In Roman times, the Isiac cult ( cult for the goddess Isis ) spread, on several occasions, in all parts of the empire.
In Italy, the cult of the Egyptian divinity developed mainly in the imperial age, the result of direct contact between the empire and the Egyptian culture, and had a much greater diffusion than that of Dionysus (Bacchus) and Cybele (cults of Greek origin, much better known and popular in the collective imagination).
Isis she is considered the goddess of nature, of fertility, the mother of all things, the universal goddess. This deity was identified by numerous ancient peoples, as often happened, with different names. In Greece, for example, she was identified as Era, Demeter, Aphrodite, Selene, Io .
Isis, Osiris and her son Horus form the supreme triad of the Egyptian religion (a triad which, according to some readings, may be the original idea of what would later become the Christian " trinity" ). In short, the mythical figure of Isis (and what she was identified with more than the divinity itself) is at the origin of numerous other myths, mysteries and rites, widespread in most ancient peoples and pre-Christian civilizations.
Having made this very approximate premise on the "history of religions" (if you are interested in mythology, I refer you to the Mythologically Grivitt page, if you love Egyptology, I refer you to Djed Medu - Egyptology Blog) what I was interested in learning more about is the cultural impact that the cult of Isis had on Roman history (and consequently, on everything that came after it), and given that the cult of Isis was able to germinate in the first republican and then Imperial Rome thanks to Cleopatra, which we remember being a "devout worshiper of the cult of Isis". We can assert without difficulty that here we will also talk about the cultural impact that Cleopatra had on Rome.
I say “ also "Because in reality, even before Cleopatra, between 239 and 169 BC. Claudio Ennio first, he established the Isiac cult in Rome, meeting great popular favor, which aroused the ire of the Roman aristocracy and the negative effect of mobilizing the Senate against the Isiac cult; De facto leading to a sort of ban on the cult in 64 BC , persecuting eventual followers of this cult. Despite this, the cult of Isis continued to spread clandestinely in the last republic, here we come to Julius Caesar and Marco Antonio .
As is known from the Roman tradition, during the civil war between Marcus Anthony and Octavian , due to the political and military dominance over Rome, Marco Antonio, due to his union with Cleopatra and the proximity to oriental cults (which does not mean that Antony had become a worshiper of Isis) and the consequent cultural distance from the Roman tradition, he was abandoned by both the senate and public opinion, on the other side Otttaviano, professing himself " champion of the Roman tradition "In compliance with the law and traditional customs, he was legitimized, on a public and political level, to proceed against Antonio, since from 64 BC. the cult of Isis was "persecuted and outlawed" .
For these same reasons, even before the clash between Anthony and Octavian, more precisely with Caesar and Brutus, the caesaricides were considered "Liberators of Rome", for various political reasons (well known and which we will just mention here) as the murderer of an aspiring Monarch and insofar as, with the assassination of Caesar Rome was returned to the republic, but he was also a "cultural" liberator of Rome, as, by killing Caesar, Cleopatra's lover, close to the Oriental cults and therefore to Isis.
The persecution of the Isiac cult, however, will not be permanent, and indeed, with the advent of emperors such as Vespasian, it will become not only legitimate, but also official, to the point that the emperor himself will have a coin minted in 71 AD on which it will be reproduced on one side the image of Isis-Sothis riding the dog and surrounded by six stars. This coin will be revived in the Severan period, when the emperor Septimius Severus erected a temple dedicated to Isis in the historic heart of Rome, near the Campo Marzio, on whose facade the coin minted by the emperor Vespasian was depicted (thus also creating a bridge historical and cultural between the two emperors, but that's another matter).
In conclusion, for much of the history of Rome, the cult of Isis was professed in the shade or in the bright light of the sun, this fate was common to many religious cults, including Christianity which went from the harshest persecution to becoming an imperial cult. .
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