Isis Worship in the Greek East

Lindsey Mazurek joins me in the Lesche to discuss Isis worship during the Roman Empire, and how it intersected with and contributed to constructions of Greek identity.

Ancient texts

• Apuleius, Metamorphoses (esp. Book 11)
• Plutarch, Isis and Osiris

Also mentioned

• Barrett, Caitlin E. (2019) Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens. Oxford.
• Bricault, Laurent (2005) Recueil des inscriptions concernant les cultes isiaques I-III. Paris.
• Brubaker, Rogers (2006) Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge, Mass.
• Eshleman, Kendra (2012) The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians. Cambridge. 
• Moyer, Ian (2011) Egypt and the Limits of Hellenism. Cambridge. 
• Vasunia, Phiroze (2001) The Gift of the Nile: Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Berkeley. 
• Parker, Grant. (2008) The Making of Roman India. Cambridge.
• Walters, Elizabeth J. (1988) Attic Grave Reliefs That Represent Women in the Dress of Isis. Hesperia Supplement 22.
• Whitmarsh, Tim (2001) Greek Literature and the Roman Empire. Oxford.

About our guest

Lindsey Mazurek is an assistant professor in the Department of Classical Studies at Indiana University. Her research focuses on the intersections of ethnicity, religion, migration, and material culture in the Roman provinces, particularly Greece. She is the author of Isis in a Global Empire: Greek Identity Through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece, which was published with Cambridge University Press in 2022. She also co-directs the Mediterranean Connectivity Initiative, a digital history and archaeology project that examines social ties in Rome's port cities. Her work has appeared in the American Journal of Archaeology, Hesperia, and the Memoirs of the American Academy at Rome.

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Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!

Podcast art: Daniel Blanco
Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius

This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study.

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