ISIS Procession
'and behind them came the special procession of the Saviour Goddess.
Women crowned joyfully with spring flowers pulled more flowers out of the folds of their beautiful white dresses and scattered them along the road. Next came women with polished mirrors tied to the backs of their heads, which gave all who followed them the illusion of coming to meet the goddess. Then a party of women with ivory combs in their hands whose gestures of arms and hands declared that they were to dress and adorn tile goddess's royal hair, and another party who sprinkled the road with balsam and other precious perfumes; and behind these a mixed company of women and men who honoured the Daughter of the Heavenly Stars by carrying lamps, torches, wax-candles and so forth.
Next came musicians with sweetly harmonious pipes and flutes, followed by a party of carefully chosen boys in white ceremonial robes, singing a hymn in which a clever poet, by the favour of the Muses, had composed the prelude that explained the origin of the procession. The temple pipers of the great god Sarapis were there, too, playing their religious anthem on pipes with slanting mouthpieces and tubes curving around their right ears; also a number of men crying out that room should be made for the goddess to pass. Then followed a great crowd of the goddess's initiates, men and women of all classes and every age, their pure white linen clothes shining brightly. The women wore their hair tied up in glossy coils under diaphanous head-dresses; the men's heads were completely shaven and gleaming, representing the great goddess's earthly stars, and they carried rattles of brass, silver and even gold, which kept up a shrill tinkling.
The leading ministers of the sacred rites, also clothed in white linen drawn tight across their chests and hanging down to their feet, carried emblems of the most powerful deities. The first minister held a bright lamp, which was not at all like the lamps we use at night banquets; it was a golden boat-shaped affair with a tall tongue of flame mounting from a hole in the centre. The second priest held a sacrificial pot in each of his hands - the Latin name, auxiliaria, refers to the goddess's providence in helping her devotees. The third priest carried a miniature gold palm-tree with cleverly fashioned leaves, also the serpent wand of Mercury. The fourth carried the imperfectly executed model of a left hand with the fingers stretched out, which is an emblem of justice, because the left hand, with its natural slowness and lack of any craft or subtlety, seems more impartial than the right. He also held a golden vessel, rounded in the shape of a woman's breast, from the nipple of which a thin stream of milk fell to the ground. The fifth carried a winnowing-fan heaped up with sprigs made of gold. Then came another man, carrying a wine-jar.
Next in the procession followed those deities that deigned to walk on human feet. Here was the frightening messenger of the gods of Heaven, and of the gods of the dead: Anubis, lifting up his dog's head with a face black on one side, golden on the other, walking erect and holding his herald's wand in his left hand and in his right, a green palm-branch. Behind, a man stepped along solemnly and happily, carrying on his shoulders the lofty statue of a standing cow, representing the goddess as the fruitful Mother of us all. Then along came a priest with a box containing the secret implements of her wonderful cult. Another fortunate priest had an ancient emblem of her godhead upon his robe: this was not made in the shape of any beast, wild or tame, or any bird or human being, but the exquisite beauty of its workmanship no less than the originality of its design called for admiration and awe. It was a symbol of the sublime and ineffable mysteries of the goddess, which are never to be divulged: a small vessel of burnished gold, upon which pictures in the Egyptian manner were cunningly engraved, with a rounded bottom, a long, low spout and widely projecting handle along which lay an asp, raising its head and displaying its scaly, wrinkled, puffed-out throat.'
‘Meanwhile the pageant moved slowly on, and we approached the sea-shore, at last reaching the very place where on the previous night I had lain down as an ass. There the divine emblems were arranged in due order and there with solemn prayers the chaste-lipped priest consecrated and dedicated to the goddess a beautifully built ship, with wonderful Egyptian pictorial signs painted over the entire hull; but first he carefully purified it with a lighted torch, an egg and sulphur. The sail was shining white linen, inscribed with the prayer for the goddess's protection of shipping during the new sailing season. The fir mast with its shining head rose aloft, the gilded stern was fashioned like a goose, and the entire ship was made of highly polished, glittering citron-wood. Then all present, both priesthood and laity, began zealously stowing aboard winnowing-fans heaped with spices and other votive offerings, and poured a milk-paste into the sea as a libation. When the ship was loaded with generous gifts and prayers for good fortune, they cut the anchor cables and she slipped across the bay with a serene breeze behind her that seemed to have sprung up for her sake alone. When she stood so far out to sea that we could no longer keep her in view, the men who had brought the sacred emblems then carried them away again and started happily back towards the temple, in the same orderly procession as before.
On our arrival at the shrine the priest and those who carried the oracular emblems were admitted into the goddess's sanctuary, along with others who had been earlier initiated into the sacred precinct, and restored the emblems to their proper places. Then one of them, whom everyone knew as the scribe, presided at the gate of the sanctuary over a meeting of the Shrine-bearers, as this holy Order is called. He went up into a high pulpit and read out of a book blessings upon 'the mighty Emperor, and upon the Senate, and upon the Order of Knights, and upon the whole people of Rome, and upon all sailors and 'all ships who owe obedience to our Empire'. Then he uttered, in the Greek tongue and ritual, the word Ploeaphesia, meaning that vessels were now permitted to sail, to which the people responded with a great cheer and dispersed happily to their homes, taking with them green boughs, leafy branches and garlands of flowers, but first kissing the feet of a silver statue of the goddess that stood on the temple steps.’
Women crowned joyfully with spring flowers pulled more flowers out of the folds of their beautiful white dresses and scattered them along the road. Next came women with polished mirrors tied to the backs of their heads, which gave all who followed them the illusion of coming to meet the goddess. Then a party of women with ivory combs in their hands whose gestures of arms and hands declared that they were to dress and adorn tile goddess's royal hair, and another party who sprinkled the road with balsam and other precious perfumes; and behind these a mixed company of women and men who honoured the Daughter of the Heavenly Stars by carrying lamps, torches, wax-candles and so forth.
Next came musicians with sweetly harmonious pipes and flutes, followed by a party of carefully chosen boys in white ceremonial robes, singing a hymn in which a clever poet, by the favour of the Muses, had composed the prelude that explained the origin of the procession. The temple pipers of the great god Sarapis were there, too, playing their religious anthem on pipes with slanting mouthpieces and tubes curving around their right ears; also a number of men crying out that room should be made for the goddess to pass. Then followed a great crowd of the goddess's initiates, men and women of all classes and every age, their pure white linen clothes shining brightly. The women wore their hair tied up in glossy coils under diaphanous head-dresses; the men's heads were completely shaven and gleaming, representing the great goddess's earthly stars, and they carried rattles of brass, silver and even gold, which kept up a shrill tinkling.
The leading ministers of the sacred rites, also clothed in white linen drawn tight across their chests and hanging down to their feet, carried emblems of the most powerful deities. The first minister held a bright lamp, which was not at all like the lamps we use at night banquets; it was a golden boat-shaped affair with a tall tongue of flame mounting from a hole in the centre. The second priest held a sacrificial pot in each of his hands - the Latin name, auxiliaria, refers to the goddess's providence in helping her devotees. The third priest carried a miniature gold palm-tree with cleverly fashioned leaves, also the serpent wand of Mercury. The fourth carried the imperfectly executed model of a left hand with the fingers stretched out, which is an emblem of justice, because the left hand, with its natural slowness and lack of any craft or subtlety, seems more impartial than the right. He also held a golden vessel, rounded in the shape of a woman's breast, from the nipple of which a thin stream of milk fell to the ground. The fifth carried a winnowing-fan heaped up with sprigs made of gold. Then came another man, carrying a wine-jar.
Next in the procession followed those deities that deigned to walk on human feet. Here was the frightening messenger of the gods of Heaven, and of the gods of the dead: Anubis, lifting up his dog's head with a face black on one side, golden on the other, walking erect and holding his herald's wand in his left hand and in his right, a green palm-branch. Behind, a man stepped along solemnly and happily, carrying on his shoulders the lofty statue of a standing cow, representing the goddess as the fruitful Mother of us all. Then along came a priest with a box containing the secret implements of her wonderful cult. Another fortunate priest had an ancient emblem of her godhead upon his robe: this was not made in the shape of any beast, wild or tame, or any bird or human being, but the exquisite beauty of its workmanship no less than the originality of its design called for admiration and awe. It was a symbol of the sublime and ineffable mysteries of the goddess, which are never to be divulged: a small vessel of burnished gold, upon which pictures in the Egyptian manner were cunningly engraved, with a rounded bottom, a long, low spout and widely projecting handle along which lay an asp, raising its head and displaying its scaly, wrinkled, puffed-out throat.'
‘Meanwhile the pageant moved slowly on, and we approached the sea-shore, at last reaching the very place where on the previous night I had lain down as an ass. There the divine emblems were arranged in due order and there with solemn prayers the chaste-lipped priest consecrated and dedicated to the goddess a beautifully built ship, with wonderful Egyptian pictorial signs painted over the entire hull; but first he carefully purified it with a lighted torch, an egg and sulphur. The sail was shining white linen, inscribed with the prayer for the goddess's protection of shipping during the new sailing season. The fir mast with its shining head rose aloft, the gilded stern was fashioned like a goose, and the entire ship was made of highly polished, glittering citron-wood. Then all present, both priesthood and laity, began zealously stowing aboard winnowing-fans heaped with spices and other votive offerings, and poured a milk-paste into the sea as a libation. When the ship was loaded with generous gifts and prayers for good fortune, they cut the anchor cables and she slipped across the bay with a serene breeze behind her that seemed to have sprung up for her sake alone. When she stood so far out to sea that we could no longer keep her in view, the men who had brought the sacred emblems then carried them away again and started happily back towards the temple, in the same orderly procession as before.
On our arrival at the shrine the priest and those who carried the oracular emblems were admitted into the goddess's sanctuary, along with others who had been earlier initiated into the sacred precinct, and restored the emblems to their proper places. Then one of them, whom everyone knew as the scribe, presided at the gate of the sanctuary over a meeting of the Shrine-bearers, as this holy Order is called. He went up into a high pulpit and read out of a book blessings upon 'the mighty Emperor, and upon the Senate, and upon the Order of Knights, and upon the whole people of Rome, and upon all sailors and 'all ships who owe obedience to our Empire'. Then he uttered, in the Greek tongue and ritual, the word Ploeaphesia, meaning that vessels were now permitted to sail, to which the people responded with a great cheer and dispersed happily to their homes, taking with them green boughs, leafy branches and garlands of flowers, but first kissing the feet of a silver statue of the goddess that stood on the temple steps.’