Vassiliki Panoussi is Chancellor Professor of Classical Studies at William & Mary and our 2025 Andrew Heiskell/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities Rome Prize Fellow in ancient studies. While in residence she is researching The Goddess Isis in Roman Literature: Gender, Ethnicity, and Identity, which explores how Roman authors represented Isis, an Egyptian goddess, across a range of literary genres including love poetry, epic, historiography, rhetoric, and philosophy. These depictions of her offer insight into Roman ideas about intersecting identities, showing how she embodied multiple ethnicities—Greek, Egyptian, Roman—and complex gender roles. Panoussi’s study contributes to our understanding of Roman thought and the popularity of Isis in Roman literature during the first centuries BCE and CE.
We caught up with Lily to learn more about her current work, the questions driving her research, and how her time in Rome is shaping the project.
What have you been working on while at AAR?
My book project looks at representations of the Egyptian goddess Isis in Roman literary texts from the first century BCE to the second century CE. Why did so many authors feature her so prominently, beginning with Roman love poetry and ending with a novel? I believe that worshiping Isis was particularly attractive to the people in Rome because she is a flexible divinity that allowed the expression of views and attitudes of a new era in Rome, an era of globalization and multicultural exchange. My work examines how these new attitudes can be gleaned through a deep dive into the literature of that period.
Has your project changed since arriving?
I wouldn’t say my project has changed but my main argument was confirmed in a significant way: I’ve found that living in Rome, researching the temples and shrines of Isis, and being around so many Egyptian artifacts scattered around the city—from the obelisks that pepper the piazzas of Rome to the pyramid of Cestius—have resulted in a new appreciation of the significance of embodied knowledge. Having a sense of the space and size of the monuments associated with the goddess makes it clear to me that ancient Romans, both city dwellers and the authors who wrote the works I study, had a genuine connection to her. The building, images, monuments, and objects associated with Isis worship were part of people’s daily life, whether that meant that they went out for a stroll and sought shade at the colonnades in her temple complex or they visited that space during a festival or simply to pray to her.
What was your most surprising discovery?
The most surprising thing I discovered was not in Rome but in Florence, but of course it is closely connected with Rome. Visiting the Boboli Gardens, I saw an obelisk prominently placed in the middle of the amphitheater, creating a central axis as one moves away from Palazzo Pitti. The obelisk, brought to Rome from Egypt in the first century CE, was part of the decorative program of the temple of Isis at the Campus Martius. After the monument was rediscovered in Rome in the mid-sixteenth century, Ferdinando I de’ Medici bought it to adorn his villa on the Pincian Hill. In 1788 Peter Leopold moved the obelisk to Florence, where it continues to make an impressive statement regarding wealth and power, much in the same way as it did in Heliopolis in Egypt in the 1200s BCE or in Rome in the first century CE.
What have you seen in the city of Rome that has made a strong impression on you?
Living in Rome truly drives home the reality of the city’s long history of recycling building and decorative materials to express new purposes while their overall function as powerful bearers of meaning remains the same. For example, visiting Santa Maria in Trastevere, we see columns with Isis decorations that were moved from the Baths of Caracalla and repurposed for a majestic basilica. Or, right behind Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, the site of the Iseum in the first century CE, is a foot from the colossal statue of Sarapis, a reminder of past grandeur. Almost three hundred years after its construction, the pyramid of Cestius became part of the Aurelian Wall as a cost-cutting measure. The constant renegotiation of the city’s building materials, monuments, and artworks invites us to peel away their layers of meaning, rewarding us with many delights of discovery.
How have your interactions with this year’s fellows and residents influenced your work or changed your perspective?
It has been a pure joy to interact with people whose work and knowledge enrich my own expertise and interests, but also with people whose fields of study are completely different from mine but with whom I have found unexpected connections. In the first instance, I have had many wonderful discussions with the other fellows in ancient studies: we have visited monuments and museums together and attended lectures and other events. While I have learned so much from their expertise in material culture, architecture, and art, conversations with artists and architects at the Academy have also enriched my perspective. One moment stands out, when designer Amy Revier and I had a lively discussion about weaving. She pointed out to me the rich array of meanings that accompany this practice as a part of people’s lived experience, while I shared with her how weaving is used as a metaphor from the time of Homer for the creation of literature. It was a wonderful moment when metaphor and reality meet, deepening our appreciation for both.
How did your conceptions of the Academy change over the course of the fellowship?
Intellectually, I expected to meet incredibly gifted artists, architects, and scholars. What I was not prepared for were the precious friendships I have made with the other fellows, fellow travelers, and some of the residents and visitors. No other residential program (that at least I have been part of) offers such opportunities for meaningful interactions and deep human connections that make the experience here more special and joyful and will last way beyond my time in the Academy. Through our shared meals, shoptalks, walks and talks, trips, and even when visiting each other’s studios, we get to know the whole person and truly bond with them on not only an intellectual level but also on social and human levels.
I also need to give a huge shout out to the Rome Sustainable Food Project. Their team offers an incredible opportunity for learning: the delicious, healthy sustenance the Academy provides has shaped the way I will do my own menu planning and cooking when I get back to the US.