, 59–66 (figs. 6–7, 10), 70–71 (figs. 25–26), 82–87 (figs. 50–53, 55–56, 58–59), 89, 96–98 (figs. 67–69), 123, 207, 210, 247, 284 – Isis-with-a-sail, pierced with two holes 189–190 (fig. 119) – Isis, Sarapis and Demeter 104–106 (figs. 82–83), 247–248 (fig. 146), 251, 290 – Isis, Sarapis, Demeter and Euthenia  107–109 (fig. 85) – Sarapis and the Dioscuri 246–247 (figs. 144–145) – Sarapis, Demeter and Tyche  249–250 (fig. 150) – Sarapis as Neptune 258–259 (fig. 156) Sarapis on the folles of – after 298 CE  278 Lamp with Isis-with-a-sail from 76–77 (figs. 37, 40) Boat-shaped lamp from 197 (128–129), 244 Bronze statuette from – showing a female divinity standing on a barque  100–101 (fig. 74) Statue of Isis-with-a-rudder from  137–139 (fig. 99) Intaglio from – with an anchor and Sarapis’ name 242–243 (fig. 139) Gem from – with Isis-with-a-rudder, Sarapis and Demeter 247–248 (fig. 147) Altar Isis-with-a-sail on an – from Pylaia 69 (fig. 22) – dedicated to – Isis, decorated with Isis-Thermouthis et alii from Turris Libisonis  145n243 – Anubis, Isis Pelagia and Isis Bubastis from Iasos 153, 181

General Index – Isis Pelagia from Saguntum 156 (fig. 107) – Jupiter Best and Greatest Neptune Serapis from Piliscév 261 – for the domestic cult of Arsinoe Philadelphia 31n141–142 – for the temple of Aphrodite in Naucratis  23n92 Harpocrates standing near an – on a boat-shaped lamp preserved in Berlin 195 (fig. 125) Coin with Sarapis and Commodus near an – 257n101 A cult minister holds a small – in Apuleius’ procession 212 Amasis – and the Greeks in Memphis 233 Amastris Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail 75, 87, 210 Amon – Master of the Waves 13–14, 51 – Master of the winds 13 Hymn to – in the mammisis of Edfou and Dendera 13n12 Dedications to – from navarchs and trierarchs in Akôris to 13–14 Cult of – -grb in Heracleion 14n20, 32–33n152, 209 The Memphite priests succeeded from the Theban priests of 44 – associated with – the Dioscuri 14 – Arsinoe II 32–33n152 – Ptolemy III 37n173 Amorgos Dedications to Arsinoe II on the island of 30–31 Lamp with the bust of Isis found in  196 (fig. 127) Amphipolis Festival for the opening of sailing in  210 A trierarch on an honorific inscription from 220–221 (fig. 132) Amrit Isis in Phoenician onomastics in  19n68

367 Anchialos Coins from – with – Isis-with-a-sail 75–76 (fig. 35), 210 – Isis or Tyche on a bow 142 (fig. 102) Anchor Votive 186–187 (fig. 115), 290 – on – a rock crystal preserved in the British Museum 159 (figs. 109 A–B) – a black jasper intaglio from Alexandria 242–243 (fig. 139) Stone – from Makrakomi 181 – with the name of Isis from Malta 275 (fig. 171) Andros Aretalogy of Isis found on the island of 43, 47–48 Annona Alexandrian coins and the 108–109 Isis protectress of the 108–109, 128, 131, 141, 160n56, 229–231, 279 Sarapis, protector of the 243–258 Anubis on a ship bringing the – to Rome 265–266 (fig. 163) Faustina II and the 124 The Sacrum Phariae and the 229–231 Annona Isis, Fortuna, – et alii on a painting in Ostia 229–230 Antioch Isis-with-a-rudder on an amethyst from 188 (figs. 117 A–B) Mosaic discovered in – with Demeter  223–224 Coins from – with Sarapis 278 Antiochus IV Advent of the “Isis-with-a-sail” type during the reign of 21, 206 Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 79–80 (fig. 44), 87–88 Antiochus VI Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 79–80 (fig. 45), 87 Antiochus VII or VIII Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 79–80 (fig. 46), 87

368 Antoninus Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 59–66 (figs. 7, 11, 14), 70–71 (figs. 25–26), 74–75 (fig. 33), 82–83 (fig. 51), 87, 96–98 (fig. 69), 177–179 (fig. 113), 207 – Isis, Demeter and Sarapis 104–106 (fig. 83), 247–248 (fig. 146) – Isis, Demeter, Sarapis and Euthenia  107–109 (fig. 85) – Poseidon or Isis at the port of Kenchreai 6n22, 175–179 (figs. 112–113) – Sarapis 246–247 (fig. 144) Dedication to Isis Pharia for the health of an emperor named 164 Anubis – associated with – Isis et alii 13n12, 27n111, 35–39, 52n41, 137n223, 144–145, 153, 181, 185–186, 212, 239–240 – Sarapis et alii 27n111, 185–186, 238–240 – the Annona 265–266 (fig. 163) Temple of – and Isis in Canopus 35–36 Dedication from – Delos to Sarapis, Isis, – et alii 27n111 – Iasos to –, Isis Pelagia, Isis Boubastis 13n12, 153 – on a local coin from Perinthus 40 – on the Vota Publica 279 Mask of 216 Aphrodite – Euploia 30–34, 39, 89, 149n13, 152n25, 169, 178, 184, 289 – Genitrix 139 – Pelagia 152n25 – Zephyritis 28n121 –, protectress of navigation and sailors 6, 22–42, 91, 149n13, 289 – identified with – Arsinoe II 23–42, 169, 184n86, 289 – Hathor 23, 41 – Isis 2, 23–42, 169, 277, 289 – Isis and Astarte 21n84, 150 Shrine of – in – Naucratis 22–23 – Nymphaion 23–27 (fig. 2) – Paphos 22, 31

General Index Statue of – in Kenchreai 175 – (?) on a lamp 196n126 – velificans 54n2 Apis – associated with Isis 2, 34n160, 130n205 Osiris- – or Osorapis 37n173–175, 233–234 – cult in Memphis 45 – necropolis in Saqqâra 232 – on coins from Perinthus 40 – bull on a dish 226–227 (fig. 134) – King of Argos 233 Aquileia Carnelian with Sarapis from 103 (fig. 77), 249 (fig. 149) Aquincum Candelabrum from 92–94 (figs. 64 A–B) Aretalogy Isis, mistress of the winds and the sea in the 18, 35, 41–53, 150–151, 203, 206, 209, 231, 289 Isis’ multiple powers in the 46, 169 – texts from – Andros 43, 47–48 – Cyme 43, 90 – Maroneia 43, 47n22 Argos Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail 63–66 The Ptolemaic dynasty and the royal house of 233 Arsinoe II – queen and patroness of the royal fleet 27–31 – identified with – Aphrodite 28–33, 35, 39, 184n86 – Isis-(Hathor) 27n111, 34–42, 289 – associated with Amon 32–33 – ’s epithets 29–30 Sanctuary of – Cypris on the Cape Zephyrion 29 Foundation of cities bearing –’s name  30–31 Portrait of – (?) with naval attributes from Thmouis 32–33 (fig. 3) Artemis – and Isis on seals from Delos 100 – Ephesia and Sarapis 244–245 (figs. 140–141)

General Index – Sôteira 158n48 Ship bearing the name of 272n149 Ascalon Boat-shaped lamp from 196 (figs. 126–127) 202 Asherah –, consort of El, associated with Hathor 19 – associated with Astarte, Hathor and Isis 21 Ashmolean Museum Intaglio from the 181 (fig. 114), 243 (fig. 139) Aspendos Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail  70–71 (fig. 27), 87, 182, 210 Astarte – associated with – Asherah, Hathor and Isis 21 – Aphrodite and Isis in a dedication from Delos 150 – assimilated with Isis 21n84 Ship Nikastarte 273n152 Aswan Isis, the one “who holds the rudder” in 16 Isis in the hymns of the temple of 45 Atef Sarapis wearing the 236, 243–244 Aternum Inscription from – for a nauklêros 268 (figs. 166 A–B) Athena Helmeted bust of –, Isis-with-a-sail, Isis gubernatrix and Sarapis on a carnelian 102–105 (fig. 81) – Sôteira 158n48 Athens Dedication from – to Isis and Anubis alone 38n178 Matrix with Isis-with-a-sail found in 55–57 (fig. 4), 89, 290 Isis and Sarapis on a carnelian preserved in 101 Lamp with Isis and Sarapis found in the Kerameikos in 198–199 (fig. 130), 202 A priest of Isis Taposiris in 147

369 Athribis Plaques dedicated to Arsinoe II found in 32n146 Alexandrian lamp found in 76–77 (fig. 39) Augustus No coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 60 Aurelian Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 59–61, 87 Avaris –, port for Mediterranean commerce  12n7 Balanea Bronze statuette of Isis Pharia from  133–136 (figs. 96 A–C) Barque Isis pilot of the solar 15–16 Isis pilot of the – of Osiris 48n23, 95, 168 Hathor’s – at the procession of Sokar 14 Sarapis pilot of the solar 235–238 Basileion Definition of the 2 Coins, gems or intaglios with – Isis-with-a-sail wearing a 57–67, 70–78, 80–89, 96–99 – Isis-with-a-rudder wearing a  187–188 Other representations of Isis wearing a  101, 106–109, 127, 131–137, 139, 191–192, 226–227, 237, 257 Isis Isermouthis wearing a 99–100 A – on a rock crystal 159 (figs. 109 A–B) A – on an intaglio 181 (fig. 114) A bearded serpent wearing a 186–187 (fig. 115) Thermouthis wearing a 198 Behbeit-el-Hagar Isis, divine mistress from 1, 148 Benevento Statue of Isis in 8, 110, 114–116 (figs. 88 A–C), 122–125, 129, 182, 290 Iseum of 123 Berenice II – and Ptolemy III responsible for the Osireion’s temenos in Canopus 38

370 Berlin Boat-shaped lamp preserved in 195 (fig. 125), 201 Bis Navarcus The title of – in Misene 218–220 British Museum Rock crystal preserved in the 159 (figs. 109 A–B) Bronze – statuette representing – a female divinity wearing a calathos 100–101 (fig. 74), 133–135 (figs. 96 A–C) – Isis-with-a-rudder 138–141 (figs. 100–101), 146, 187 – Harpocrates 187 – representing Sarapis in Ostia 230 – statue of Poseidon 175–176 Bubastis –, port for Mediterranean commerce  12n7 Festival of sailing in 18 Bubastis (Bastet) Dedication from Iasos to Anubis, Isis Pelagia, Isis 13n12, 153, 181 Dedication from Alexandria to – and Harmachis 239n37 Budapest Statue of Isis preserved in 8, 110, 113–114 (figs. 87 A-C), 121–122 Byblos Appearance of the “Isis-with-a-sail” type in 21, 206, 289 Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail 9–10, 63–67 (figs. 15, 17), 70 (figs. 23–24), 78–80 (figs. 43–46), 87–88, 206, 210 Hathor, lady of 11, 14–15, 207 The Gebalite episode of Isis’ quest  19–21, 52, 207, 289 An Egyptian commercial trading post established in 19 Byzantium Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail 75, 87, 210 The Πλοιαφέσια on an inscription from 203–206 (fig. 131), 216 Festival for the opening of sailing in  210

General Index Caduceus A winged – and a basileion on a rock crystal 159 (figs. 109 A–B) A pillar surmounted by a – on a lamp preserved in Berlin 195–196 (fig. 125) A cult minister carrying a – in Apuleius procession 212 Jasper with Sarapis et alii, Hermes holding a 128, 257–258 (figs. 155 A–B) Caesar No coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail  59–61, 82–83 Calathos Coins with Isis-with-a-sail wearing a 57, 58n19, 68 (fig. 21), 142 Other representations of Isis wearing a 101, 133–137 (figs. 96 A–C), 198 Sarapis wearing a 101, 104, 107–108, 191–192, 236–238, 243–244, 246n.62, 249–250, 253, 256–259, 262–263, 265–267, 270 Euthenia wearing a 108 (fig. 85) Demeter wearing a 98–99 (figs. 72–73), 244, 249–250 Female divinity wearing a 100 (fig. 74) Callatis Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail  63–66, 68 (fig. 21), 72–74 (fig. 32), 87, 89, 142, 210 Sail of Isis is fringed on a coin from 89 Callicrates of Samos – and the thalassocratic politics of the Ptolemies 30–31 On the order of – – a sanctuary of Arsinoe Aphrodite was constructed on the Cape Zephyrion 29 – a temple of Isis and Anubis was constructed in Canopus 35 A base of a statue of – recovered in Palaipaphos 31 – and Cyprus 31–32 Camiros Thank-offering found in – for Hekate and Sarapis 239 Canopus Sanctuary of Arsinoe Aphrodite on the Cape Zephyrion near 29

General Index Temple of Isis and Anubis in 35–36 Sarapeion and Osireion in 36–38, 209 Sarapis of 98–99, 154, 165n80, 172, 201 Isis and the Kikellia festival in the Decree of 208 Caracalla Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 74–75, 87 – Sarapis 253–254 (fig. 151), 262–263 (figs. 158–159) Ostia paintings made under 229–231 Dedication to Jupiter Best and Greatest Neptune Sarapis in Pilicsév for the visit of 261 Sarapis protector of 262–263 Carthage Intaglio with Isis-with-sail from 81 (fig. 48), 88n40 Boat-shaped lamp from 192–193 (fig. 122), 202, 291 Dedication to Sarapis Neptune from  259–260 (fig. 157) Catania Festival of St. Agatha in 281 Cerberus Sarapis and 99 (figs. 72–73), 106n110, 173, 194, 197–198, 236–238, 248, 251, 253, 270 Ceres – Pharia 161n68, 231 Anchor with the name of 275 Chaeroneia Sanctuary of Sarapis in 235 Chariklês – navarch of the Alexandrian imperial fleet 14 Charmosyna – in Cios 220 Cios Trierarch in 220–221 Claudius Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 66–68 (fig. 17), 78, 87 Cleonae Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail 87, 210 Cnidus Isis and Aphrodite Euploia in 169

371 Murex shells consecrated to Aphrodite in 184n86 Coins – of the Isis-with-a-sail type (corpus) 58–87, see Sail – of the Isis-with-a-sail type, pierced with two holes 189–190 (fig. 119) First – of the Isis-with-a-sail type  206 Few – of the Isis-with-a-rudder type  187–188 Alexandrian – with the divine crew  104–109 Roman – with Isis faria 167 See also Vota publica – celebrating the homonoia between Ephesus and Alexandria 244 – with Sarapis see Sarapis – from Corinth with the statue of Poseidon located at the port of Kenchreai 6n22 Cologne Coin from the mint of – with Postumus, Sarapis and Hercules 264–265 (fig. 161) Commodus Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 60, 63–66 (fig. 15), 74–75 (fig. 34), 87 – Isis and Sarapis connected to the Sacrum Phariae 257 (fig. 154) Medallion of – made for the Sacrum Phariae 255–256 (figs. 152–153), 264 Constans Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 73–74, 87 Constantine Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 66–68 (fig. 18), 71–74 (fig. 31), 87 – Anubis 265–266 (fig. 163) – Sarapis 278 Constantine II Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 73–74, 87 Constantinople Sardonyx from 94–95 (fig. 65)

372 Constantius Gallus Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 71–72, 87 Constantius II Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 71–73 (fig. 28), 87 Coptos Dedication from – to Isis for the ship Sarapis 273 (fig. 170) Corinth Coins from – with – the statue of Poseidon located at the port of Kenchreai 6n22, 176–177 – the statue of Isis located at the port of Kenchreai 6n22 – the Isis-with-a-sail type 56, 59–66 (fig. 14), 87, 90–91 (fig. 61), 126, 177–178 (figs. 112–113), 179, 210, 289 Lamps from 173–174, 198 Temple of Isis Pelagia in 90, 181, 290 Isis in 171–182, 290 Cornucopia Demeter holding a 79 Fortuna holding a 230 Harpocrates holding a 78n32, 144, 192, 230, 236–237, 267, 279 Isis holding a 98–99, 101, 108, 133–136, 129, 136–137, 139, 141–142, 185n91, 188, 191–192, 202, 247, 281, 290 A female divinity holding a 100–101, 133 Cos Dedication from – to “Isis who saves” 159 Isiac trierarch from 220 Court de Gébelin, Antoine Isis and 285 Cretula Isis-with-a-sail on a 77–78 (fig. 42) Crimea Isiac cults in 24–27 Crispus Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 73–74, 87 Curls Libyan – as Isis attribute 2, 120 Cyme Aretalogy of Isis found in 43, 90 Coins from – with Isis-with-a-sail 63–66 (figs. 11–13), 87, 89–90, 210

General Index Cyprus Isis associated with the Dioscuri in 27n111 Isis, Aphrodite and Arsinoe II in 31–32 Dedications to Arsinoe II in 31 Lamp with Isis-with-a-sail from 81 (fig. 49) Boat-shaped lamp from 194 (figs. 124 A–B) Isis on a seal from 136–137 (fig. 97) Cyrene Aretalogy of Isis found in 44n3 Gem and cretula from – with Isis-with-asail 77–78 (figs. 41–42) Danubian limes Dedication from the – to Jupiter Best and Greatest Neptune Sarapis 255–261 Daphnae Establishment of Greek trading colonies in 22 Deir el Medineh Hathor identified with the North Wind in her temple in 14 Delos Sarapis in 21n84, 27n111, 45n10, 185–186, 235, 239–240 Dedication from – for – Arsinoe II 31 – Isis Euploia 149–151 (fig. 105) – Isis-Mother of Gods-Astarte 21n84 – Isis Sôteira 158–159 Clay seal from – with Isis-with-a-sail 80 (fig. 47), 88, 100 Lamp found in 90–91 (fig. 60), 174 Relief from 90–92 (fig. 62) Statue of Isis-with-a-rudder from 137 Thank-offering from for Sarapis, Isis et alii 185 Hieronautes in 223 Demeter – identified with Isis 2, 21n80, 99, 127, 145 –, Isis, and Sarapis – on an engraved glass 99–100 (fig. 73) – on a fresco from Pietra Papa 270 (fig. 168)

General Index Coins and intaglios from Alexandria with –, Sarapis and – Isis 104–108 (figs. 82–85), 247–251 (figs. 146–149), 258, 290 – Tyche 250 (fig. 150) – on a mosaic from Antioch 223–224 – wearing the calathos 243–244 Ship named 272 Dendera Hymn to Amon in the mammisi of 13n12 Hathor, Mistress of the North Wind at 14–15 Titles of Isis in 17–18 Representation of Isis surrounded by the Isheru in 18 Festival for navigation in 18 Diadumenian Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 70–71 (fig. 24), 87 Diocletian Vota publica coins with Isiac divinities appeared under 278–279 – stopped striking local coins at the Alexandrian mint 277–278 Dioscuri The –, marine divinities 6, 268 The –, protectors of the Annona  246n61 The – associated with – Amon in a dedication from Akôris 14 – Sarapis 27n111 in Delos, 239–240, 244–247 (figs. 144–145), 291 – Isis in Cyprus 27n111 The – rarely associated with Isis 27n111 One of the – on a fresco in Nymphaion 23–27 (fig. 2), 39–40 Dedication from Delos to Sarapis, Isis et alii and the 27n111 Isis-with-a-sail, Isis gubernatrix, Sarapis and the – on a carnelian 102–105 (fig. 80) The – on a boat-shaped lamp 191–192 (figs. 120–121), 197–198, 202n150 The – on a painting from the Sacellum of Silvanus in Ostia 230 Dish African terra sigillata with Isis and Apis in a marine scene 226–227 (fig. 134)

373 Dolphin Isis takes the appearance of a 12n7 Intaglio with Isis et alii and Poseidon holding a 97–99 (figs. 71–72) The head of a – on the statue from Benevento 114–116 (figs. 88 A-C) Statuettes of Isis-with-a-rudder type with a 138–140 (fig. 100) Corinthian coin with a statue of Poseidon and a 176–178 (fig. 112) Representation of a – as offering for Isis 186 Carnelian with Sarapis, Demeter and a 248–249 (fig. 149) Domitian Khnum, master of the Waves, in a hymn from Esna, dating to the reign of 15 Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 59–61, 63–66, 87, 89, 207 Advent under – of the Isis-with-a-sail type with mantle 89 Construction of the Iseum in Benevento under 123n170, 124 The Iseum Campense rebuilt by 180 Domitius Domitianus Revolt of 277 Douglas, Charles – Commandant of the British frigate Isis 5 Edfou Hymn to Amon in the mammisi of 13n12 Isis represented on the prow of a combat vessel for the festival of – honouring the victory of Horus 16 Elaea Isiac cults and trierarch in 220–221 Elephantine Establishment of Greek trading colonies in 22 Ephesus Coins from – with – Isis-with-a-sail 57, 63–66, 83 (fig. 54), 87, 210, 244–245 (figs. 142–143) – Isis, Sarapis and Artemis 244–245 (fig. 141) Medallion with Artemis Ephesia, Sarapis and the wall of – in the background 244–245 (fig. 140)

374 Ephesus (cont.) Festival for the opening of sailing in 210 ναυβατοῦντες of 222 Sanctuary of Sarapis in 235 Epidaurus Isis associated with Aphrodite in 41–42 Eretria Dedications to Arsinoe II in 31 List of navarchs in 216–219, 222 Iseion in 207–208, 216–217 Sanctuary of Sarapis in 235 Festival for the opening of sailing in 210 Esisout-Petobastis – first high priest of Egypt under the Ptolemies 44–45 Esna Khnum, Master of the Waves in a hymn from 15 Festival for navigation in 18 Euploia Aphrodite 30–34, 39, 89, 152n25, 169, 178, 184, 289 Arsinoe 29n129, 31, 33, 39, 42, 289 Isis 10, 30, 39, 148–152, 170, 289–290 Europa – velificans 54n2, 88–89 Euthenia – on a coin from Alexandria with Isis, Demeter and Sarapis 107–108 (fig. 85) Faustina II Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 60, 63–66 (fig. 12), 74–76 (fig. 36), 82–83 (fig. 52), 87 – Isis, Demeter and Sarapis 104–106 Bronze medallion of – with Isis, and a Pharos lighthouse 96–97 (fig. 70), 123–124 Alexandrian inscription mentioning – Pharia and sôsistolos 124 Galerius Coinage of – with Sarapis 278 Gallienus Coins with Sarapis and Isis under 278 Gaza Isis Euploia in 151

General Index Gems The reasons leading to wear 187 – with Isis-with-a-sail 54, 67–68 (figs. 19–20), 77–78 (fig. 41), 80 (fig. 48), 85 (fig. 57), 88n40, 97–98 (fig. 71) – with the divine crew 101–107 (figs. 75–81, 84), 246–250 (figs. 147–149), 257–258 (fig. 155), 290 – with Isis and the Alexandrian lighthouse 131–132 (fig. 93) – with Isis-with-a-rudder 132–133 (fig. 94), 187–189 (fig. 117) Other representations of marine Isis on 133 (fig. 95), 187–188 (fig. 116) – with Sarapis 235–238 (figs. 135–138), 265–266 (fig. 164) – with an anchor and the name of Sarapis 242–243 (fig. 139) – with a rudder, a lituus and a basileion 181 (fig. 114) Gerasa Boat-shaped lamp from 196n126, 201–202 Gigthis Boat-shaped lamp from 193, 202, 291 Giton – in Petronius’ Satyricon 128–129 Glass (engraved) Isis-with-a-sail on an 98–99 (figs. 72–73), 259n106 Gordian III Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 63–66, 73–75 (fig. 32), 83 (fig. 54), 87, 244–245 (figs. 142–143) – Artemis and Sarapis 244–245 (figs. 140–141) Gratian – gives back to Isis her temple in Portus 279–280 Hadrian Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 59–66 (figs. 6, 10), 70–71, 82–86 (figs. 50, 53, 55, 56), 87, 96–98 (figs. 67–68), 132n209, 189–190 (fig. 119) – Isis, Demeter and Sarapis 105–106

General Index Pierced coin of –, with Isis-with-asail 189–190 (fig. 119) Halicarnassus Dedication of a temple at – for Sarapis, Isis and Arsinoe Philadelphia 39n180 Sanctuary of Sarapis in 235 Harpocrates Isis breastfeeding 2 Dedication from Delos to – Sarapis, Isis, – et alii 27n111 – Isis-Savior-Astarte-Aphrodite and Eros-Harpocrates-Apollo 150 Isis, – and the invention of sails 52–53 – associated with Isis – on coins from Cyme 89 – -with-a-sail on a lamp from Aleria 142–145 (fig. 103), 266 – on a Coptic ivory plaque 281–282 (fig. 172) – associated with Sarapis – on an intaglio 238 – on a mold 267 – associated with Isis and Sarapis et alii – on an engraved glass 98–99 (figs. 72–73) – on a painting in the Sacellum of Silvanus 230 – on magical gems 235–236 (figs. 135–137) – on boat-shaped lamps 192–195 (figs. 122, 124 A-B, 125), 202 – with Isis, Horus and Khepri 236–237 Hathor – lady of Byblos, North wind and protector of sailors 11–15, 153, 207 Titles of 14–15, 207 – associated with - Isis et alii 15, 18–23, 34–35, 41, 153–154, 207 - Aphrodite 23, 41 - Asherah 19, 21 - Astarte 21 Isis wearing the crown of 2, 66–67 (fig. 17), 79–80 (figs. 44–46), 88 Temple of – in Deir el Medineh 14 – in Dendera 14–15 Hatmehyt – goddess of Mendes, “the first among the fish” 12n7

375 Hêgemôn Anubis 39, 153 – on the list of navarchs found at Eretria 217 Hekate Thank-offering from Camiros for – and Sarapis 239 Heliopolis Isis, mother of Horus, in the cosmogony of 1 Helios – associated with Sarapis 36n168, 124, 237 (fig. 137), 238, 236–238 (fig. 137), 269–270n134 Heliosarapis Dedication to 192, 194, 201 Henotheism 2, 249, 277 Heraclea Pontica Coins with Sarapis struck in – after 298 CE 278 Heracleion Temple of Amon-grb in 14n20, 32n152 Isis, “mistress of the sea” in 14n20 Herculaneum Isiac frescoes in 145n245, 220n249, 227 Hermes See Mercury Hermitage Museum Intaglio from the 106–107 (fig. 84), 247–249 (figs. 148 A–B), 257–258 (figs. 155 A–B) Hibis Amon master of the winds at the – temple 13 Hieraskyaminos Temple of Isis in 163 Hieronaute – in Tomis 223 – in Tyre 223 Horus – son of – Isis, 1, 16 – Bastet 153 The conflict between – and Seth 16 –, Khepri and Harpocrates 236 Hypostoloi – in Amphipolis 148, 220n250 – in Demetrias 220n249

376 Iasos Dedication from – to Anubis, Isis Pelagia, Isis Bubastis 13n12, 153–154, 181 Coin from – with Isis-with-a-sail 62–63 (fig. 9), 87, 154, 210 Lex sacra and dedication to Sarapis, Isis and Anubis from 186n100 Intaglio See Gem Interpretatio graeca – transmitted by Plutarch 21n80 – in the Aretalogy 46 Sarapis and the 232 Iseum / Isieion – in Benevento 123 – in Byblos 19 – in Cyme 44n1, 90 – in Eretria 207–208, 216–217 “–” in Kenchreai 174–175, 179 – in Pompeii 200, 226 – in Pozzuoli 124–125 – of Regio VIII in Rome 127 Iseum Campense 180 Isis Pharaonic 1, 15–18, 148 The Isiac diaspora 3, 6–7 Greek and Phoenician influences on – personality 19–23 – associated or identified with: See Amon, Annona, Anubis, Aphrodite, Apis, Arsinoe II, Asherah, Astarte, Athena, Bubastis, Demeter, Dioscuri, Harpocrates, Hathor, Horus, Nephthys, Osiris, Poseidon, Sarapis, Sôthis – lady on the winds, mistress of the flood 16–18, 35, 49–51, 153 – healing goddess 46 Powers and functions of – in the Aretalogy texts see Aretalogy –’ Greek and Latin names – Eὔπλοια see Euploia – Fortuna / Tyche 100–101, 111n129, 124, 127, 131, 133, 136n220, 142, 145, 185n91, 204n165, 247, 250, 290 – frugifera 51–52, 127 – Geminiana 271–272 (fig. 169) – Isermouthis 99–10 – κυβερνῆτις 167–168 – of Menouthis 98–99, 164–165

General Index

Io Ios

– myrionymos 4, 147 – ὁρμίστρια 167–168 – πελαγία see Pelagia – Φαρία see Pharia – psychopompos 95–96 – σώτειρα see Sôteira – Tαποσειρίας 147 – Thermouthis 147, 163, 198 Greco-Egyptian iconography of 2, 127 Representations of – – wearing a: see Basileion, Calathos, (crown of) Hathor – holding a: see Cornucopia, Situla, Sistrum – -with-a-rudder: see Rudder – -with-a-sail: see Sail – protectress of the Annona 108–109, 128, 131, 141, 160n56, 229–231, 279 –, Tacitus and the Suebi 183, 283 – cult in – Canopus 35–36 – Corinth and Kenchreai 90, 171–182, 290 Festivals in honor of – see Navigium Isidis and Sacrum Phariae Offerings to – see Offerings Ship dedicated to 270–271 The name – on the Nymphaion fresco 23–27 (fig. 2) Ancient ship named 270–276 Modern ship named 5 Isiac etymologies 283–287 – and Isis 148, 160

Dedications from – to Arsinoe II 31 A copy of the Aretalogy of Cyme found in 43n2, 47n21 Isheru Representation of Isis surrounded by the – at Dendera 18 Jones, John Paul Medallion with – and the Serapis 5 (fig. 1) – captured the Serapis 5, 285 Jovian Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 71–72 (fig. 29), 87

General Index Julia Mamaea Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 70–71, 87 Kassandreia A copy of the Aretalogy of Cyme found in 43n2 Kato Paphos Boat-shaped lamp with Isiac figures from 194 (figs. 124 A–B), 201 Kenchreai Isis in 172, 174–182 Corinthian coins with the statue of Isis or Poseidon located at the port of 6n22 Procession in – in the Golden Ass 9–10, 174, 211–213, 283 Festival for the opening of sailing in 210 Keramos Sanctuary of Sarapis in 235 Khnum – Master of the Waves 15 Kikellia The Ptolemaic – festival 208 Kios Festival for the opening of sailing in 210 Kircher, Athanasius Isis in the Oedipus Aegyptiacus of 285 Kom Ombo Hymn from – about the Nile flood 50n33 Lamp Isis-with-a-sail on 76–77 (figs. 37–40), 81 (fig. 49), 142–144 (fig. 103), 174 – from Aleria 142–144 (fig. 103), 266 – from Corinth 173–174 “Isiac” – found in Delos 90–91 (fig. 60) Boat-shaped 189, 191–203 (figs. 120–130), 244, 291 Lichas –’s ship in Petronius’ Satyricon 128–129 Licinius Sarapis on the coinage of – after 298 CE 278 Lighthouse See Pharos Lucius – hero of the Golden Ass and Isis 51, 174–175

377 – and the Navigium Isidis festival  211–213, 216, 228–229 Lucius Verus Coinage of – with – Isis-with-a-sail 60, 62–66 (fig. 9), 87, 91 (fig. 61), 154, 179 – Sarapis and the Dioscuri 246n63 – a ship alone 262n115 Manetho of Sebennytos –, Egyptian priest linked to the first Ptolemies 233, 251 Mantle of Isis – as an element of typology 56–59 (table 1), 62–63, 66, 68, 70–72, 74–75, 77–85, 88–89, 94 – as identification criterion 108n118, 121, 124, or not 128–129n200 – as origin of her sail 52, 144, 289 – in representations 114, 118, 120, 136, 224, eventually lost 122 – (pallium) 128n200 – (pharos) playing on words with Pharos (the lighthouse) 167 Marcus Aurelius Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 59–61, 63–66, 87 Mariemont Statuette of Isis preserved in the Museum of 110, 112–113 (fig. 86), 120 Marnas Patron of Gaza merchants in Ostia 151, 152n24 Maroneia Isis Aretalogy of 43, 44n3,47n22 Mars qualified as comes Augusti like Sarapis 264 linked to Isis in Statius’ poem for Metius Celer 129–130n205 Mater Magna associated with Isis in the Iseum of Benevento 123 Maximinus Daza Coinage of 65 (fig. 16), 70 (fig. 27)-71, 278 Memphis Apis cult in 45 Clergy of – close to the Ptolemies 44, 234 Greeks in 2, 22

378 Memphis (cont.) in Statius’ poem for Metius Celer 129–130n205 Necropolis of –, place of the origo of Sarapis 232–233 Painted shroud from 95 (fig. 66) Sanctuary of Isis in 161n64 Statuette of Isis-Astarte from 21n84 Menologia Rustica Source for the festivals of Isis 203–204, 229 Menouthis Isis of 98–99, 164, 165n79, companion of Sarapis of Canopus 165n80, 172n15 Mensa Isiaca Acquisition in Rome 283 Reproduced 285, 287n47 Mercury(-Hermes) – associated with Silvanus in North Africa 261n108 – in a dedication from Rome 158 – with Isis and Sarapis 257–258 (fig. 155) Messene Statue of Isis discovered in 9, 111, 119 (fig. 91)-120, 125, 182, 216, 289–290 Theater of 119, 125, 216, close to the hieron of Sarapis and Isis 125 Metamorphoses of Apuleius About the cymbia 183, 200 About the omnipotence of Isis 51 Describing the Navigium Isidis or Ploiaphesia 9, 10, 174n32, 175, 203, 210–212, 216, 221–222, 225, 283–284 Employing Pharos as metonymy for Alexandria 161n65 Mentioning the cista mystica in Isiac context 145n242 Minerva – associated with Isis 123, 161n68 – in a dedication from Rome 158 Misenum Dedications of navarchs in –, port of the imperial fleet 218 Recruit of the classis Misensis saved by Sarapis 241 The trireme Isis based at 271, as another called Iove et Serapion 274

General Index Mithras Target of Christian polemics 278 Mogontiacum (Mainz) Temple of Isis in 183 Myrionymos Epithet of Isis 4, 147 Mytilene Dedication to Isis in a lost column from 152 Narmouthis (Medinet Madi) Hymns of Isidorus of 3, 18, 21n84, 48, 147 Natalis ratis isiacae See Navigium Isidis Naucratis Aphrodite and Isis in 22, 159, 289 Greeks living in 2, 22 Naubates Mentioned by sources in Isiac context 210, 216, 222n258 Navarch Callicrates of Samos, 31, 35 Chariklês, – of the Alexandrian imperial fleet 14 – acting during the Navigium Isidis 206, 216–221 Navigium Isidis Egyptian antecedents of the 8, 11 Graffiti from Palermo and the 274 Lamps and the 200 Navarch(s) linked to the – see Navarch(s) – and the Vota publica 228n287, 256 – festival 203–229, 291, sources to study the 203–204, 211, 223–227 – mentioned by Apuleius 174n32, 200, 211 – named natalis ratis isiacae 204 – named Ploiaphesia 9, 203n155, 206, 208–210, 213n212, 219, 281n26 Posterity of the 280–281, 283 Nehalennia – associated with Isis 183 Nektanebos – kings devoted to Isis 34 Nephthys – associated with her sister Isis 16, 236 (figs. 135–137)-237

General Index Neptune (Poseidon) Cult of – at Kenchreai 175–177, and Corinth 177–178 Isis as substitute of marine divinities like 130n207 – associated with Sarapis 258–262, 268, 291 – comes Augusti 264 –, divinity of the Pharos lighthouse 96n71 – in Herodotus 12n5 –, marine puissance 6, 149n13 –, protector of the Roman fleets 256n97 – with Isis et alii 97–99 (figs. 71–73) Ships named 272n149 Nereids – in the Andros hymn 48 – known in Egypt according to Herodotus 12n5 – replaced by Isis in the poem of Statius for Metius Celer 130n207 – velificantes 54n2 Nero Claudius Callistus, freedman of – and warden of a Serapeum in Rome 180n63 Egyptophilia of 252 – charmed by the Navigium Isidis  204n164 Nicaea 75, 87 Coin from – with Caracalla and Sarapis 262–263 (fig. 159) Coin from – with Isis-with-a-sail 75, 87, 210 Nicomedia Coin from – with Isis-with-a-sail 74 (fig. 33)-75, 87, 210, 217, 278 Funerary inscription from 217 Step on the way of Caracalla’s army  263 Nike (Victory) Model for the Budapest statue of Isis-with-a-sail 121–122 Isis borrowing attributes from 133 – navigans on Rhodian coinage 144 (fig. 104) – or Isis Pharia 94

379 Offerings – to Aphrodite 22, 184n86 – to Arsinoe Zephyritis 29n130, to Arsinoe Philozephyros 30n131 – to Isis et alii 222, 223n264, 239n41 – to marine Isis 129n202, 150, 159, 181, 184–186, 212, 290 – to Osiris 209 – to Sarapis 239n37, 242n48 Ormistria Epithet of Isis 168 Osiris Atef of 109n121, crowning Sarapis 236 (fig. 137), 243–244 Barque of – conducted by Isis 48n23; with Isis et alii 95, 228n285, 237 Dedication to – in the Serapieion C at Delos 240n43 Isis, sister and spouse of 1, 16, 147 On Isis and – by Plutarch 12n7 – and the Inventio Osiridis festival 209 – and the Kikellia festival 208–209, 273 – and the Navigium Isidis 213n212, 226, 227n285 – and Sarapis 109n121, 165n80, 233–234, 236, 238, 253 –-Apis 37n173, 37n175, 233–234 –, myth 1, 7, 12n5, 18–21, 52, 153, 168, 207, 209, 289 –, theology 18, 50n33 Statuette of – Hydreios from Corinth 173 Temenos dedicated to – in Canopus 38, in Thessalonica 209 Ostia Fresco in Via Laurentina, necropolis of 271–272 (fig. 169) Festivals in 230, 255 Isiac cults at 164n78, 182, 202 Lamp from 191–192 (fig. 121), 291 Panel in a fragmentary large fresco from 224–225 (fig. 133) Port of 124–125, 246, 255–256 (figs. 152–153), 279 Sacellum of Silvanus in the Caseggiato dei Molini at 229–230 Sarcophagus from 149n15, 255n95 Serapeum of 145n245, 246

380 Ostia (cont.) Statue from 8, 110, 116–118 (fig. 89), 123–124 Oxyrhynchus litany 18, 41, 48n23, 49, 50n32–34, 149, 151, 158–159, 167–168, 272n148 Palmyra Isis on a clay seal from 62–63 (fig. 8) Paphos Callicrates introducing the Isiac cults to 31n145 Isis and the Dioscuri at 27n111 Lamp from 194 (fig. 124), 201 Statuette of Aphrodite purchased at 22 Seal imprints from 136–137 (fig. 97) Paraetonium Sanctuary of Isis at 161n64 Paris Isis and – in modern times 285–287 (fig. 176) Parisades II –, king of Bosphorus 23–25, 39 Pastophoros – linked to the Navigium Isidis 223 Patera – hold by an unknown deity 227, 230 – hold by Helios-Sarapis 124 – hold by the emperor 262–263 (fig. 159) – to perform sacrifice 255–256 (figs. 152–153) Patras Intaglio from 132–133 (fig. 94) – linked to Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 174n30 Pelagia (Isis) Coin issue with Isis 90, 154, 206n176 Dedication to Isis – et alii 152–153, 155–158 (figs. 106–108), 181, 186n101 Inscription to Isis 179–181 Isis – and Boubastis 13n12, 153 Isis – and Fortuna 100, 145 Isis – and/or Euploia 30, 148n9, 170, 290 Isis – or Frugifera 52, 127 Isis – or Isis Pharia 7n27, 120, 148 Jewellery with Isis 181 (fig. 114) Literary mentions of Isis 154, 168–169,

General Index –, one of the epicleses of marine Isis 11, 149, 152, 154, 170, 172, 181, 290, shared with Aphrodite 152n25 Relief dedicated to Isis 90 Statue of Isis 8, 10, 111n129–130, 120–124 Pelagius Epithet of Sarapis 243, 268, 291 Pelusium Isis Ormistria at 168 Peplos See Mantle of Isis Perinthus Statue of Isis-Aphrodite at 40 Coin with Isis-with-a-sail from 67, 75–76 (fig. 36), 87, 210, 263 (fig. 160)-264 Peucestis Isis Kubernetis at 167–168 Pharia Coin issue with Isis 8, 27n111, 62, 94n67, 108n118, 167 (fig. 111), 279 Dedication to Isis – et alii 163–165 (fig. 110), 166 Isis – or Ceres 160n56, 161n68, 231 Isis – or Pelagia 7n27, 120, 148 Jewellery with Isis 94, 97–98 (fig. 71) Literary mention of Isis 161 –, one of the epicleses of marine Isis of Alexandria 149, 160–167, 170, 231, 290 Proskynema to Isis 162–163 Relief of Isis 92–94 (fig. 64) Ship named Isis 271 Statue of Isis 8, 120 Pharos Coin associating Isis with the – lighthouse 82–86 (figs. 50–59), 96–97 (figs. 67–69), 122n162, 244 Isis and the – harbour and island 121, 130n205, 160–161, 163, 165n80, 167, 235 Isis and the – lighthouse 109, 130n205 Jewellery associating Isis with the – lighthouse 97–98 (figs. 70–71), 123, 131–132 (fig. 93), 259n106 – as metonymy for Alexandria 161, 163 Philae Cult and hymn of Isis at 1, 16, 45, 50n32 Inscription in the temple of 162

General Index Philippopolis Coin with Isis-with-a-sail from 74–75 (fig. 34), 87, 94, 210 Perhaps Isis on coin from 57n15 Phocaea Coin with Isis-with-a-sail from 63, 65–66 (fig. 16), 87, 210 Perhaps Isis on coin from 57n13 Phoenicia(n) Dedication in 21n84 Influence of the – culture 19n68, 24 – and Egypt 19, 289 Phoenix (Loutro) Latin inscription from 166, 244n56, 271 Pietra Papa Fresco from 270–271 (fig. 168) Pithom Arsinoe as Isis in the – Stele 34 Ploiaphesia See Navigium Isidis Pompeii Iseum of Pompeii 200, 215n215, 226 Mural paintings at 145n242, 145n245, 185n91 Portus Dedication from 164–165 (fig. 110) –, situated in the maritime roads 166n88, 167 Temple of Isis at 186, 279–280 Poseidon See Neptune Pozzuoli See Puteoli Pschent – hold by Harpocrates 99, 192, 237 – hold by Isis and Nephthys 237 – hold by Agathodaimon 198 Psychopompos Epithet of Isis 96 Ptah Egyptian god at Memphis 37n173, 44 –, on a lamp from Puteoli 192 Ptolemies Isis, Sarapis et alii and the 23, 34, 41n190, 180n66, 208, 233–235, 244 One of the – sending a delegation to Sinope 251

381 Ptolemy I Sôter 36n168, 233 Ptolemy II 24, 27, 32n152, 33, 35, 37–39, 235, 252 Ptolemy III 37–38 Ptolemy IV 37–38, 44n7, 45, 243 Ptolemy IX Sôter 48n27 Ptolemy Keraunos 27 Relations between the – and the Memphite clergy 44n7, 232, 234 State of the 1, 19, 24, 27 Thalassocracy of the 24, 27, 30, 31n142, 32–33, 39–40, 49, 235, 251 The –, a legendary kingship 233 Puteoli (Pozzuoli) Lamp from 191–192 (fig. 120), 201–202, 244, 291 Iseum in 124–125 Port of 125, 255n95 Serapeum in 124–125, 235n22 Statue from 111, 118–119 (fig. 90), 124 Pylaia (Macedonia) Marble altar with Isis-with-a-sail from 69 (fig. 22) Rhodes Coin from 144 (fig. 104) Dedication from – by Hippon of Cnidus 159 Inscription of Hermias of Soloi in  239 –, place of Isis’s cult 235 The Colossus of 176n37 Rome About the existence of a sanctuary of Isis Pharia at 161–162, before Pelagia Pelagia 181–182, 290 Bronze statuette of Isis from 139–140 (fig. 100) Coin from – with Isis-with-a-sail 63, 65–66 (fig. 18)-67, 71–73 (figs. 28–31), 87, 97 (fig. 70), 167 (fig. 111), 189n110, 210, 264–266 (figs. 162–163), 278–280 Cult of Isis in 278 Dedication from 157 (fig. 108)-158 Funerary inscription from – by a servant of Isis Pelagia 155 (fig. 106), 171, 179–180 Greco-Egyptian mode in 252

382 Rome (cont.) Isiac processions in 212n209, 218, 225, 228 Marble relief of Isis from 126 (fig. 92) – and the annona 108–109, 231, 244, 248, 250, 256–258, 265, 279 Rudder Attribute of Fortuna-Tyche 133, 230, of Annona 230, of Harpocrates 237 Coin with Isis-with-a-– 67, 79 (figs. 44–46)–80 (fig. 48), 88n40, 107–108 (fig. 85), 141–142 (fig. 102), 187, 247–248 (fig. 146) Isis and the – at Aswan 16, at Pompeii on a fresco 185n91 Isis-with-a- 109, 136, 140–141, 145, 250, 289–290, at the stern 247 Jewellery with Isis-with-a– 131–133 (figs. 93–94), 181 (fig. 114), 187–188 (figs. 116–117) Lamp with Isis-with-a– 198–199 (fig. 130) Sarapis holding a 191 (fig. 120), 263 (fig. 160) Statue and statuette of Isis-with-a– 100–101 (fig. 74), 133–134 (fig. 96), 137–138 (fig. 98), 139–140 (fig. 100), 142, 189–190 (fig. 118) Terracotta seal with Isis-with-a– 137 (fig. 97) Sacrum Phariae – celebrated the same date that the Serapia 229, 230, 255, 256 –, festival of marine Isis 203, 229–231, 255–256 (figs. 152–153), 291 Saguntum Dedication to Isis Pelagia from 156 (fig. 107) Sail Invention of the – by Isis see Mantle of Isis The Isis-with-a-– type 21, 54–146, 154, 174, 177–179 (fig. 173), 181–182, 186–187, 189, 206, 210, 216–217, 243, 247, 265 (fig. 162), 284 (fig. 173), 289–290 Saïs Cult of Isis-Arsinoe at 28, 34

General Index Samothrace Gods of 6, 109n120, 185n94, 239n37 Nike of 122n162, 144n240 Sarapis (or Serapis) Cult of – associated with Isis’s one 6, 10, 36–39, 46, 235 Jupiter Optimus Maximus 246, 261, 264n119 Origo of 232–234, 243–244, 251–252, – as Osiris 236–237 – Agathodaimon 100, 163 – and Cerberus 99, 237–238 (fig. 138), 248, 251, 253, 270 (fig. 168) – and Demeter 249–251, 258, 270 (fig. 168) – and the Dioscuri 27n111, 240, 244–246, 268, 291 – and Neptune 258–262, 268, 291 – and the sea world 6n21, 232–276 – comes Augusti 264 – conservator Augusti 257 –(-Helios) and the sun 124, 192, 194, 201, 235–238 – in the coinage of Aspendos 182 – in the coinage of Cyme 89 – in the coinage of Ptolemy IV 44n7, 243 – on several Corinthian lamps 174 – of Canopus 36n168, 38, 98–99, 154, 165n80, 172, 201 – wearing a pallium 263 – wearing the calathos 101, 104 (fig. 79), 107 (figs. 84–85), 109n121, 191–192 (figs. 120–121), 197–198 (figs. 128–130), 237–238 (fig. 138), 243–244, 246n62, 249, 253, 256–259 (figs. 152–156), 262–267 (figs. 159–165), 270 (fig. 168) – with his spouse Isis et alii 34, 101–102, 104–107, 109, 154, 158, 164, 169n110, 172, 185–186, 191–200 (fig. 130), 206, 216, 230–231, 234, 236–237 (figs. 135–137), 239–240, 243–244, 246 (fig. 80), 250–251, 257 (fig. 154), 264–265 (fig. 162), 267–268 (fig. 165), 270 (fig. 168), 278–279, 290–291 Satyricon – of Petronius 128–129, 270–271

General Index Savaria Molded terracotta from 56–57 (fig. 5), 94, 186 Seleukia Pieria (port of Antioch) Festival in 210, 224 Inscription from 217–218 Septimius Severus Coinage of 60, 66, 68 (fig. 21), 136n220, 142 (fig. 102), 179, 224 Serapia –, festival 229–230, 255 Serapis, British frigate of the 18th century  5–6, 285 Zeus(-Helios great) 248, 269–270 Serdica Coin from 262 (fig. 158) Seth-Typhon Isis in the conflict between – and Horus 16, 16n33 in Plutarch 12n5, 209n190 Severus Alexander Campaign of – against the Sassanids 263–264 Coinage of 60, 67, 75, 263 (fig. 160) Sinope Coinage from 21n83, 253 (fig. 151)–254 Inscription of Caius Numisius Primus from 217 – and the imperial power 254 – linked to the origo of Sarapis 233, 251–252, 254 Sistrum Isis holding a – in her left hand 97–99 (figs. 71–72), 133 (fig. 95), 230n299 Isis holding a – in her right hand 17n50, 57–59, 62 (fig. 9), 68, 70 (figs. 23–27), 74, 78–79 (figs. 43–46), 81–82 (figs. 49–52), 84–85 (figs. 56–57), 96–97 (fig. 70), 99 (fig. 73), 142–143 (fig. 103), 185n91, 192 (fig. 121), 226–227 (fig. 134), 257 (fig. 155), 283 Isis-with-a-sail not holding a 63, 66, 68, 71–72, 75, 77, 80, 83–86 The – linked to Isis 56, 58n20, 89–90, 94, 109, 128–130, 167, 186n102, 206n176, 210, 230, 216, 259n106, 270 Situla Isis holding a 133, 167, 227 (fig. 134), 257 (fig. 155)

383 Sokar Procession of the barque of 14 – -Osiris 226 Sôteira Epithet of Isis 149, 158–160, 170, 182n73, 290 Sothis Isis identified as – in the Pyramid Texts 17–18 Isis ridding 279 Syracuse Silver coin from 206n176 Szombathely Fragment of model terracotta discovered in 56 (fig. 5), 186n99 Taposiris (Isis) Priest of Isis – at Athens 147 Thames River associated with Isis in modern times 287–288 (fig. 177) Thebes (Egypt) Ptolemaic or Roman graffito in 16n39 Secondary role of Isis in the festival of 18 Thermouthis (Isis) – as the Hellenized aspect of the Egyptian serpent goddess Rnnt 2, 100n84, 145 – in the temple of Narmouthis 3, 147 – with Sarapis-Agathodaimon 163, 198, 202n150 Thessalonica Choice of Corinth by Apuleius rather than 174n30, 175 Damaius from – dedicating his work to Osiris 209 Epigram by Philip of 40n185, 184 Isis orgia in 179 Isis’s Aretalogy of 43n2, 47n21, 208–209 Relief of Isis-with-a-sail in 181 Texts from – mentioning offerings of jewellery and linens 129n202 Thmouis Two mosaics from 32–33 (fig. 3) Tithorea Two festivals in 205n170, 210, 213–215 Trajan Coinage of – with Isis et alii 27, 89, 108n118

384 Trajan (cont.) Coinage of – with Isis Pharia 94n67 Coinage of – with Isis-with-a-sail 60, 86 (figs. 58–59), 105–106 (fig. 82) Coinage of – with Sarapis et alii 246n62, 250 (fig. 150), 258–259 (fig. 156) Inscription at Phoenix from the reign of 166 Statues of – and Isis-with-a-sail at Messene 125 – and Portus 164 Trier Representation of Isis-with-a-rudder from 137–138 (fig. 98) Trierarch(s) Dedication of some – at Akôris 13 Moschus, son of Moschus, 221 Role of the Isiac –, a liturgy 210, 216, 220–222 – during the Navigium Isidis 291 Triton(s) Two – surmounting the Pharos lighthouse 82–85 (figs. 55–57), 96 Two – with Sarapis 258 (fig. 156) Tyche Boat named Sarapis- 274n156 Isis- 100–101 (fig. 74), 127, 131, 247, 290 Isis- – -Fortuna 136n220 Isis or Tyche 142 (fig. 102), 142n236 Origin of the association of Isis and 139n229 Rudder of – borrowed by Isis 133, 247 – in Delos 100, 158n48 with Demeter and Sarapis on Trajan’s coins 250 Uraeus Signification of the 149n15 – hold by Isis 99, 192 – hold by Sarapis 238

General Index – in the diadem of Isis 127 – on a boat with Isis 83, 143 – or Agathodaimon 145n242 Velificans Iconography of Isis 54, 244 Isis – on a Memphite shroud 16n34, 95 (fig. 66)-96 Origin of Isis 88–89 Vespasian Sarapis used to legitimize the power of 233, 252, 254 Vexillum – at the bow 256, 266 – at the stern 262 Vienna Intaglio preserved in 131 (fig. 93)–132 Vota publica coins End of the association of the emperor with an Isiac type on 280 Modern publications and 285 – and the Navigium Isidis 228n287, called Vota Felicia 256 – of the Isis-with-a-sail type 57n12, 264–265 (fig. 162) – with Isis and Neptune 260n106 – with Isis and Sarapis 279 – with Isis Pharia 167 (fig. 111), 279 Zeus Isis, supreme divinity like 50n34 – associated with the origo of Sarapis 232, as – (-Hades) from the Black Sea 233, 250–252 – divinity of the Pharos lighthouse 96n71 – kidnapping Europa-Io-Isis 88 – -Ourios, associated with the Isiac family in Delos 239 – -Sarapis see Sarapis