The Navigium Isidis or Isidis Navigium (trans. the vessel of Isis)[1] was an annual ancient Roman religious festival in honor of the goddess Isis,[2] held on March 5.[3] The festival outlived Christian persecution by Theodosius (391) and Arcadius' persecution against the Roman religion (395).[4]
In the Roman Empire, it was still celebrated in Italy at least until the year 416.[5] In Egypt, it was suppressed by Christian authorities in the 6th century.[5]
The Navigium Isidis celebrated Isis' influence over the sea and served as a prayer for the safety of seafarers and, eventually, of the Roman people and their leaders.[6] It consisted of an elaborate procession, including Isiac priests and devotees with a wide variety of costumes and sacred emblems, carrying a model ship from the local Isis temple to the sea[7] or to a nearby river.[8]
Modern carnival resembles the festival of the Navigium Isidis,[1] and some scholars argue that they share the same origin (via carrus navalis, meaning naval wagon, i.e. float – later becoming car-nival).[9][10][11][12][13] Many elements of Carnival were in turn appropriated in the Corpus Christi festival, most prominently in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal).[14]
See also
Notes
- 1 2 Valantasis (2000) p.378
- ↑ Haase and Temporini (1986) p.1931
- ↑ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), p. 124.
- ↑ Alföldi (1937) p.47
- 1 2 Streete (2000) p. 370
- ↑ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), 169–175.
- ↑ Malcolm Drew Donalson, The Cult of Isis in the Roman Empire: Isis Invicta (Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), 68–73.
- ↑ Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation, and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras, trans. & ed. Richard Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 299.
- ↑ Rudwin (1919)
- ↑ di Cocco (2007)
- ↑ Alföldi (1937) pp.57-8
- ↑ Forrest (2001) p.114
- ↑ Griffiths (1975) p.172
- ↑ Ruiz, Teofilo (2012). "8". A King Travels: Festive Traditions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Princeton University Press. p. 359-ff. ISBN 978-1400842247.
References
- Alföldi, Andreas (1937) A Festival of Isis in Rome under the Christian Emperors of the IVth Century, Budapest
- Forrest, M. Isidora (2001) Isis magic: cultivating a relationship with the goddess of 10,000 names
- Griffiths, J. Gwyn (1975) The Isis-book: Metamorphoses, Book 11, chapter Commentary pp. 111–346
- di Cocco, Giampaolo (2007) Alle origini del Carnevale: Mysteria isiaci e miti cattolici (Florence: Pontecorboli)
- Haase, Wolfgang and Temporini, Hildegard (1986) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Volume 16, Part 3
- Rudwin, Maximilian J. (1919) The Origin of the German Carnival Comedy in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1919), pp. 402–454
- Streete, Gail Corrington (2000) ‘An Isis Aretalogy from Kyme in Asia Minor, First Century B.C.E’, in Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice, ed. by Richard Valantasi (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 369-384
Further reading
- Brady, Thomas A. (1938) Reviewed work(s): A Festival of Isis in Rome under the Christian Emperors of the Fourth Century by Andrew Alföldi, in The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 28, Part 1 (1938), pp. 88–90
- Rademacher, Carl (1932) Carnival in Hastings ERE 3, pp. 225–9