The introduction of the worship of Isis in Rome

Isiacology is a young discipline: basically born in the mid XIX century (with Reichel’s De Isidis apud Romanos cultu, 1849), it is now just over 150 years of age. Despite its relative youth, it has been very productive: from 1940 to the present day we can count almost 7.000 publications concerning, more or less directly, the Egyptian cults. On average, one publication every three days!

This, first of all, means that it is impossible for anyone to master the entire bibliography relating to the diffusion of Isis worship outside Egypt. Secondly, such an open and intense scientific debate is due also thanks to the paucity of the material at our disposal (as regards Republican Rome we do not possess more than four inscriptions and a dozen important literary sources): in particular we suffer from the irretrievable loss of the Livian 46th-142nd books, which would have informed us about the events following 167 B.C. Finally, this is a complex phenomenon, polyhedral in all its public and private features, and diluted in time. Isis’ arrival in Rome was not a punctual event that can be formalized as taking place at a precise date, as in the case of some Mid-Republican evocationes. It was a long and tormented process, exactly as in Delos where the Isiac cult was introduced privately at the end of the IV century B.C., received monumental forms one century later, and was finally officialized around 180 B.C. In Rome, the absence of an explicit political or religious motivating factor and the scarcity of the documentation have often led the critics to go as far as denying the introduction of Isis worship in the Republican Period.

Moreover, the exotic nature of the Egyptian cults clashed with the traditional paganism of the Republican Rome only for the modern mentality. In reality, even the most conservative elements of Roman society criticized sometimes only the extreme aspects of the so-called “Eastern Religions” (for instance the idolatry of zoomorphic divinities). For the rest, these cults were greeted precociously and enthusiastically.

In Italy, Isis and Serapis presumably enjoyed a public cult from around 200 B.C. along the eastern coast of Sicily: ruins of a Serapeum (whose presence was already suggested by an inscription, mentioning the temple and found in 1861) have been excavated under the church of San Pancrazio in Tauromenium. The presence of another Serapeum is attested by Cicero during the beginning of the I century B.C., in Syracusae.

From around 140-130 B.C. sanctuaries are widespread in many cities of Campania and Lazio. A Serapeum in Puteoli is attested in the so-called Lex parieti faciendo, in 105 B.C. A contemporary structure is that of the Iseum in Pompeii, whose original chronology has recently been questioned and a date in the Augustan Period proposed, although the arguments for this are not very convincing. Two Republican inscriptions found in Pompeii unfortunately are not helpful in this case, because it is not certain that the first (found outside Porta di Nola and mentioning some theoi eueilatoi) relates to the Egyptian gods, and in the case of the second, the teophoric name Serapio of Lucius Ceius Lucii libertus argentarius is not proof of the presence of a public cult. Two other inscriptions of the end of the II century B.C. found in the Isiac temples of Delos and Philae demonstrate the contemporary presence there of people coming from Neapolis and Minturnae. This seems to suggest the presence of similar Egyptian sanctuaries even in their homeland. In Neapolis this suggestion in particular is corroborated by another, although later, epigraphic source (a dedication to Isis dated to A.D. 15-30); in Minturnae by the presence of the ancient Italic temple of Marica, which was probably transformed in the Roman Period into a temple to Isis. A Republican Isiac sanctuary has been found in Cumae, though we are not sure about its public nature, and Praeneste, though its identification today is already controversial. We can presume the presence of the goddess in Ostia from the end of the II century B.C., while we can underline some difficulties in the interpretation of an Isiac inscription found on the Acropolis of Tusculum and now unfortunately lost. We can find very similar problems (linguistic and topographical) in a graffito on a Hellenistic cup of the III century B.C., found near Nursia, in Sabina, present-day Umbria, which is generally considered to be the oldest Isiac inscription found in Italy. On the other hand, it is perhaps possible to identify as Egyptian sanctuaries both the so-called “Palestra” in Herculaneum and the structures on the Acropolis of Populonia, in Etruria.

In conclusion, this brief report shows that, with the exception of the dubious case of Populonia and the Sicilian episode, there is no definite evidence for the presence of Isis in the Republican Period outside Regio I, between Rome and Pompeii.

This is the historical context. Now, let us analyze the case of Rome. The authorship attributed to Ennius of a passage in Cicero mentioning some Isiaci coniectores, has been much questioned and furthermore does not give any evidence for the presence of Isis in Rome in the III or II century B.C. Isis’ arrival in Rome probably took place in the ’40s or ’30s of the II century B.C., though in this phase she was worshipped only privately. Clearly one must be cautious when examining the meaning of the teophoric onomastics, however, the spread of Isiac names in Rome in this period is significant, for example the nickname Serapio assumed by the two Cornelii Scipiones Nasicae, father and son, consules respectively in 138 and 111 B.C. Apart from this, practically we do not know anything of this period.

Half a century had to pass for Isiac worship in order to strengthen and receive monumental sanctuaries, even though the cult was still private.

This is the case of the Iseum Metellinum, quoted in a passage of the Historia Augusta, that has been very convincingly identified by Mariette de Vos with some structures found on the Oppius, near the modern piazza Iside and via Muratori, between the ancient via Labicana and via Merulana. The ruins, excavated by Lanciani, consist of a platform, 58 x 76 meters wide, delimited by a granite column porch. Along its axis is a pool measuring 7 by over 37 meters. The sanctuary towards the south rests on vaulted structures, preserved for 112 m and already visible along via Villari. In the area many isiaca have been brought to the light: statues, mosaics, reliefs and frescos. The temple was probably built by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, between 71 and 64 B.C., and restored firstly in the Augustan Period and then in the Flavian one. Significantly regio III, which the building must have belonged to, was called (we know this from the Regionary Catalogues and some inscriptions) Isis et Serapis, and its inhabitants had to be called Isiaci, as happened in Pompeii. The denomination is prior to the construction of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, since otherwise the importance of the latter would have probably conditioned the name of the quarter. Recently it has been suggested that the late name of the Amphitheatre (Colosseum-Colisaeum) does not reflect the memory of the Neronian Colossus, but the location of the building ad collem Isaeum: the proposal does not seem very convincing, as the Roman hills (apart from the Quirinal and the Viminal) were not called at that time colles but montes.