chapter 4

What is an Isiac Priest in the Greek World?*

Paraskevi Martzavou

1 Isiac Priests: Constructing an Object of Study

In what follows, I will seek to answer the multi-layered question of the title by
working through a number of case-studies in their own significant contexts.
Our first question, however, is one of definition: What is an Isiac priest? The
answer will act as a red thread throughout the discussion of the evidence.
I define Isiac priests in the Greek world as the priests and ritual specialists
who served a number of gods considered to be of Egyptian origin (that is, Isis,
Osiris, Sarapis, Harpocrates, Anubis/Hermanubis, Horus, Apis, Bubastis, Neilos,
Nephthys)1 within a Greek cultural space, but outside the geographical terri-
tory of Egypt.2 I hence follow the most recent scholarship, which has presented
strong arguments for defining whatever concerns the cults of these divinities
as Isiac rather than “Egyptian”, from the late Hellenistic period onwards.3
It is hence not difficult to consider the Isiac priests as a sub-category of
the larger comprehensive category of “Greek priests”,4 priestly officials in the

* I warmly thank Valentino Gasparini and Richard Veymiers for their kind invitation to partici-
pate in the double conference (Erfurt/Liège) on the agents of the Isiac cults and I especially
thank R. Veymiers for bibliographical feedback. I owe further thanks to Nicole Belayche, Riet
van Bremen, Angelos Chaniotis, and Constantinos Macris for discussion of various aspects
of this theme. All omissions and errors remain, of course, my own. I am glad to thank the
Emotions project, affiliated to the University of Oxford, which in the summer of 2013 funded
part of the research leading to this paper.
1  See Malaise 2005a, 33–78.
2  For other definitions of priests, see Dignas 2002, 73–88, and Bricault 2013a, 256–286. Both
emphasize the difference between the priest who is in charge of the entire sanctuary and the
ritual specialists. See also Pirenne-Delforge & Georgoudi 2005, 3–31.
3  See Malaise 2005a, 29, who reformulates a definition by Bricault 2000b, 91, and presents the
full argumentation for the modification of the terminology. See more recently Bricault &
Veymiers 2012, 5–6, who insist on the necessity to integrate the Nilotic landscape.
4  On Greek priests, see Pirenne-Delforge & Georgoudi 2005; Dignas & Trampedach 2008;
Horster & Klöckner 2012; Dignas, Parker & Stroumsa 2013; Horster & Klöckner 2013. On the
diachronic approach, see Bremmer 2012, especially 231.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004381346_006

128 Martzavou

Greek cultural space who share a number of general features: for example,
from the point of view of socio-ethnic profile, a Greek priest is someone who
has by birth the possibility to carry out ritual acts;5 as concerns ritual aspects,
a priest has mainly to organise the sacrifice and other secondary rituals and,
for example, to take the first place in processions or to hold the key of the
temple. However, the ways of empirical classification of Greek priests con-
stantly overlap, forcing us to continuously reconsider their taxonomy. In ad-
dition, recent progress in prosopography, in onomastics and in the study of
visual documents has led to further thought on “priests” and, consequently, to
reconsider ancient priesthoods.6 Within a general trend of reflection on priests
in the Graeco-Roman world, the category of Greek priests can easily be prob-
lematized.7 As Albert Henrichs revealingly observed, “no single term, whether
priest or sacerdos, can do justice to the plethora of words that designate cult
officials in Greek polytheism”.8
If this is applicable to the practitioners of the sacred in Greek polytheism,
the same point about complexity and fluidity holds true for the study of prac-
titioners of sacred rituals of the Isiac milieu, on account of the multiple origins
of many rituals (allegedly “foreign”, and notably Egyptian) and the phenomena
of reception and adaptation between Egyptian and Greek cultural systems.
The phenomenon of Isiac priesthoods in Greek cultural space offers simulta-
neously distinct and blurred vistas on the question of being a Greek priest.
The abundance of the terms describing the priests and priestly officials in
the Isiac cults is impressive, reflecting the sophistication and diversity of ritu-
als within the Isiac cults.9 Some aspects of Isiac priesthoods take on particular
relief when compared to other cults. One such aspect is the eventual presence
of ritual specialists by the side of the principal priest.10 Another is the heredi-
tary character of some Isiac priesthoods, which is considered to be the norm

5  Stavrianopoulou 2009, 214.

6  On methodology, see Henrichs 2008; also Pirenne-Delforge & Georgoudi 2005; Martzavou
2011. On the importance of visual material in Isiac priestly contexts and meanings, see
Tallet 2012a. On the differences between priests and priestesses, see Lambert 2012, es-
pecially 77–81. On a new interpretative approach to material culture, see Knappet &
Malafouris 2008 and Knappet 2011.
7  See Dignas 2008 (with Martzavou 2009); see also Dignas, Parker & Stroumsa 2013, for
studying priests in interactive environments.
8  Henrichs 2008, 1–14.
9  See for example the indices in RICIS, p. 779–784.
10  In Priene, for example, the priest has to provide the “Egyptian”, a specialist who is able to
assist with his experience the sacrifice; see RICIS 304/0802, ll. 20–21. Cf. Stavrianopoulou
2005.