The Imperial Iseum in Benevento and its Zoomorphic Gods

The texts of Domitian's two obelisks in Benevento inform us that in 88/89 AD, Rutilius Lupus had a temple built in the Samnite city and dedicated it to the goddess Isis to celebrate the emperor's victorious conclusion of the Dacian Wars. Although none of the ancient buildings found so far in the city can be attributed to an Iseum, the existence of such a temple is confirmed by a large number of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statues, a few epigraphs and some architectural elements, most of which were found in a section of the foundations of the ancient city walls; most of the fragments of the two obelisks and another group of objects were found scattered in different areas of the city. Of the approximately fifty artefacts, numerous statues represent 'pharaohs', in both human and sphinx form; two are anthropomorphic deities, three depict priests, and several statues represent sacred animals: four falcons, two baboons and three Apis bulls; another bull is carved in high relief on an architectural frieze. This extraordinary set of artefacts - belonging to different historical periods, from the Pharaonic to the Ptolemaic and finally the Roman era - represents one of the largest concentrations of Egyptian and Egyptianising materials belonging to a single cultic context of the imperial period outside Egypt. Beginning with the publication that Wolfgang Müller devoted to the analysis of the Benevento 'Iseum’ in 1969, a lively debate (not yet concluded) has arisen on the nature of the temple, its possible location and the relationship of this monument to the other temples dedicated to Isis scattered throughout the Empire. In order to provide an interpretative key to answer, even partially, some of these questions, my paper will briefly present all the Isiac sculptures in the Samnite Iseum, with a particular focus on the symbolism expressed by the zoomorphic deities, especially in relation to their role in the representation of Domitian’s imperial image.