coexisted, but we cannot know for which clientele they were destined. The frequency
of a motif allows us at best to estimate the ‘‘popularity’’ of this or that aspect of the
goddess. Isis Aphrodite, the nude goddess, and the ‘‘divine mother’’ Isis, suckling
Harpocrates, are particularly widespread, and perhaps reflect the preferences of a
female clientele.
Sarapis
However, the god that came to embody Alexandria and even, in the eyes of the
Greeks, Egyptian religion as a whole, was paradoxically a parvenu, an artificial
creation, Sarapis. The couple he formed with Isis came to supplant (except in the
funerary domain) the ancient couple of Osiris–Isis.
The ‘‘creation’’ of Sarapis is one of the most surprising episodes in the religious
history of Alexandria. The date and the circumstances of his creation remain contro-
versial. Relatively late traditions mention the existence of a sanctuary of the god on
the site where, in the due course, the city was to be founded. Others tell that
Alexander decided to have the architect Parmenion build a temple for him. However,
the oldest tradition and the best established one, transmitted by Plutarch, amongst
others, refers to a dream experienced by Ptolemy I (r. 323–282 BC), in the course
of which there appeared to him the colossal statue of a god he did not recognize.
The god told him that he lived at Sinope, a Greek colony on the Black Sea, and
commanded him to bring his statue to Alexandria. Accordingly, the king sent to
find the statue. Once it had arrived in Alexandria, the king’s advisors, the Eumolpid
Timotheus and Manetho of Sebennytos, identified it as representing the god Pluto
and asserted that he was none other than Sarapis, which was ‘‘the Egyptian name for
Pluto’’ (Plutarch,On Isis and Osiris361f–362e). As it stands, this narrative presents a
number of implausibilities. The theme of a dream apparition is a cliche ́found in
various accounts of this type: there was no better means of affirming the importance
and legitimacy of a cult than to attribute its foundation to the clearly expressed will of
a god. The motif of a statue brought from a foreign sanctuary – in this case a Greek
city – is equally quite common; it could serve to justify the fact that the images of the
new god were completely Greek. But it is clear that this god was fundamentally of
Egyptian origin. His name is already found in the form Osorapis or Oserapis in Greek
documents prior to Alexander’s conquest, such as the ‘‘curse of Artemisia,’’ a text of
the fourth century BC in which a woman invokes ‘‘Oserapis and the gods who sit
with him’’ against her husband who has wronged her (UPZi.1). This god was none
other than the dead Apis, become an ‘‘Osiris,’’ as did every dead person in receipt of
funerary rites. He had a cult at Memphis where he took the form of a man with a
bull’s head (Fazzini 1988:9).
It seems, therefore, that Ptolemy I and his advisors appropriated a Memphite god
to make him the protector of the new city. But they also wanted to give this god Greek
characteristics: Sarapis is represented as a bearded old man with abundant curly hair
and a nude torso, or alternatively dressed in the Greek fashion withchito ̄nand
himation. He leans on a long staff and rests his right hand on the three-headed
dog Cerberus, who sits beside him (Hornbostel 1973). This image, of which
many examples survive in diverse formats and media, was held to be modeled on a
The Religious System at Alexandria 259