La regina, la dea e il suo cavallo

In the Ptolemaic royal titulature, the eponymous priests have had an important role as expression of the dinastic ideology and cult. In the II century BC, the lists of such priesthoods became more and more long, adding both new kings and queens, with their cult epithets, and new priesthoods for special royal cults, probably referring to particular aspects. After the succession to Ptolemy VIII, one of these priesthoods seems to have a new ideological importance, the sacred hoal of Isis, whose first traditional attestation (131 BC) can be now challenged and whose meaning in the dynastic propaganda can better defined.