The urban context of the Serapeum at Ostia

Abstract

The last decades have seen a fair amount of research into the Eastern cults in the harbours of Rome, and discussion on several aspects of the cults that were adopted from Egypt. A number of these cases will be critically analysed here, in the context of recent research in other fields. It is explicitly not the purpose to aim for completeness here. The known material is, by now, so substantial that it warrants extensive research, leading to a large monograph. Here, instead, I would like to pay specific attention to the location and urban contexts of the sanctuaries to Egyptian gods in Ostia and Portus. In her work I culti orientali ad Ostia from 1962 Maria Floriani Squarciapino clearly outlines the state of affairs in the area of Egyptian cults in Ostia.1 She thinks that the impulse for the founding of sanctuaries for Oriental deities in this particular place came from Rome, and not from the steady stream of mariners who came into town. The Serapeum of Ostia postdates the Iseum and Serapaeum at Rome itself, which might be used to support this claim.2 Furthermore, Squarciapino argues that the cult fitted well into the urban environment of Italic towns from Hadrianic times onwards. She further emphasises the specificity of Ostia,