Various causes contributed to the rapid extension of the cult. It had the charm of something foreign and full of mystery. Its doctrine, supported by the prestige of immemorial antiquity, successfully opposed the mutually destructive opinions of the philosophers, while at the same time its conception of deity was by no means inconsistent with philosophic thought; and it brought to the initiated that expectation of a future life to which the Eleusinian Mysteries owed their attractive power. The ascetic side of the worship, too, with its fastings and abstinence from the pleasures of sense, that the soul might lose itself in the mystical contemplation of deity, had a fascination for natures that were religiously susceptible; and the celebration of the Mysteries, the representation of the myth of Isis in pantomime with a musical accompaniment, appealed powerfully to the imagination. The cult also possessed elements that brought it nearer to the needs of the multitude. The activities of the Egyptian divinities were not confined to the other world; their help might be sought in the concerns of this life. Thus the chief priest could say to Apuleius that Isis summoned her elect to consecrate themselves to her service only when the term of life allotted to them had really expired, and that she lengthened their tale of years, so that all of life remaining was a direct gift from the hands of the goddess. The priests of Isis were looked upon as experts in astrology, the interpretation of dreams, and the conjuring of spirits. A college of the Servants of Isis, Pastophori, was founded in Rome in the time of Sulla, about 80 B.C. In vain the authorities tried to drive out the worship of the Egyptian gods. Three times their temple, in the midst of the city, was destroyed by order of the consuls, in 58, 50, and 48 B.C. But after Caesar's death, in 44 B.C., the triumvirs built a temple in honor of Isis and Osiris; and a few decades later, perhaps in the reign of Caligula, their festival was recognized in the public Calendar. In Campania the Alexandrian cult gained a foothold earlier than in Rome. An inscription of the year 105 B.C., found at Puteoli, proves that a temple of Serapis was then standing in that enterprising city, which had close commercial relations with Egypt and the East. Soon after this date the earlier temple of Isis at Pompeii must have been built. [Illustration: Fig. 78.--Plan of the temple of Isis. 1. Portico. 2. Cella. 3. Shrine of Harpocrates. 4. Purgatorium. 5. Hall of initiation. 6. Hall of the Mysteries. 7, 8, 9. Dwelling of priest. _a._ Colonnade. _b._ Pit for the refuse of sacrifices. _c._ Niche for statue of Bacchus. _d_, _d._ Niches at the sides of the cella. _e._ Large altar.]