Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/15

ISIS. goddess from her door, and the scorpion Tefen crept into the house and stung the son of the woman so that he died. But Isis, moved by the woman's grief, laid her hand upon the child and restored him to life. Shortly after this Isis gave birth to her son Horus, whom she placed in the charge of Buto, the goddess of the Xorth. Buto guarded him carefully, but in spite of all her care lie was stung by a scorpion, and his mother found him lying lifeless on the ground. At her prayer the sun-god Ke stopped his ship in mid-heaven and sent down Tlioth, the god of wisdom, who soon brought Horus back to life. Leaving her young son in the Delta, carefully hidden by Buto from the malevolence of his uncle Set, Isis next went through the world seek- ing the body of her husband, Osiris, which, in- closed in a chest, had been borne out to sea by the Nile. In her wanderings she was accom- panied and protected by Anubis (q.v. ), the son of Osiris by his sister Xephthys (q.v.). After a long search she found the body of Osiris. The chest inclosing it had drifted ashore near Byblos, on the Pha-nician coast, and had become imbedded in the trunk of a great tree which had grown around it. The King of the country, ignorant of the presence of the chest, had caused the tree to be cut dowTi, and made of it a pillar for his house. Isis entered the King's service as nurse to his child, and endeavored to confer immortal- ity on the infant. Every night she burned away his mortal part with celestial fire, while she herself, in the form of a swallow, flew round the pillar lamenting her husband. One night the Queen, Astarte, came upon her while thus en- gaged, and crying out in terror at the sight of the child surrounded with flames, destroyed his chance of immortality. Isis now revealed her- self, drew the chest from the pillar, and conveyed the body of her husband by ship to Egypt, where she hid it and went to visit her son. Set, how- ever, found the body of Osiris and tore it to pieces, which he scattered in every direction. Learning of this misfortune, Isis took a boat, and seeking her husband's scattered members throughout the land, found all the pieces except the phallus, which had been eaten by fishes. "herever she found a portion of the body she buried it, and in after-times each of these spots was revered as the burial-place of Osiris. His head, for example, was buried at Abydos, and his backbone at Busiris, in the Delta. Isis reared her son Horus in concealment, and when he reached mature age he defeated Set and ascended his father's throne. In the legends of the sun- god Re, Isis is represented as possessing special skill in magic and in the healing art: in this character, as the "arcat mistress of enchantments.' her aid is frequently invoked in the Egyptian magical texts. Her sacred animal was the cow, and she is sometimes represented with the head of a cow. though more frequently she wears only the horns. She is also very commonly depicted as a woman wearing upon her head a throne — the ideogram used in writing her name. In later times she is often represented as seated and holding the infant Horus to her breast. Isis was- very generally worshiped throughout Egjpt, but special honor was paid to her at Abydos and Busiris. In later times the centre of her cult was in Philfe (q.v.), where magnifi- cent temples were built to her. Here she was Etill revered as late as a.d. 453, long after pagan- ism had been suppressed in other parts of the land by edict of Theodosius, her special wor- shipers being the savage Blemmyan tribes who constantly menaced the safety of Egjpt. From Alexandria,- where the worship of the triad Serapis (q.v. ), Isis, and Harpocrates (q.v.) over- shadowed that of all other Egyptian deities, the cult of the goddess spread throughout the whole Hellenic world, and temples were erected to her in many places. It was introduced into Rome in the time of Sulla ( B.C. 80 ), and soon became fashionable; but was brought into ill repute by the licentiousness of its priests, and the Govern- ment made occasional attempts to suppress it. Under the Empire the cult of Isis became very popular, and Domitian, Commodus, and Caraealla were among the priests of the Egyptian goddess. .t the opening of spring (March 5th) both Greeks and Romans held a festival in which a ship was carried in solemn procession in honor of Isis. In the Roman calendar the day of this festival was designated as Xaiigium Isidis. Con- sult: Plutarch, llepl IirtSos Kal 'Off/pioos; Wiede- mann, The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (Xew York, 1897); Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt (London, 1894); Brugsch, Religion und Mi/thoJogie der alien Aegypter (Leipzig, 1885- 90); Jlilne, .4 Historg of Egypt Under Roman Rule (Xew York, 1898). See Harceris; HoBUS; OsiBiS: and the paragraph on ancient religion in the article Egypt.

I'SIS. A name sometimes applied to the upper course of the English Thames (q.v.).

ISIS AND SER'APIS, Temple of. A great temple in ancient Rome, situated on the Campus Mart ins near the Baths of Agrippa. The temple itself, a pure Egyptian structure, was built of material transported from the Xile. It was in- closed by a peristyle dating from Domitian's time and closely resembling the inclosing wall of his Forimi, and was approached by a sacred avenue, on the sides of which many great works of Egyptian art were set up. At each end of the avenue stood a gateway with two obelisks, of which one now stands in the Piazza della Ro- tonda, one in the Villa Mattel, and one in the- Piazza dei Cinquecento. Many important works of art "nave been discovered on the site of the temple, chief among them the Tiber statue in the Louvre, and the Xile group, both of which were carried away by the French in ISO."?. The Xile was returned "after Napoleon's fall, and now stands in the Vatican Museum. Other important finds were the reclining statue of the Ocean, in the Xaples Museum, two sphinxes, various por- trait statues, relief columns, and other archi- tectural remains.

ISKANDER, e-skan'der. (1) The Turkish form of Alexander. ( 2 ) The nom-de-plume of Alexander Herzen (q.v.), a Russian politician and puldicist.

ISKANDERXTII, e-skan'dc-roon'. A city of Turkey in Asia. See Ale.xaxdbetta.

ISLA, esia, Jose Francisco de (1703-81). A Jesuit preacher and satirist, born in Segovia, Spain. He was a man of acute wit and intense humor. He ridiculed a religious festival at Salamanca and a royal pageant at Pamplona in his Triunfo del amor g de la lealtad. an ironical eulogy so artfully disguised that at first it was regarded as an honest adulation, but upon