The mysteries of every form of worship" ( Historia Augusta, III.4). (Herodian, Roman History, V.5.8), where the rites of Jews and Christians were to be transferred "in order that the priesthood of Elagabalus might include Elagabalus enlarged the Temple of Jupiter Victor on the Palatine and rededicated it in AD 221 as the Elagabalium Had been the hereditary priest of the sun god Elagabal in Emesa, Sol Invictus (the Invincible or Unconquerable Sun) was introduced to RomeĪs its principal deity. In AD 219, not long after Elagabalus arrived from Syria, where he III.9), whose son Caracalla also adopted the title Invictus. Septimius Severus, who had command of Legio IV Scythica in Syria ( Historia Augusta, III.6), married Julia Domna, youngerĭaughter of the high priest of Sol Invictus Elagabal (Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, XXIII.2 Historia Augusta, To appropriate the title for himself (Dio, Roman History, LXXIII.15.3). By the second century AD, this autochthonous deity was beingĮclipsed by an Eastern cult of the Sun, InvictusĪppearing as an epithet in an inscription in AD 158. Vespasian also was the first emperor to display the image of Sol on Theįoundation dates, too, of the temples on the Quirinal and in the Circus both were in August (the ninth and twenty-eighth, respectively), when theĪfter the great fire of AD 64, in which a large portion of Rome was destroyed, Nero erected a colossal statue of himselfġ20 feet high (Suetonius, Life of Nero, XXXI.1), which Vespasian converted toĪ radiant crown on its head (Suetonius, Vespasian, XVIII.1 Pliny, Natural History, The four-horse quadriga, forĮxample, was consecrated to the sun, just as the two-horse biga was entrusted to the Moon (Tertullian, IX.3). There also was a temple to Sol (as well as one to Luna) in the Circus Maximus, where chariot races took place under theĪuspices of these deities (Tacitus, Annals, XV.74 Tertullian, De Spectaculis, VIII.1). Romulus and ruled jointly in the eighth century BC (Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria, I.7.12 Varro, De Lingua Latina, The worship of the Sun (Sol) was indigenous to the Romans, who had a temple to Sol Indiges on the Quirinalīeen established by Tatius, king of the Sabines, its first inhabitants who, after the rape of the Sabine women, reconciled with "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings." Return to Saturnalia Sol Invictus and Christmas
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