DIVINITY
The cult
“O the Most Blessed! You who watch over the health of the human race without interruption, always generous towards the mortals to whom you give aid, you offer the sweet affection of a mother to the wretched in travail.
There is not a day, nor a night, nor a moment that you let pass without showering men with your benefits, without keeping the storms of life away from them, without extending to them the merciful hand that unravels the most inextricable knots of fatality, calms the tempests of destiny and dominates the adverse course of the stars. […]” (Apuleius, Metam. XI, 25).
This hymn honors Isis as a benevolent and omnipotent deity, the guardian of humanity, wielding power over fate and the forces of nature.
She is depicted as a merciful mother, always ready to assist mortals, a sovereign of the cosmos, revered by both celestial and chthonic gods.
The cult of Isis spread widely, evolving under the Ptolemies, who redefined the traditional Egyptian triad of Osiris-Isis-Horus replacing it with Serapis-Isis-Harpocrates.
Additionally, the Ptolemies incorporated elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries into the Isiac cult, introducing aspects that were originally foreign to Egyptian tradition.
In Rome, the veneration of Egyptian deities took deep root, including Isis, Serapis, Osiris, Harpocrates (Horus the Younger), Anubis, and Bes.
The study of these deities begins with Isis, the most revered among them
