The detailed description given by Apuleius of the ceremonies connected with the worship of the goddess in so important a place as Cenchreæ, the port of Corinth, bears emphatic witness to the established popularity of her rites.[345] Even in Plutarch’s tract the fact is everywhere indirectly evident. Clea, to whom it is addressed, was officially and intimately associated with the worship of Dionysus at Delphi, but she had also been instructed from her childhood in the rites appertaining to the worship of Isis and Osiris.[346] It is only in accordance with Plutarch’s well-known character that he should be anxious to explain anything in the Isiac ceremonies and traditions, the misunderstanding of which was likely to generate superstitious and licentious practices and lead indirectly to Atheism. And if, by explaining absurdities, excising crudities, refuting false interpretations, he could at the same time demonstrate the unity of God, the identity of religious basis lying beneath these various beliefs of other peoples, we can recognize in the task one eminently suited to the character and aims of Plutarch. In the “Isis and Osiris” Plutarch has, therefore, a twofold object. He endeavours to explain, from a rationalistic point of view, the meaning of Isiac and Osirian ceremonies and legends; and he develops his theories on these matters into an exposition of his attitude towards Myth in general, showing that the various beliefs of other nations are not, when rightly understood, mutually destructive and opposite, but simply different ways of envisaging the same essential and eternal truth. We proceed to explain these assertions by an examination of the treatise.