Temple of Isis and Serapis

Sculptures from the
Temple of Isis and Serapis
Nilus, the river god of Egypt's Nile, with cornucopia, wheatsheaf, sphinx, and crocodile (Braccio Nuovo)
Tiberinus, the god of Rome's Tiber, with cornucopia, Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf, Lupa (Louvre)

The Temple of Isis and Serapis was a double temple in Rome dedicated to the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius, directly to the east of the Saepta Julia. The temple to Isis, the Iseum Campense, stood across a plaza from the Serapeum dedicated to Serapis. The remains of the Temple of Serapis now lie under the church of Santo Stefano del Cacco, and the Temple of Isis lay north of it, just east of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.[1] Both temples were made up of a combination of Egyptian and Hellenistic architectural styles.[2] Much of the artwork decorating the temples used motifs evoking Egypt, and they contained several genuinely Egyptian objects, such as couples of obelisks in red or pink granite from Syene.[3]

  1. ^ Turcan, Robert. The Cults of the Roman Empire. Wiley, 1996. p. 106
  2. ^ Lollio Barberi, Parola, and Toti, Le antichità egiziane di Roma imperiale, p. 60.
  3. ^ Donalson, Malcolm Drew. The Cult of Isis in the Roman Empire: Isis Invicta. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003. pp. 93, 96–102