Isis in a Global Empire

Greek Identity through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece

Lindsey A. Mazurek

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781316517017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009037303
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

In Isis in a Global Empire, Lindsey Mazurek explores the growing popularity of Egyptian gods and its impact on Greek identity in the Roman Empire. Bringing together archaeological, art historical, and textual evidence, she demonstrates how the diverse devotees of gods such as Isis and Sarapis considered Greek ethnicity in ways that differed significantly from those of the Greek male elites whose opinions have long shaped our understanding of Roman Greece. These ideas were expressed in various ways - sculptures of Egyptian deities rendered in a Greek style, hymns to Isis that grounded her in Greek geography and mythology, funerary portraits that depicted devotees dressed as Isis, and sanctuaries that used natural and artistic features to evoke stereotypes of the Nile. Mazurek's volume offers a fresh, material history of ancient globalization, one that highlights the role that religion played in the self-identification of provincial Romans and their place in the Mediterranean world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One Egyptian Religion and the Problem of Greekness
• Chapter Two Building Groupness: Isis' Devotees and Their Communities
• Chapter Three Deterritorializing Theology?: Bringing the Egyptian Gods to Greece
• Chapter Four Self-understanding: Visualizing Isis in Stone
• Chapter Five Self-fashioning: Dressing the Devotees of Isis in Athenian Portraits
• Chapter Six Self-location: Isiac Sanctuaries and Nilotic Fictions
• Chapter Seven Conclusion: Graecia Capta, Aegypta Capta
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index