Alexandra ZetlaouiHillary ConleyClassical Mythology06 December 2012The Temple of Isis In ancient Greece and Rome, being a woman was considered a secondary status and being a slave meant having no citizenship to claim at all. In stories and legends where the gods are fighting for those who are deemed worthy, the rejected population found solace in the Egyptian goddess Isis. In a society that valued and cherished the strength, skills and smarts of a man, how was the goddess Isis, a symbol of gender duality and feminism, (Heyob 20) received and treated into a culture that glorifies masculinity and could it be possible that the Isis at the Temple of Pompeii be somehow different than the Isis in Egypt? When the Earth goddess Gaia had her shrine taken over by the sun god Apollo, it was meant to represent rationality over mysticism and emotion. Since Gaia was associated with the mysteries and darkness that the Earth possessed and Apollo was connected with light, rationality,and healing, it was only natural that he should rise above Gaia. However as a token of respect to her, Apollo kept wise women as his oracles (Nicholson 96). Isis, being an icon of gender duality,is a great characterization of both Gaia and Apollo. As a goddess, she is called the Divine Physician (Nicholson 92) reclaiming the light and rationality that Apollo represents while still keeping the wise woman title that Gaia claimed originally. In this scenario, Isis represents more than just a combination of characters; she represents the unity of masculinity and femininity. When the Greeks learned of Isis and how fast her followers were spreading, they refused to accept her or any other deity who did not match the requirements needed for Greek idolization,and so new attributed were given to Isis (Heyob 16). Although the name Isis meant throne and represented the power of a pharaoh (Griffiths 54), in Greece and Roman culture, she took on a more submissive role, representative of the women’s current stature. In the Egyptian culture, Isis was “…revered as the creator and sustainer of the cosmos, the source of life…” (Sertima 67) but in the Grecian world, she became worshiped as the ideal wife with perfect devotion to her husband Osiris as well as the ideal mother due to the relationship with her son Horus, known in the Graeco-Roman society as Harpocrates (Adkins 386). Isis was so powerful as a goddess in ancient Egypt that when J. Gwyn Griffiths reviewed Friedrich Solmen’s work in his book Isis among the Greek and Romans in chapter 27, he praises how “…Isis undertook contests and struggles and many deeds of wisdom and bravery in her bid to help her endangered husband…”, something not commonly found in either ancient Rome or Greece This quote proves that Isis was more than capable, helping her husband instead of her husband helping her, and yet Isis was still reduced to a mere housewife idol. Even in ancient texts such as Utterance 477 of the Pyramid Texts found within Tobin’s book, it is mentioned that “Isis has your arm Osiris, Nephthys has your hand; Walk between them” (195) which symbolizes that Isis walks in front ofhim, not near him, not behind him, but leading the way. Although her love for her husband and son should not be over looked (they are considered the ideal family), the rest of her has been completely rebooted in order to fit in to standards that degrade women by reducing them from a position of power to a position of submission. Isis made the transition from Egypt to Greece soon after Alexander the Great conquered her native land (Bricault, Meyboom, Versluys 34). It was not until after the Romans occupied both Egypt and Greece that the practice of worshipping Isis spread to ancient Rome. As a goddess tothe Romans and Greeks, she was worshipped as a loving mother and wife, a healer of the sick, a fertility idol, and a patron of sailors as well an overseer of the changing seasons. Her temple in Pompeii was small but the architecture was complex and precise. The original temple built under Augustan’s rule was severely damaged in an earthquake during the year of 62 CE. It was rebuilt 17 years later when Numerius, a freedman, financed the renovation in the honor of his six year old son Celsinus. Although reasons are still not completely known why the Temple of Isis was one of the first building rebuilt right after the earthquake, there was speculation that the renovation of the Temple of Isis was purely political. Numerius wanted his son to have more opportunities than he did himself, and had hoped that the restoration of the temple would allow his son to be a part of important political group; something Numerius had noaccess to as a previous slave. The finishing product combined of mixture of Roman, Greece and Egyptian architecture styles including bright colors and ornate murals and statues and the main devotees of the Temple of Pompeii were women, freedmen and slaves (45-48). The site of the temple remains on the Via del Tempio Di Iside which contains a dedicatory inscription to the original temple before its destruction in the earthquake. The temple itself sits on a podium in the center of the courtyard which has a porch entrance leading up to the statues ofIsis and her lover Osiris. At the rear of the podium, a statue of Dionysus can be found as a symbol of Isis and Osiris son, Horus (Witt 12). The connection between Dionysus and Horus comes from their birth (H.J. 24). Dionysus was born from Zeus’s thigh after he had saved the baby from the dying Semele while Horus was born after Isis used her powers to fashion a golden phallus to conceive after Osiris died. Both were technically born from two parents but with only person (H.J. 24). The main altar at the Temple of Pompeii is located on the south side of the podium and contains a stairway leading down to an underground waterproof receptacle whichcontains the sacred water of the River of the Nile. This particular altar is referred to as the Purgatorium because it was the center of where the purifications rituals took place. As for the architecture, the Greek influence is found in a large room known as the Ekklesiasteion, found nearly intact after the earthquake, which possessed frescoes of Io’s arrival in Egypt and Isis welcoming her, and Io’s liberation by Hermes (Carpiceci, Connolly, and Mau 58, 60) . The Sacrarium is where most of Isis’s Egyptian background can be found as it includes a mural
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