The Alexandrian God Serapis
Serapis was a Hellenistic-Egyptian god who was the patron deity of Alexandria. The statue of Serapis in the Serapeum of Alexandria was of Greek type and workmanship, a Hades or Pluto enthroned with the modius, a basket or grain-measure on his head (an emblem of the Underworld), a sceptre in his hand, Cerberus at his feet, and (apparently) a serpent.
According to Plutarch, Ptolemy Soter stole the iconic statue from Sinope, having been bidden by the unknown god in a dream to bring him to Alexandria. The supernatural origins of the new cult is likely to have been well published from official centers in Alexandria.
On its arrival the statue was pronounced to be Serapis by two experts in religious matters. Ptolemy's advisors made natural choices. One was Timotheus, who was one of the Eumolpidae, the ancient family from whose members the hierophant of the Eleusinian Mysteries had been chosen since before history; no Hellene could have offered a more resounding authentication. The other was the scholarly Egyptian priest Manetho. This story may not be true (some contend that Sinope as the provenance of the statue originated in the hill of Sinopeion, i.e. "place of Apis"?, a name given to the site of the Serapeum at Memphis), but there is little doubt that Ptolemy Soter fixed the iconic type to serve for the god of the new capital of Egypt, where it was soon associated with Isis and Harpocrates in a triad.
Ptolemy's policy was evidently to find a deity that should win the reverence alike of Hellenes (of mixed racial origins but a common culture) and highly traditional Egyptians, whose priests had cursed the previous alien dynasty in Egypt galvanized Egyptian resistance. The Greeks would have had little respect for an animal-headed Egyptian figure, while the Egyptians were more willing to accept divinity in any shape. A Greek statue was therefore chosen as the idol, and it was proclaimed as the anthropomorphic equivalent of a much revered and highly popular Egyptian beast-divinity, the bull Apis, assimilated to Osiris, god of the underworld. The Greek figure probably had little effect on the native ideas, but it is likely that it served as a useful link between the two religions.
Thus Serapis is an excellent example of a syncretic deity, in which diverse cult practices are concretely synthesized in a new icon. The concept of syncretism was explicitly identified in the 17th century A.D. but the practice of syncretism was natural to the Hellenic view of religion. Greeks had always seen the oracle of Ammon at Siwa as a manifestation of Zeus. Syncretic Greco-Roman cults of generic-Persian Mithras and generic-Egyptian Isis are well-documented.
The patron god of Alexandria soon won an important place in the Greek world. The purely human figures of Isis and Horus were easily rendered in Greek style, and Anubis was prepared for by Hellenic ideas of Cerberus. The worship of Serapis along with Isis, Horus and Anubis spread far and wide, reached Rome, and ultimately became one of the leading cults of the West. The destruction in 385 of the Serapeum of Alexandria, and of the famous idol within it, after the decree of Theodosius, marked the death agony of paganism throughout the empire.
