The Temple of Isis in Pompeii: The Promise of Navigable Seas in a Seafaring Economy | The Post Hole

An inscription upon Pompeii’s Temple of Isis, built in the second century B.C. and rebuilt following the 62 A.D. earthquake, reads (translated), “Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, rebuilt at his own expense from its foundations, the Temple of Isis, which had collapsed in an earthquake; because of his generosity, although he was only six years old, the town councilors nominated him into their number free of charge” (ILS 6367 2004). Pompeiians valued this civil project so greatly that they rewarded the supposedly-donating six-year-old boy, with council membership. Because this temple served the Isis cult and was not a public civil space, the Temple of Isis, or Iseum, and Isis herself must have held special meaning and value for the city of Pompeii. Pompeii’s seafaring economy and the rise of personal religion in the Roman world may explain this high value. Since Pompeii relied on commercial seafaring to support its economy, Isis’s emphasis on stable and life-giving water defea

An inscription upon Pompeii’s Temple of Isis, built in the second century B.C. and rebuilt following the 62 A.D. earthquake, reads (translated), “Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, rebuilt at his own expense from its foundations, the Temple of Isis, which had collapsed in an earthquake; because of his generosity, although he was only six years old, the town councilors nominated him into their number free of charge” (ILS 6367 2004). Pompeiians valued this civil project so greatly that they rewarded the supposedly-donating six-year-old boy, with council membership. Because this temple