Greek city of Menainon in Sicily
Bronze Tetras 20mm (4.14 grams) Struck circa 175-125 B.C.
Reference: Calciati III pg. 183, 1; SNG ANS 292 variety; RARE
Laureate and draped bust of Zeus Serapis right; lotus flower in hair; E behind.
MENAINΩN, Nike driving galloping biga right.

 Founded in 459 B.C., Menainon was the subject to Syracuse for much of its history down to the time of the Roman conquest at the end of the 3rd Century.

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Serapis  is a Graeco-Egyptian god. Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography from a great many cults, signifying both abundance and resurrection. A serapeum (Greek serapeion) was any temple or religious precinct devoted to Serapis. The cultus of Serapis was spread as a matter of deliberate policy by the Ptolemaic kings , who also built an immense Serapeum in Alexandria.

Serapis continued to increase in popularity during the Roman period , often replacing Osiris as the consort of Isis in temples outside Egypt. In 389, a mob led by the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria destroyed the Alexandrian Serapeum, but the cult survived until all forms of religion other than Nicene Christianity were suppressed or abolished under Theodosius I in 391.

About the god

This pendant bearing Serapis's likeness would have been worn by a member of elite Egyptian society. Walters Art Museum , Baltimore .

"Serapis" is the only form used in Latin, but both Ancient Greek : Σάραπις Sárapis and Ancient Greek : Σέραπις Sérapis appear in Greek, as well as Ancient Greek : Σαραπo Serapo in Bactrian.

His most renowned temple was the Serapeum of Alexandria . Under Ptolemy Soter , efforts were made to integrate Egyptian religion with that of their Hellenic rulers. Ptolemy's policy was to find a deity that should win the reverence alike of both groups, despite the curses of the Egyptian priests against the gods of the previous foreign rulers (e.g. Set , who was lauded by the Hyksos ). Alexander the Great had attempted to use Amun for this purpose, but he was more prominent in Upper Egypt , and not as popular with those in Lower Egypt , where the Greeks had stronger influence. The Greeks had little respect for animal-headed figures, and so a Greek-style anthropomorphic statue was chosen as the idol , and proclaimed as the equivalent of the highly popular Apis . It was named Aser-hapi (i.e. Osiris-Apis), which became Serapis, and was said to be Osiris in full, rather than just his Ka (life force).

History

The earliest mention of a Serapis is in the disputed death scene of Alexander (323 BC). Here, Serapis has a temple at Babylon , and is of such importance that he alone is named as being consulted on behalf of the dying king. His presence in Babylon would radically alter perceptions of the mythologies of this era: the unconnected Babylonian god Ea (Enki) was titled Serapsi, meaning 'king of the deep', and it is possible this Serapis is the one referred to in the diaries. The significance of this Serapsi in the Hellenic psyche, due to its involvement in Alexander's death, may have also contributed to the choice of Osiris-Apis as the chief Ptolemaic god.

According to Plutarch , Ptolemy stole the cult statue from Sinope , having been instructed in a dream by the "unknown god" to bring the statue to Alexandria , where the statue was pronounced to be Serapis by two religious experts. One of the experts was of the Eumolpidae , the ancient family from whose members the hierophant of the Eleusinian Mysteries had been chosen since before history, and the other was the scholarly Egyptian priest Manetho , which gave weight to the judgement both for the Egyptians and the Greeks.

Plutarch may not be correct, however, as some Egyptologists allege that the Sinope in the tale is really the hill of Sinopeion, a name given to the site of the already existing Serapeum at Memphis . Also, according to Tacitus , Serapis (i.e., Apis explicitly identified as Osiris in full) had been the god of the village of Rhakotis before it expanded into the great capital of Alexandria.

High Clerk in the Cult of Serapis, Altes Museum , Berlin

The statue suitably depicted a figure resembling Hades or Pluto , both being kings of the Greek underworld , and was shown enthroned with the modius , a basket/grain-measure, on his head, since it was a Greek symbol for the land of the dead. He also held a sceptre in his hand indicating his rulership, with Cerberus , gatekeeper of the underworld, resting at his feet, and it also had what appeared to be a serpent at its base, fitting the Egyptian symbol of rulership, the uraeus .

With his (i.e. Osiris's) wife Isis, and their son Horus (in the form of Harpocrates ), Serapis won an important place in the Greek world . In his Description of Greece, Pausanias notes two Serapeia on the slopes of Acrocorinth , above the rebuilt Roman city of Corinth and one at Copae in Boeotia.

Serapis was among the international deities whose cult was received and disseminated throughout the Roman Empire, with Anubis sometimes identified with Cerberus. At Rome, Serapis was worshiped in the Iseum Campense, the sanctuary of Isis built during the Second Triumvirate in the Campus Martius . The Roman cults of Isis and Serapis gained in popularity late in the 1st century when Vespasian experienced events he attributed to their miraculous agency while he was in Alexandria, where he stayed before returning to Rome as emperor in 70. From the Flavian Dynasty on, Serapis was one of the deities who might appear on imperial coinage with the reigning emperor.

The main cult at Alexandria survived until the late 4th century, when a Christian mob destroyed the Serapeum of Alexandria in 385, and the cult was part of the general proscription of religions other than approved forms of Christianity under the Theodosian decree .

Gallery

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  Oil lamp with a bust of Serapis, flanked by a crescent moon and star (Roman-era Ephesus , 100-150)
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  Statuette possibly of Serapis (but note the herculean club) from Begram , Afghanistan
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  Head of Serapis, from a 12-foot statue found off the coast of Alexandria
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  Head of Serapis (Roman-era Hellenistic terracotta, Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich)

In Greek mythology , Nike was a goddess who personified victory , also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. The Roman equivalent was Victoria . Depending upon the time of various myths, she was described as the daughter of Pallas (Titan) and Styx (Water) and the sister of Kratos (Strength), Bia (Force), and Zelus (Zeal). Nike and her siblings were close companions of Zeus , the dominant deity of the Greek pantheon . According to classical (later) myth, Styx brought them to Zeus when the god was assembling allies for the Titan War against the older deities. Nike assumed the role of the divine charioteer , a role in which she often is portrayed in Classical Greek art. Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the victors with glory and fame.

Nike is seen with wings in most statues and paintings. Most other winged deities in the Greek pantheon had shed their wings by Classical times. Nike is the goddess of strength, speed, and victory. Nike was a very close acquaintance of Athena , and is thought to have stood in Athena's outstretched hand in the statue of Athena located in the Parthenon. Nike is one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins.

Names stemming from Nike include amongst others: Nicholas , Nicola, Nick, Nikolai, Nils, Klaas, Nicole, Ike, Niki, Nikita, Nika, Niketas, and Nico.

The biga (Latin, plural bigae) is the two-horse chariot as used in ancient Rome for sport, transportation, and ceremonies. Other animals may replace horses in art and occasionally for actual ceremonies. The term biga is also used by modern scholars for the similar chariots of other Indo-European cultures, particularly the two-horse chariot of the ancient Greeks and Celts . The driver of a biga is a bigarius.

Other Latin words that distinguish chariots by the number of animals yoked as a team are quadriga , a four-horse chariot used for racing and associated with the Roman triumph ; triga, or three-horse chariot, probably driven for ceremonies more often than racing (see Trigarium ); and seiugis or seiuga, the six-horse chariot, more rarely raced and requiring a high degree of skill from the driver. The biga and quadriga are the most common types.

Two-horse chariots are a common icon on Roman coins ; see bigatus , a type of denarius so called because it depicted a biga. In the iconography of religion and cosmology , the biga represents the moon, as the quadriga does the sun.

Greek and Indo-European background

 

Procession of two-horses chariots on a loutrophoros , c. 690 BC

The earliest reference to a chariot race in Western literature is an event in the funeral games of Patroclus in the Iliad . In Homeric warfare, elite warriors were transported to the battlefield in two-horse chariots, but fought on foot; the chariot was then used for pursuit or flight. Most Bronze Age chariots uncovered by archaeology in Peloponnesian Greece are bigae.

The date at which chariot races were introduced at the Olympian Games is recorded by later sources as 680 BC, when quadrigae competed. Races on horseback were added in 648. At Athens, two-horse chariot races were a part of athletic competitions from the 560s onward, but were still not a part of the Olympian Games. Bigae drawn by mules competed in the 70th Olympiad (500 BC), but they were no longer part of the games after the 84th Olympiad (444 BC). Not until 408 BC did bigae races begin to be featured at Olympia.

In myth, the biga often functions structurally to create a complementary pair or to link opposites. The chariot of Achilles in the Iliad (16.152) was drawn by two immortal horses and a third who was mortal; at 23.295, a mare is yoked with a stallion. The team of Adrastos included the immortal "superhorse" Areion and the mortal Kairos. A yoke of two horses is associated with the Indo-European concept of the Heavenly Twins, one of whom is mortal, represented among the Greeks by Castor and Pollux , the Dioscuri, who were known for horsemanship.

Bigae at the races

The consul advances in his biga at the pompa circensis ^[12] (4th century, opus sectile from the Basilica of Junius Bassus )

Horse- and chariot-races were part of the ludi, sacred games held during Roman religious festivals , from Archaic times . A magistrate who presented games was entitled to ride in a biga. The sacral meaning of the races, though diminished over time,^[14] was preserved by iconography in the Circus Maximus , Rome's main racetrack.

Inscriptions referring to the bigarius as young suggest that a racing driver had to gain experience with a two-horse team before graduating to a quadriga.

Construction

A main source for the construction of racing bigae is a number of bronze figurines found throughout the Roman Empire, a particularly detailed example of which is held by the British Museum . Other sources are reliefs and mosaics . These show a lightweight frame, to which a minimal shell of fabric or leather was lashed. The center of gravity was low, and the wheels were relatively small, around 65 cm in diameter in proportion to a body 60 cm wide and 55 cm deep, with a breastwork of about 70 cm in height. The wheels may have been rimmed with iron, but otherwise metal fittings are kept to a minimum. The design facilitated speed, maneuverability and stability.

Modern reenactment of a biga race

The weight of the vehicle has been estimated at 25–30 kg, with a maximum manned weight of 100 kg. The biga is typically built with a single draught pole for a double yoke, while two poles are used for a quadriga. The chariot for a two-horse racing team is not thought to differ otherwise from that drawn by a four-horse team, and so the horses of a biga pulled 50 kg each, while those of the quadriga pulled 25 kg each.

The models or statuettes of bigae were art objects , toys, or collector's items . They are perhaps comparable to the modern hobby of model trains .

Mythological and ceremonial use

The bigae of Achilles and Memnon , each drawn by one white horse and one black horse (hydria, 575–550 BC)

In his Etymologies , Isidore of Seville explains the cosmic symbolism of chariot racing, and notes that while the quadriga , or four-horse chariot, represents the sun and its course through the four seasons, the biga represents the moon, "because it travels on a twin course with the sun, or because it is visible both by day and by night — for they yoke together one black horse and one white." Chariots frequently appear in Roman art as allegories of the Sun and Moon, particularly in reliefs and mosaics , in contexts that are readily distinguishable from depictions of real-world charioteers in the circus.

Luna in her biga drawn by horses or oxen was an element of Mithraic iconography, usually in the context of the tauroctony . In the mithraeum of S. Maria Capua Vetere, a wall painting that uniquely focuses on Luna alone shows one of the horses of the team as light in color, with the other a dark brown. It has been suggested that the duality of the horses drawing a biga can also represent Plato 's metaphor of the charioteer who must control a soul divided by genesis and apogenesis.

Greek and Roman art depicts deities driving two-yoke chariots drawn by a number of animals. A biga of oxen was driven by Hecate , the chthonic aspect of the Triple Goddess in complement with the "horned" or crescent-crowned Diana and Luna , to whom the biga was sacred. Triptolemus is depicted on Roman coins as driving a serpent-drawn biga as he sows grain in response to Demeter's appeal to him to teach mankind the skill of agriculture, such as on an Alexandrine drachma , see .

In his chapter on gemstones, Pliny records a ritualized use of the biga, saying those who seek the draconitis or draconitias, "snake stone", ride in a biga.^[26]

Bigatus

 

Boys acting out chariot races with a cart pulled by two large birds, possibly herons or ostriches (mosaic, Villa del Casale , c. 300 AD)

The bigatus was a silver coin so called because it depicted a biga. Luna in her two-horse chariot was depicted on the first issue of the bigatus . Victory in her biga was later featured.