Ancient Fragments

Letter to a priestess (after A.D. 217)
"You will do well to go ... to the temple of Demeter to perform the usual sacrifices on behalf of our lords and emperors and their victory and the rise of the Nile and the increase of the crops and the healthy balance of the climate."—Marcus Aurelius Apollonius, priest

This brief letter from a priest to a priestess provides a revealing look at the multiculturalism of Greco-Roman Egypt. The temple and its deity Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, are Greek; the "lords and emperors and their victory" are Roman; and the sacrifice for the annual flooding of the Nile is a decidedly Egyptian need.

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