Sol Invictus | |
---|---|
God of the sun | |
![]() A relief of Sol from Roman Lugdunum, 2nd–3rd century CE | |
Other names | Elagabalus |
Major cult center | Temple of the Sun |
Abode | The sky |
Planet | Sun |
Symbols | Sunburst, halo, radiate crown |
Day | Sunday |
Gender | Male |
Festivals | Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (25th December) |
Equivalents | |
Greek equivalent | Helios |
Palmyran equivalent | Utu |
Sol Invictus (Classical Latin: [ˈsoːɫ ɪnˈwɪktʊs], "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in AD 274 and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire.[1][2] From Aurelian onward, Sol Invictus often appeared on imperial coinage, usually shown wearing a sun crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. His prominence lasted until the emperor Constantine I legalized Christianity and restricted paganism.[a] The last known inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387,[4] although there were enough devotees in the fifth century that the Christian theologian Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.[5]
In recent years, the scholarly community has become divided on Sol between traditionalists and a growing group of revisionists.[6] In the traditional view, Sol Invictus was the second of two different sun gods in Rome. The first of these, Sol Indiges, or Sol, was believed to be an early Roman god of minor importance whose cult had petered out by the first century AD. Sol Invictus, on the other hand, was believed to be a Syrian sun god whose cult was first promoted in Rome under Elagabalus, without success. Some fifty years later, in AD 274, Aurelian established the cult of Sol Invictus as an official religion.[7] There has never been consensus on which Syrian sun god he might have been: some scholars opted for the sky god of Emesa, Elagabal,[3] while others preferred Malakbel of Palmyra.[8][9] In the revisionist view, there was only one cult of Sol in Rome, continuous from the monarchy to the end of antiquity. There were at least three temples of Sol in Rome, all active during the Empire and all dating from the earlier Republic.[10][11][12][13]
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