ISIS. - I. GENERALITIES. - The best-known Egyptian female deity. Her original cult center was the Delta, perhaps the city of Buto. Ancient testimonies reveal her character as a cosmic deity, personifying the sky, for which reason she was soon assimilated to Hathor and to the star Sirius (Sothis).
But these primitive aspects disappeared before what may be called the fortune of I., that is, of having been introduced into the legend of Osiris (v.) in the role of faithful spouse and mother of Horus (v.). The triad I. - Osiris - Horus is the most famous in the Egyptian pantheon. How this association of I. with Osiris came about cannot be established with certainty; it could be due to the chance proximity of the respective sanctuaries (cf. K. Sethe, Urgeschichte und älteste Religion der Ägypter, Leipzig 1930, § 63). According to the legend, I. lovingly reassembled the corpse of Osiris dismembered by Seth, then, having transformed herself into a bird, gave life back to her spouse by fanning him with her wings. Subsequently, having become the mother of Horus, she protected the child from the persecutions of Seth, raising him in secret amid dangers of every sort. The vitality and popularity of the cult of I. are connected precisely with its aspects of exemplary spouse and mother.
With the advent of the Hellenistic age, while on the one hand I. was brought close through syncretism to the Greek deities (I.-Aphrodite; I.-Tyche; I.-Demeter; I.-Artemis; I.-Hecate), on the other it acquired the character of a universal deity: "the beautiful essence of all the gods" (Pap. Oxyr., XI, 1381, line 126). Alexandria became the center from which the cult of I. radiated, to which Serapis (the deceased Apis) was associated, the national god adopted by the Ptolemies. Patroness of the port of Alexandria and protectress of sailors ('Iσις πελάγια') she gradually conquered the ports of the Mediterranean where colonies of Egyptian merchants resided, also meeting with the favor of the populations local populations. In Crete, Rhodes, Smyrna, in Greece and in southern Italy communities of worshippers of Isis and Serapis arose.
In Rome the Isiac cults reached such a development that the Senate between 59 and 48 BC found itself compelled to issue severe repressive measures against a movement that endangered the religion of the State. The persecution grew harsher under Tiberius after a scandalous event that occurred in 19 AD. Caligula, however, promoted the construction of a grand sanctuary dedicated to Isis in the Campus Martius, later enlarged by Domitian and adorned with monuments imported from Egypt. The cult of Isis also spread to the north, where it is attested in Britannia, Gaul and Germany. The last public festivals in honor of Isis were celebrated in Rome in 394 AD, while in Egypt the last temple of Isis in use was that of the island of Philae, near the first cataract.
II. RITES AND MYSTERIES
In the pharaonic age Isis appears in the so-called mysteries (a kind of sacred representations of a liturgical character) of Abydos and in certain true and proper theatrical dramas acted by lay actors. The fundamental subject was the legend of Isis and Osiris, with particular regard to its pathetic episodes. However, the fragmentary character of the texts does not permit a concrete knowledge of this ritual-dramatic aspect of the Isiac cult.
During the Hellenistic era Isis was the center, in the countries of the Mediterranean world, of a mystery cult whose ritual elements have been described in veiled form by Apuleius of Madaura (2nd century A.D.) in Book XI of the Metamorphoses. He, who hides under the name of Lucius, describes the initiatory ceremony into which he was admitted at Corinth by the Isiac priesthood after a series of fasts, abstinences and prayers to the goddess, narrating that he descended into Hades, traversed the elements of the cosmos, contemplated the gleaming Sun and greeted the gods above and below. On the following day, clothed in twelve stoles and seated upon a throne, he received the homage of the brethren already initiated. He therefore underwent a rite of burial, contemplated either through figurations, whose mechanism is unknown, or through an ecstatic sleep, the world of the afterlife, kingdom of Osiris-Sun, whence he returned into the world assimilated to the god and therefore venerated as a new Osiris by the brethren. It is thus the usual story of death and resurrection, proper to the mysteries, to which he is admitted through the intercession of Isis.
Among the great public festivals the most famous was the springtime one of the Isidis navigium, in which the faithful and the priests, invoking the goddess as patroness of sailors, went down in procession to the seashore, abandoning a sacred boat to the waves (Apuleius, Met., XI, 8-17; Firmicus Maternus, De err. prof. relig., 2). This festival marked the beginning of the resumption of navigation after the winter months. Another important ceremony took place in November for three consecutive days, destined to commemorate the sorrowful wanderings of Isis in search of Osiris, and culminated in the happy finding (inventio) of the spouse (cf. Juvenal, VII, 29).
These religious celebrations had a public or semi-public character, while the secret ones were reserved to the initiates, of whom a rigorous internal and external purity was required, abstinence from certain foods in determined periods and the obligation of absolute secrecy concerning the mystic rites. These privations were largely compensated by the joy of being able to serve: «the holy, eternal protectress of the human race, ever generous with favors toward mortals, who bestows a motherly affection in misfortunes» (Apuleius, Met., XI, 25).
III. ICONOGRAPHY
Isis appears anthropomorphic with the hieroglyphic sign of her own name (the seat) on her head, or else with the headdress of Hathor (a solar disk that stands out between two lyre-shaped bovine horns). Sometimes, in reference to the legend, she is depicted winged, in the act of fanning Osiris. A common image of Isis is the one represented in the attitude of suckling the little child Horus (Harpocrates). In the Greco-Roman age she also appears in the form of the uraeus serpent.
Attributes that characterize Isis are the sistrum and the situla for libations.
Bibliography3 works
Sergio Bosticco