SERAPIS, a famous Graeco-Egyptian god. The statue of Serapis in the Serapeum of Alexandria was of purely Greek type and workmanship—a Hades or Pluto enthroned with a basket or corn measure on his head, a sceptre in his hand, Cerberus at his feet, and (apparently) a serpent. It was proclaimed as the anthropomorphic equivalent of a much revered and highly popu lar Egyptian beast-divinity, the dead Apis, assimilated to Osiris. 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. The god of Alexandria soon won an important place in the Greek world. The anthropomorphic Isis and Horus were easily rendered in Greek style, and Anubis was prepared for by Cerberus. The worship of Serapis along with Isis, Horus and Anubis spread far and wide, reached Rome, and ultimately be came one of the leading cults of the west. The destruction in A.D. 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.
It is assumed above that the name Serapis (so written in later Greek and in Latin, in earlier Greek Sarapis) is derived from the Egyptian Userhapi—as it were Osiris-Apis—the name of the bull Apis, dead and, like all the blessed dead, assimilated to Osiris, king of the underworld. There is no doubt that Serapis was be fore long identified with Userhapi; the identification appears clearly in a bilingual inscription of the time of Ptolemy Philo pator (221-205 B.c.), and frequently later. It has, however, been contended by an eminent authority (Wilcken, Archiv fur Papy rusforschung, 249) that the parallel occurrence of the names Sarapis and Osorapis (Userhapi) points to an independent origin for the former. But doublets, e.g., Petisis-Petesis, are common in Graecisms of Egyptian names. See EGYPT : Religion.
See Isis ; A. Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, i. (19o3), ch. iv.; J. G. Milne, History of Egypt under Roman Rule (1898), p. i4o; G. Lafaye, Histoire du culte des divinites d'Alexandrie hors de l'Egypte (Paris, 1884).