Greek awareness of Egyptian lamp-lighting festivals is recorded as early as
Herodotus (5th century BC), who mentions the Festival of Lanterns at
Sais held for
Neith. Illumination by torches or lamps had a long tradition in Greek and Roman religion, under names such as
lampadeia and
phosphoreia in Greek. Torches were particularly associated with the
Eleusinian Mysteries and the cult of
Demeter (Roman
Ceres), with whose functions Isis was identified through
interpretatio graeca. At
Delos, women bearing lamps carried out rituals involving Isis. or
siren as the handle Lamps or candelabra could be votive offerings, and temple buildings were illuminated with chandeliers or lamp trees. At
Tarentum in southern Italy (
Magna Graecia), the
Sicilian tyrannos Dionysus II dedicated a lampstand that held one light for each day of the year. Doorways were lit by lamps for both private celebrations and public holidays. The general practice of
lychnapsia was part of rites for the care of the dead, in which context the lamp flames might be considered "ensouled", embodying or perpetuating the soul and vulnerable to extinguishing. The lights of the Egyptian epagomenal days were placed for the dead in tombs. Candles or lamps were particularly associated with Roman household and ancestor cult (
Lares,
Penates, the
Genius), as well as with
Jupiter,
Tutela,
Saturn,
Mercury, and
Aesculapius. Lamps were an integral part of Imperial cult. At a joint temple of
Tiberius and
Dionysus in
Teos, hymns were sung to the god, and a priest of Tiberius offered incense and
libations and lit lamps at the opening and closing of daily rites. The Lychnapsia of August 12 may have resembled rites held at the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus at
Arsinoe in Egypt. A
papyrus that records the festival budget includes oil for lighting the lamps, along with line items for polishing and
garlanding statues and other expenses for the procession and temple maintenance. In the Imperial era, nocturnal sacrifices for the birthday of Isis were attended by Greek men of the highest social status, as mentioned in a letter from the
senator Herodes Atticus (101–177 AD) to the Alexandrian grammarian
Apollonius Dyscolus.
Lychnapsia as a ritualized lighting of lamps was an "essential feature" of cult surrounding the
Theos Hypsistos ("Highest God"), which exhibited strongly
monotheistic tendencies among gentiles influenced by the concept of
God in Judaism. Numerous bronze lamp-hangers from the Roman East, dating to the 3rd century AD, have been identified as belonging to the cult of
Theos Hypsistos, for whom the traditional Greco-Roman gods such as
Apollo acted as
angeloi (messengers). ==Christian antiquity==