Isis On The Nile Egyptian Gods In Hellenistic And Roman Egypt

Against the background of questions on cultural identity and memory, this book offers an overview of the development of the cults of Isis in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, often presenting new or unpublished material.

Against the background of questions on cultural identity and memory, this book offers an overview of the development of the cults of Isis in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, often presenting new or unpublished material.

Against the background of questions on cultural identity and memory, this book offers an overview of the development of the cults of Isis in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, often presenting new or unpublished material.

“The Egyptian gods” mattered greatly to many kings, emperors, cities and elites in the Hellenistic and Roman world. Power, politics & the cults of Isis provides the first overview of this important phenomenon and shows how this happened, and why.

This volume considers the relationship between architectural form and different layers of identity assertion in Roman Egypt. It stresses the sophistication of the concept of identity, and the complex yet close association between architecture and identity.

What significations did Egypt have for the Romans a century after Actium and afterwards? How did Greek imperial authors respond to the Roman fascination with the Nile? This book explores Egypt’s aftermath beyond the hostility of Augustan rhetoric, and Greek and Roman topoi of Egyptian “barbarism”. Set against history and material culture, Julio-Claudian, Flavian, Antonine, and Severan authors reveal a multivalent Egypt that defines Rome’s increasingly diffuse identity while remaining a tantalizing tertium quid between Roman Selfhood and foreign Otherness.

This book draws together a wide range of evidence across disciplines to show how the ordinary people of Roman Egypt experienced and enacted change.

"Egypt in the Roman world" --- Studies on the meaning of Aegyptiaca Romana and the understanding of the cults of Isis in their local context.