Ptolemaic political activities on the west coast of Hellenistic Asia Minor had a significant impact on the local spread of the Isiac cults: A spatial network analysis

Abstract

During the reign of the first Ptolemaic kings in Egypt, mainly in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, the Egyptian cults related to the divine couple of Isis and Sarapis (i.e. the Isiac cults) spread successfully from Egypt to ports and coastal cities of the ancient Mediterranean. The discussion on the topic of the factors involved in the process of the early spread of these cults outside Egypt is still open and, so far, the research in this area has been conducted mainly by using established historiographical methods. However, these methods are limited when dealing with the interplay among different variables involved in complex historical processes. This article aims to overcome these limits by using a quantitative spatial network analysis. The results of our previous published research, which focused on a quantitative evaluation of the impact of individual factors on the early spread of the Isiac cults across the ancient Aegean Islands, suggest that the process was promoted by military and commercial activities of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and that the Ptolemaic military operations were the most influential factor. Following these results, this article focuses on the early spread of the Isiac cults on the west coast of Hellenistic Asia Minor, i.e. the region which the Ptolemies attempted to control in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. The statistically significant results presented in this article support the hypothesis that the Ptolemaic political engagement in Asia Minor had a positive impact on the early spread of the Isiac cults. The results also suggest that the activities of the Seleucid dynasty, a political rival of the Ptolemies, in the area of interest could have constituted an immunological factor limiting the spread of the Isiac cults further to the eastern parts of Asia Minor. OPEN ACCESSCitation: Glomb T, Mertel A, Pospíšil Z, Chalupa A (2020) Ptolemaic political activities on the west coast of Hellenistic Asia Minor had a significant impact on the local spread of the Isiac cults: A spatial network analysis. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230733. https://doi.org/10.

The spread of the cult of Asclepius in the context of the Roman army benefited from the presence of physicians: A spatial proximity analysis

“…The presented study does focus on relational phenomena structured by a network, however, the relationships here are analyzed in terms of geographical proximity on the network and not by the methods of network science such as centrality measures that identify important nodes in a network graph. Despite this differentiation presented here for the purpose of methodological clarity, the two approaches are mutually compatible and often combined in historiographical or archaeological studies (for discussion see e.g., [33][34][35][36][37][38][39], for studies using network approaches in geographical or transportation context see e.g., [11,14,15,21,[40][41][42]).…”

“…In this study, the method of spatial proximity analysis was applied to quantitatively test the established hypothesis that soldiers were one of the major factors in the dissemination of ancient cults [7][8][9][10][11]. This hypothesis has recently been examined in connection to the cult of Asclepius in the Roman period by Ghislaine van der Ploeg.…”

“…Recently, the combination of established methods and formal approaches (e.g., network analysis, GIS, agent-based modeling, quantitative textual analysis) has demonstrated significant potential for the historiography of the ancient Mediterranean (and beyond) [8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The present article follows this academic trend and reveals, by means of a GIS proximity analysis based on the platform of Roman transportation road network, specific spatial patterns in the worship of Asclepius in the military environment in the provinces along a portion of the border of the Roman Empire leading from Britannia to Moesia Inferior (i.e., Britannia, Germania Superior and Inferior, Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia Superior and Inferior, Dacia, and Moesia Superior and Inferior, Fig 1).…”