d gems. An inscription furnishes us with an inventory of the
jewels worn by an Isis of ancient Cadiz;[68] her ornaments were more
brilliant than those of a Spanish madonna.

During the entire forenoon, from the moment that a noisy acclamation had
greeted the rising of the sun, the images of the gods were exposed to the
silent adoration of the initiates.[69] Egypt is the country whence
contemplative devotion penetrated into Europe. Then, in the afternoon, a
second service was held to close the sanctuary.[70]

The daily liturgy must have been very absorbing. This innovation in the
Roman paganism was full of consequences. No longer were sacrifices offered
to the god on certain occasions only, but twice a day elaborate services
were held. As with the Egyptians, whom Herodotus had termed the most
religious of all peoples,[71] devotion assumed a tendency to fill out the
whole existence and to dominate private and public interests. The constant
repetition of the same prayers {97} kept up and renewed faith, and, we
might say, people lived continually under the eyes of the gods.

Besides the daily rites of the Abydos liturgy the holidays marking the
beginning of the different seasons were celebrated at the same date every
year.[72] It was the same in Italy. The calendars have preserved the names
of several of them, and of one, the _Navigium Isidis_, the rhetorician
Apuleius[73] has left us a brilliant description on which, to speak with
the ancients, he emptied all his color tubes. On March 5th, when navigation
reopened after the winter months, a gorgeous procession[74] marched to the
coast, and a ship consecrated to Isis, the protectress of sailors, was
launched. A burlesque group of masked persons opened the procession, then
came the women in white gowns strewing flowers, the _stolistes_ waving the
garments of the goddess and the _dadophori_ with lighted torches. After
these came the _hymnodes_, whose songs mingled in turn with the sharp sound
of the cross-flutes and the ringing of the brass timbrels; then the throngs
of the initiates, and finally the priests, with shaven heads and clad in
linen robes of a dazzling white, bearing the images of animal-faced gods
and strange symbols, as for instance a golden urn containing the sacred
water of the Nile. The procession stopped in front of altars[75] erected
along the road, and on these altars the sacred objects were uncovered for
the veneration of the faithful. The strange and sum