Editing Isis (section)

===Spread===
[[File:Temple of Isis, Delos 02.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A hillside littered with broken columns. An intact set of columns, supporting a pediment, still stand.|The remains of the temple of Isis on [[Delos]]]]
[[File:Tempio di Iside 12.JPG|thumb|right|The [[Temple of Isis (Pompeii)|Temple of Isis]] in [[Pompeii]]]]
[[File:Cossura Isis bronze coin.jpg|thumb|[[Cossura]] bronze coin showing a portrait of Isis with [[Punic language|Punic]] legend]]

Cults based in a particular city or nation were the norm across the ancient world until the mid- to late first millennium BCE, when increased contact between different cultures allowed some cults to spread more widely. Greeks were aware of Egyptian deities, including Isis, at least as early as the [[Archaic Greece|Archaic Period]] ({{circa|700}}–480 BCE), and her first known temple in Greece was built during or before the fourth century BCE by Egyptians living in [[Athens]]. The [[wars of Alexander the Great|conquests of Alexander the Great]] late in that century created Hellenistic kingdoms around the Mediterranean and Near East, including Ptolemaic Egypt, and put Greek and non-Greek religions in much closer contact. The resulting [[trans-cultural diffusion|diffusion of cultures]] allowed many religious traditions to spread across the Hellenistic world in the last three centuries BCE. The new mobile cults adapted greatly to appeal to people from a variety of cultures. The cults of Isis and Serapis were among those that expanded in this way.{{sfn|Woolf|2014|pp=73–79}}

Spread by merchants and other Mediterranean travelers, the cults of Isis and Serapis were established in Greek port cities at the end of the fourth century BCE and expanded throughout Greece and Asia Minor during the third and second centuries. The Greek island of [[Delos]] was an early cult center for both deities, and its status as a trading center made it a springboard for the Egyptian cults to diffuse into Italy.{{sfn|Bommas|2012|pp=428–429}} Isis and Serapis were also worshipped at scattered sites in the [[Seleucid Empire]], the Hellenistic kingdom in the Middle East, as far east as [[Iran]], though they disappeared from the region as the Seleucids lost their eastern territory to the [[Parthian Empire]].{{sfn|Ma|2014|pp=133–134}}

Greeks regarded Egyptian religion as exotic and sometimes bizarre, yet full of ancient wisdom.{{sfn|Hornung|2001|pp=19–25}} Like other cults from the eastern regions of the Mediterranean, the cult of Isis attracted Greeks and Romans by playing upon its exotic origins,{{sfn|Bremmer|2014|pp=140–141}} but the form it took after reaching Greece was heavily Hellenized.{{sfn|Bommas|2012|pp=431–432}}

Isis's cult reached Italy and the Roman sphere of influence at some point in the second century BCE.{{sfn|Versluys|2004|pp=443–447}} It was one of many cults that were introduced to Rome as the [[Roman Republic]]'s territory expanded in the last centuries BCE. Authorities in the Republic tried to define which cults were acceptable and which were not, as a way of defining [[Romanitas|Roman cultural identity]] amid the cultural changes brought on by Rome's expansion.{{sfn|Orlin|2010|pp=3–7}} In Isis's case, shrines and altars to her were set up on the [[Capitoline Hill]], at the heart of the city, by private persons in the early first century BCE.{{sfn|Versluys|2004|pp=443–447}} The independence of her cult from the control of Roman authorities made it potentially unsettling to them.{{sfn|Beard|North|Price|1998|p=161}} In the 50s and 40s BCE, when the [[crisis of the Roman Republic]] made many Romans fear that [[pax deorum|peace among the gods]] was being disrupted, the [[Roman Senate]] destroyed these shrines,{{sfn|Takács|1995|pp=64–67}}{{sfn|Orlin|2010|pp=204–207}} although it did not ban Isis from the city outright.{{sfn|Versluys|2004|pp=443–447}}

Egyptian cults faced further hostility during the [[Final War of the Roman Republic]] (32–30 BCE), when Rome, led by [[Octavian]], the future [[Roman emperor|emperor]] Augustus, fought [[Reign of Cleopatra VII|Egypt under Cleopatra VII]].{{sfn|Donalson|2003|pp=124–125}} After Octavian's victory, he banned shrines to Isis and Serapis within the ''[[pomerium]]'', the city's innermost, sacred boundary, but allowed them in parts of the city outside the ''pomerium'', thus marking Egyptian deities as non-Roman but acceptable to Rome.{{sfn|Orlin|2010|p=211}} Despite being temporarily expelled from Rome during the reign of [[Tiberius]] (14–37 CE),{{refn|group="Note"|Tiberius's expulsion of the Egyptian cults was part of a broader reaction against religious practices that were regarded as a threat to order and tradition, including Judaism and [[Hellenistic astrology|astrology]]. [[Josephus]], a Roman-Jewish historian who gives the most detailed account of the expulsion, says the Egyptian cults were targeted because of a scandal in which a man posed as Anubis, with the help of Isis's priests, in order to seduce a Roman noblewoman. Sarolta Takács casts doubt on Josephus's account, arguing that it is fictionalized in order to convey a moral point.{{sfn|Takács|1995|pp=83–86}}}} the Egyptian cults gradually became an accepted part of the Roman religious landscape. The [[Flavian emperors]] in the late first century CE treated Serapis and Isis as patrons of their rule in much the same manner as traditional Roman deities such as [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] and [[Minerva]].{{sfn|Donalson|2003|pp=138–139, 159–162}} Even as it was being integrated into Roman culture, Isis's worship developed new features that emphasized its Egyptian background.{{sfn|Wild|1981|pp=149–151}}{{sfn|Bommas|2012|p=431}}

The cults also expanded into Rome's western [[Roman province|provinces]], beginning along the Mediterranean coast in early imperial times. At their peak in the late second and early third centuries CE, Isis and Serapis were worshipped in most towns across the western empire, though without much presence in the countryside.{{sfn|Bricault|2000|p=206}} Their temples were found from [[Petra]] and [[Palmyra]], in the [[Arabia Petraea|Arabian]] and [[Syria (Roman province)|Syrian]] provinces, to [[Italica]] in [[Hispania|Spain]] and [[Londinium]] in [[Roman Britain|Britain]].{{sfn|Bricault|2001|pp=174–179}} By this time they were on a comparable footing with native Roman deities.{{sfn|Donalson|2003|pp=177, 180–182}}