Often each line starts with the standard "I am …". Usually, aretalogies are self praising. They are found in the sacred texts of later
Egypt,
Mesopotamia and in
Greco-
Roman times. Aretalogies of
Isis would be recited every day by an aretalogist who would have to memorise a huge list of attributes which they would have to recite (Priests and priestesses of Isis had equal rank in the temple). The aretalogies of ancient Egypt provide some the most complete information extant about their deities. Aretalogies are found as early as the
Coffin Texts. In a
Ptolemaic aretalogy,
Isis says about herself: In the
Greco-Roman world, aretologies represent a religious branch of
rhetoric and are a prose development of the
hymn as praise poetry.
Asclepius,
Isis, and
Serapis are among the deities with surviving aretologies in the form of
inscriptions and
papyri. The earliest records of divine acts emerged from cultic hymns for these deities, were inscribed in stones, and displayed in temples. By extension, an aretology is also a "catalogue of virtues" belonging to a person; for example,
Cicero's list and description of the virtues of
Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") in the speech
Pro Lege Manilia. Aretology became part of the Christian rhetorical tradition of
hagiography. In an even more expanded sense, aretology is
moral philosophy which deals with
virtue, its nature, and the means of arriving at it. It is the title of an ethical tract by
Robert Boyle published in the 1640s. Other scholars also consider
wisdom literature to fall under the heading of aretology. ==See also==