The cult of Sarapis in Hellenistic Egypt as a continuation of the policy of "merging peoples"

Sivkina Nataliya Yurievna Doctor of History Professor, Department of Ancient and Medieval History, N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603000, Russia, Nizhegorodskaya oblast', g. Nizhnii Novgorod, ul. Ul'yanova, 2 natalia-sivkina@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Mozherovtseva Aleksandra Dmitrievna Student, Department of History of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod 603000, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 2 santarium_s@mail.ru

The moment when one of Alexander's satraps Ptolemy Lag ascended to the throne of Egypt meant that Egypt itself and its population could no longer live within their own culture and traditions. In an effort to make the state stronger and stronger, the new tsar pursued a policy quite usual for such situations. It was important that the local population and the Greeks who came to the country felt like, if not a single people of Egypt, then at least related, close peoples with a similar culture. Since ancient religions were the basis of the life and worldview of the Egyptians and Greeks, it is quite natural that the kings sought a basis for the rapprochement of peoples in religious politics. Therefore, finding out the effectiveness of such a policy is relevant today.

Ancient authors have left interesting references to the cult of Sarapis, there are versions about the origin of this cult in Egypt, some features of the images of God and the appearance of his temples are given. At the same time, all ancient authors could be familiar with those versions of the Sarapis cult that existed in Rome, Athens, Sicily and other places of the Greco-Roman world, but not in Egypt. Since all the sources relate to later times, none of them can give an exact prehistory of the introduction of the cult, describe its characteristic features inherent in the era of the first Ptolemies. Arrian, Plutarch and Tacitus in their writings give the most famous versions already in their time of how and where this god came from. Strabo, the great geographer of antiquity, along with Pausanias describes how the temples of Sarapis looked and how they survived to the Roman period. But the geographer and perieget were also not contemporaries of the Diadochi and epigones, and were guided in writing their works by other goals than historians. Thus, the source base of the study, although diverse, does not provide a complete and objective picture of the religious policy of the first Ptolemies and the cult of Sarapis, in particular.

Modern researchers cannot ignore this cult, which was an important component of Hellenistic Egypt. A.B. Ranovich ^[6] wrote in more or less detail about the role of the Sarapis cult in the history of the Ptolemaic period in Egypt in the Soviet period, in the post–Soviet period - F.F. Zelinsky ^[1], I.A. Ladynin ^[2], V.P. Porshnev ^[4][5]. Among foreign researchers, the topic of Sarapis and his cult is touched upon in the works of M.I. Rostovtsev ^[7], P. Levek ^[3], T. Wilkinson ^[9] – these works have been translated into Russian, as well as in the works of L. Kenen ^[11], R. Low ^[12], M. Robertson ^[13], J.. Rolandson ^[14] and D. Thompson ^[15]. Within the framework of this study, it is important to compare the features of the policy of "merging of peoples", as seen by Alexander the Great and Diadochi. An analysis of some elements of this policy, manifested by Alexander's successors and in later times, is presented in the works of N.Y. Sivkina ^[8] and F. Shakhermayr ^[10].

In the IV-III centuries BC, the appearance of a god who would have features familiar and understandable to all subjects could become a strong connecting thread for such different groups of the population. As you know, Alexander the Great began to pursue the policy of "merging peoples" (Plut.Alex. 70; Just. XII. 10. 10; 12. 2; Diod. XVIII. 4. 4), although the origins of this policy were laid by his father Philip II ^{[8, p. 158 sl.]}. His introduction of the royal cult was the first attempt to find a religious basis for uniting an ethnically diverse power. In essence, the goal of his policy was to unify the mass of subjects ^{[10, p. 290 sll.]}. The Diadochi abandoned Alexander's plans and did not support the idea of mixing peoples: they probably believed that the merger on the basis of Hellenization would take place by itself ^{[7, p. 191]}. But the royal cult (first the cult of Alexander, then his own) seemed to be a much more successful tool in strengthening power. The Ptolemies, finding themselves in a country with a very extensive pantheon of gods, also pinned their hopes on the establishment and spread of the cult of Sarapis (Serapis), which was supposed to have traditional features for the Egyptian and Greek traditions or, figuratively speaking, represented "Egyptian theology in Greek clothes" ^{[11, p. 40]}.

There are several versions of the cult's origin. Arrian has the earliest mentions in the "Anabasis of Alexander" and Plutarch in the "Comparative Biographies". Both authors call Sarapis the Babylonian god. When Tsar Alexander in Babylon fell ill and his condition worsened, "Pytho and Seleucus were sent to the temple of Serapis to ask God if Alexander should be moved to his temple" (Plut. Alex. 76.4.). Another version is given by Tacitus, he reports about Sarapis as a god from Sinope, who appeared in Egypt as a result of Ptolemy's dream. "In a dream, a young man of extraordinary height and rare beauty appeared to him and ordered: "Send your most faithful friends to Pontus, so that they bring my image from there. It will bring happiness to your kingdom, and greatness and glory to the temple where it will be placed." Hardly had the young man uttered these words when a fiery whirlwind lifted him up to heaven" (Tac. Hist. IV. 83. 1.).Ptolemy's envoys took the statue mentioned by the young man from Sinope and brought it to Rakotis, to the temple, on the site of which "there was an old small temple dedicated to Serapis and Isis" (Tacitus himself indicates that this is the story he heard most often, asking a question about the origin of the statue and the temple (probably it was about the very main temple in Alexandria, whose heyday fell on the era of Ptolemy III). Most likely, this story is nothing more than a temple legend that the priests of the temples of Sarapis, including the one in Rome, could tell visitors.

If we discard the wonderful embellishments, it becomes obvious that a religious reform was carried out in Egypt, carried out by the ancestor of the new dynasty of Egyptian kings ^{[1, p. 213]}. It is possible to note another version of the origin of this god and his cult, to which many researchers are inclined, and which Tacitus also mentions. He writes: "There are also people who believe that it was brought by the same Ptolemy mentioned above [Ptolemy I Soter], but not from Sinope, but from Memphis, the stronghold of ancient Egypt, which once enjoyed great fame" (Tac. Hist. IV. 84. 4.). The latter the version agrees with the theory that the new cult of Sarapis is based on the Memphis cult of the deified bull Apis – a bull dedicated to Osiris and embodying him or the god Apis, revered in Memphis ^{[12, p. 154.]}. Ptolemy became acquainted with this cult during his residence in Memphis as a satrap, waiting for the construction of Alexandria. The fusion of Apis and Osiris as Osorapis formed the basis for the development of a new cult ^{[15, p. 107]}. The very name of god – "" (Dorich. "") – was borrowed from the depths of Egyptian symbolism, denoting "who became Apis – Osiris" ^{[1, p. 214.]}, which sounded like "Serapis" to the Hellenic ear.

Ptolemy showed enough reverence and respect for local cults that revered sacred animals as embodiments of certain gods. Of these, the cult of the bull Apis was one of the most famous, not the least role was played by the connection of the cult with the royal power, which can be traced back to the time of the I dynasty ^{[9, p. 499]}. The fact is that in Egypt, the cult of leaders in relation to the pharaohs has become a thing of the past, more precisely, it has acquired a rather curious form in the heb-sed ritual. The cult retained a purer form only in relation to the bull Apis. It is likely that this fact influenced Ptolemy's choice. In other words, the cult of Sarapis was created on the basis of the cult of Apis with admixtures of elements and traditions of other cults, including non-Egyptian ones. During the reign of the first Ptolemies, this deity was quite acceptable to both the Egyptians and the Greeks, because the first was more important the name of God, which was the basis of his divinity, and the latter did not pay attention to the names of the gods, they were for them a "changing robe of divine nature", and in the same Sarapis the Greeks could see someone another of his gods ^{[1, p. 215.]}.

In promoting the cult of Sarapis, a great role was played by the founder of the Museum, Demetrius Falersky, who composed a hymn of praise in honor of the new god (Diog. Laert. V. 5. 76), the priest Timothy, a connoisseur of the ancient Eleusinian mysteries, who perfectly mastered the language of the Egyptians and made translations from it into Greek, and the Egyptian Manetho, who wrote works on Egyptian history and religion for the Greeks in those years, which replenished the Library of Alexandria ^{[4, p. 306.]}.

Due to the fact that the Egyptian gods did not have clearly assigned specific functions, it is extremely difficult for modern researchers, as well as for the Greek contemporaries of the Ptolemies, to distinguish with which of the Egyptian or Greek gods to associate a new god. "Some consider this God to be Aesculapius, since he cures diseases, others Osiris – the oldest deity of Egypt; many say that since he rules over existence, it must be Jupiter; most see him as the father of the Child, since many signs point to this directly, and others can be interpreted in the same sense"(Tac. Hist. IV. 84. 5). Poseidon, Dionysus and even Zeus can be added to these analogies: the inscription "one Zeus-Sarapis" is often found ^{[1, p. 221.]}

Such associations and analogies are not accidental. For the Egyptians, Osiris is the main god of the "pantheon" (the Egyptian gods did not have a clear hierarchy and structure like the Greek or Roman ones), the king of the afterlife, the judge of the departed souls, it was he who determined the fate of the soul in eternal life. This cult was quite understandable to them: there were a huge number of animal cults that were declared earthly incarnations of Egyptian gods, the Pharaoh himself was the incarnation and son of the patron god of Egypt ^{[1, p. 213.]}, therefore, for the local population, the cult of Serapis at first did not stand out particularly from a number of cults familiar to the local population.

For the Greeks, this cult and these gods were unfamiliar and strange, so the Greek population used all sorts of associations and explanations like those that can be seen in Tacitus. Such a variety of comparisons can be explained by the fact that in different polis and regions where the Greeks lived, there were different gods who were revered more than others – Zeus, Dionysus or others, therefore, for the Greeks who came to Egypt, Sarapis became an analogue of the god they revered. Ptolemy I did everything to give immigrants a religious center that they could identify with their new home, but which would not be alien to them, like the Egyptian zoomorphic deities ^{[14, p. 252.]}. It should not be forgotten that Ptolemy pursued another, more important goal for him: he wanted to the sign of a unifying religion is to unite both elements of one's people, the Greek with the native ^{[1, p. 213]}.

Although Sarapis is obviously of Egyptian origin, there are no traces of anything non-Hellenic in his images ^[13]. In the sculptures of Sarapis, modium is used as one of his symbols – a small basket that is often found in descriptions and images of Hades (Pluto), this element even at that time puzzled many Greeks. There is an interesting story explaining why the Hellenistic god Sarapis is so similar to Hades (Pluto), and it is connected with the most famous statue of authorship, presumably by the sculptor Bryaxides. Briaxides lived and worked almost half a century before the cult of Sarapis appeared, and he obviously could not know about this god. It turns out that Bryaxides, the main artist in Anatolia (namely, the city of Sinope is located there), sculpted their Pluto for the Sinopians, whom Ptolemy then transported to Alexandria ^{[1, p. 215]}, and this story with the transportation of the statue could well form the basis of the legend that appeared later. But from the moment the statue settled in Egypt, Sarapis began to be depicted in the image of a middle-aged man with a magnificent head of hair and beard, a head decorated with a modium (the image of a grain measure [the same basket of Hades]), with a benevolent and serene expression on his face ^{[3, p. 152.]} Egyptian features like sphinxes were probably more similar to temples of Greek types.

Although the Egyptian nature of Sarapis was emphasized by the Ptolemies themselves, however, it was a little closer to the Greeks than to the Egyptians, for obvious reasons. On the one hand, there are famous places of worship in and near Alexandria, where images of local gods were collected in abundance from all over Egypt: these are the temples of Sarapis on Rakotis and in Canope, built by Ptolemy III in the middle of the III century BC ^{[2, p. 163]}. This was done intentionally, since among the Egyptians it was believed that a temple was a home for one or more gods. Therefore, the collection of images of local gods was designed to prove to local subjects that Sarapis is an ancient god accepted by other gods, since they ordered their statues to be placed in his temple. Another proof of the antiquity of the Sarapis cult was to be the construction of a temple in Memphis, in his "homeland". However, the very location of the cult structure clearly indicates what place this god occupied in the "pantheon" of the Egyptians: "There is also a Sarapium in Memphis, located in a very sandy place, so that the winds pile up sand hills there" (Strab. XVII. I. 32.), and the sphinxes leading to this temple (the alley of sphinxes led to many Egyptian temples) were covered with sand. The Egyptians themselves did not treat this god the way they usually treated their gods: they knew exactly which gods were ancient and which were not ^{[9, p. 499]}. Sarapis turned out to be alien to the Egyptians.

At first, the local population calmly perceived the deity, apparently, as another form of the existence of Osiris. Their attitude changed with the beginning of the crisis in the Ptolemaic power and the fall of their authority among the Egyptians. The first Ptolemies in the perception of the Egyptians were quite similar to the former Pharaohs. Since Ptolemy IV or Ptolemy V, the population has already begun to dream of a national king and of Memphis as its capital ^{[7, p. 196]}, the Egyptians ceased to honor the royal cult, and after him the cult of Sarapis became completely unnecessary to them. There is also some similarity with the position of the Greeks. But if the Egyptians turned away from Sarapis because of the humiliating policy of the kings towards the local population, then the Greeks who lived in Egypt initially had no urgent need to worship this god.

Having become the divine patron of Alexandria, Serapis outside its borders was an object of veneration almost exclusively in the regions of Egypt inhabited by Greek colonists ^{[5, p.106.]}.Thus, this god, on the one hand, was close and understandable to the Greeks, but on the other hand, Sarapis had the most worshippers outside Egypt. It was attested in Halicarnassus already in 307. Nicocreon introduced it in Cyprus. But the cult of Sarapis was also established in Athens (Paus. I. 18. 4). The Sicilian tyrant Agathocles, having married Ptolemy's stepdaughter, Taoxena, introduced the veneration of a new deity ^{[6, p. 174]}. Even in Rome, by the end of the I century BC, an altar or a small temple belonging to Sarapis appeared. By the end of the dynasty, the situation develops in such a way that the Ptolemies, in order not to shake their position even more, will have to practically stop financing and supporting this cult, returning to the support of more traditional Greek gods. Moreover, the rejection of Sarapis by the Greeks had reasons going back to the period of the reign of Ptolemy I Soter. The Greeks considered themselves masters in the East and would by no means be satisfied with the modest role of persons of equal rights to local residents ^{[7, p.191]}. And even those of them who belonged to the second or third generation, born in Egypt, continued to consider the polis from where their ancestors came as their homeland, and Egypt itself was only a place where they could enrich themselves. Egypt was not perceived by them as a homeland, for the good and glory of which it was necessary to live and create ^{[5, p. 105]}. Even the scientists invited to the Museum considered their residence in Egypt as something temporary, and most of them eventually left for their homeland or for other cities of the Greek world. Therefore, they did not need a god who had the features of the patron god of their real homeland, since they could freely honor Dionysus, Zeus or someone else on the territory of Egypt.

Thus, the attempt to establish the cult of Sarapis did not lead to the achievement of political goals, there was no unity of the population on a religious basis. Sarapis was one of the attempts to fill the void ^{[11, p. 44]} between Egyptians and non-Egyptians and unite the too diverse population of Egypt. The cult showed hopes of success only at first: with strong rulers, successful foreign and domestic policy and the hope for the future participation of local segments of the population in various spheres of life on a par with the Greek-Macedonian. It was assumed that due to the familiar, familiar and recognizable features of their gods, both for the Egyptians and for the Greeks, Sarapis would become a popular and revered deity of a new, common pantheon. And the universal cult of this god will contribute to the unity and fusion of different ethnic groups into a single people of Egypt. The first Ptolemies, unlike Alexander the Great, abandoned the policy of "merging peoples". But, needing a single basis to strengthen their power, they preferred to preserve and develop at first only the religious aspect of this policy. The reality turned out to be much more complicated. The cult of Sarapis did not achieve the goal of its creation in the Ptolemaic empire without becoming a link between the Egyptians and the Greeks, on the contrary, it rather divided the subjects than united them. The ordinary strata of the Egyptian population rejected this cult, because in their eyes it was identified with the dynasty, which by II BC had established a rigid oppression in the economy, emphasizing the difference in the position of the Greeks and Egyptians in all spheres of life. The Hellenes did not perceive Egypt as their homeland, they had their own patron gods of policies or various occupations. The cult of Sarapis was very popular outside Egypt, but only as another exotic oriental cult. The peculiarities of the perception of the cult of Sarapis in Ptolemaic Egypt show the inconsistency not of the entire policy of "merging of peoples" conceived by Alexander, but just its limited and inconsistent implementation.