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The story of Sol Invictus.
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00:00Sol Invictus, classical Latin by Sol Invictus, Invincible Sun or Unconquered Sun, was the official sun god of the late Roman Empire, and a later aspect of, or replacement for, the old Latin god Sol.
00:13The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in 274 AD and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire.
00:21From Aurelian onward, Sol Invictus often appeared on imperial coinage, usually shown wearing a sun crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky.
00:31His prominence lasted until the emperor Constantine I legalized Christianity and restricted paganism.
00:37The last known inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387, although there were enough devotees in the 5th century that the Christian theologian Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.
00:51In recent years, the scholarly community has become divided on Sol between traditionalists and a growing group of revisionists.
00:59In the traditional view, Sol Invictus was the second of two different sun gods in Rome.
01:03The 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 1st century AD.
01:13Sol Invictus, on the other hand, was believed to be a Syrian sun god whose cult was first promoted in Rome under Elagabalus, without success.
01:23Some 50 years later, in 274 AD, Aurelian established the cult of Sol Invictus as an official religion.
01:31There has never been consensus on which Syrian sun god he might have been.
01:35Some scholars opted for the sky god of Emisa, Elagabal, while others preferred Malakbel of Palmyra.
01:42In the revisionist view, there was only one cult of Sol in Rome, continuous from the monarchy to the end of antiquity.
01:49There were at least three temples of Sol in Rome, all active during the empire, and all dating from the earlier republic.
01:57Invictus, unconquered, invincible, was an epithet utilized for several Roman deities, including Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Apollo, and Silvanus.
02:08It had been in use from the 3rd century BC.
02:11The Roman cult to Sol is continuous from the earliest history of the city until the institution of Christianity as the exclusive state religion.
02:19Scholars have sometimes regarded the traditional Sol Indiges and Sol Invictus as two separate deities, but the rejection of this view by S.
02:28E. Hymens has found supporters.
02:30An inscription of AD 102 records a restoration of a portico of Sol in what is now the Trastevere area of Rome by a certain Gaius Iulius Anetetus.
02:39While he may have had in mind an allusion to his own cognomen, which is the Latinized form of the Greek equivalent of Invictus, that is Aniketos, Aniketos.
02:49Romanized Aniketos, the earliest extant dated inscription that uses Invictus as an epithet of Sol is from AD 158.
02:57Indeed, the Greek equivalent of Sol Invictus would therefore be Helios Aniketos.
03:02Another, stylistically dated to the 2nd century, is inscribed on a Roman phalera, ornamental disc.
03:07Inventory, luces soli invicto Augusto.
03:10I glorify the unconquerable sun, the creator of light.
03:14Augustus is a regular epithet linking deities to the imperial cult.
03:18Sol Invictus played a prominent role in the Mithraic mysteries and was equated with Mithras.
03:22The relation of the Mithraic Sol Invictus to the public cult of the deity with the same name is unclear and perhaps non-existent.
03:31According to the Historia Augusta, Elagabalus, the teenage Severan heir, adopted the name of his deity and brought his cult image from Emesa to Rome.
03:41Once installed as emperor, he neglected Rome's traditional state deities and promoted his own as Rome's most powerful deity.
03:50This ended with his murder in 222.
03:53The Historia Augusta equates the deity Elagabalus with Jupiter and Sol.
03:58Fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis sacerdos.
04:03He was also a priest of Heliogabalus or Jove or Sol.
04:07While this has been seen as an attempt to import the Syrian sun god to Rome, the Roman cult of Sol had existed in Rome at least since the early Republic.
04:16The Roman gens Aurelia was associated with the cult of Sol.
04:19After his victories in the east, the emperor Aurelian thoroughly reformed the Roman cult of Sol, elevating the sun god to one of the premier divinities of the empire.
04:29Where previously priests of Sol had been simply sacerdotes and tended to belong to lower ranks of Roman society, they were now pontifices and members of the new college of pontifices, instituted by Aurelian.
04:41Aurelian also built a new temple for Sol, which was dedicated on the 25th of December, 274, and brought the total number of temples for the god in Rome to, at least, four.
04:54He also instituted games in honor of the sun god, held every four years from 274 onwards.
05:00The identity of Aurelian's Sol Invictus has long been a subject of scholarly debate.
05:07Based on the Augustan history, some scholars have argued that it was based on Sol Elagablus or Elagabla of Emesa.
05:14Others, basing their argument on Zosimus, suggest that it was based on the Sams, the solar god of Palmyra,
05:20on the grounds that Aurelian placed and consecrated a cult statue of the sun god looted from Palmyra in the temple of Sol Invictus.
05:28Forsythe, 2012, discusses these arguments and adds a third more recent one, based on the work of Stephen Hyman's.
05:36Hyman's argues that Aurelian's solar deity was simply the traditional Greco-Roman Sol Invictus.
05:43Emperors portrayed Sol Invictus on their official coinage, with a wide range of legends,
05:47only a few of which incorporated the epithet Invictus, such as the legend Soli Invicto Comiti,
05:54claiming the unconquered sun as a companion to the emperor, used with particular frequency by Constantine.
06:00Statuettes of Sol Invictus, carried by the standard bearers, appear in three places in reliefs on the arch of Constantine.
06:07Constantine's official coinage continues to bear images of Sol until 325-326.
06:12A solidus of Constantine, as well as a gold medallion from his reign, depict the emperor's bust in profile,
06:18twinned, juget, with Sol Invictus, with the legend Invictus Constantinus.
06:24Constantine decreed, March 7, 321,
06:27dies solus, the day of the sun, Sunday, as the Roman day of rest.
06:32On the venerable day of the sun, let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest,
06:38and let all workshops be closed.
06:41In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits,
06:47because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain sowing or vine planting,
06:53lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations, the bounty of heaven should be lost.
06:58Constantine's triumphal arch was carefully positioned to align with the colossal statue
07:04of Sol by the Colosseum, so that Sol formed the dominant backdrop when seen from the direction
07:09of the main approach towards the arch. Connections between the imperial Radiate Crown and the cult
07:15of Sol are postulated. Augustus was posthumously depicted with Radiate Crown, as were living
07:22emperors from Nero, after AD 65, to Constantine. Some modern scholarship interprets the imperial
07:30Radiate Crown as a divine, solar association, rather than an overt symbol of Sol. Bergman calls
07:37it a pseudo-object designed to disguise the divine and solar connotations that would otherwise be
07:42politically controversial. But there is broad agreement that coin images showing the imperial
07:47Radiate Crown are stylistically distinct from those of the solar Crown of Rays.
07:51The imperial Radiate Crown is depicted as a real object rather than as symbolic light.
07:56According to some scholars, the Emperor Aurelian instituted in AD 274 the festival dies,
08:02Natalis Solis Invicti, birthday of the Invincible Sun, on the 25th of December, the date of the
08:08winter solstice in the Roman calendar. In Rome, this yearly festival was celebrated with 30 chariot
08:14races. Gary Forsythe, professor of ancient history, says this celebration would have formed a welcome
08:21addition to the seven-day period of the Saturnalia, December 17, 23, Rome's most joyous holiday season
08:27since republican times, characterized by parties, banquets, and exchanges of gifts.
08:32Before Aurelian, the calendar of Antiochus of Athens, CE 2nd century AD, had marked the 25th of
08:39December as the birthday of the Sun, but did not refer to any religious festival being held on that date.
08:45Around AD 238, Sensorynus had written in Dei Dei Natali that the winter solstice was the birth of the Sun.
08:53A widely held theory is that the early church chose December 25th as Jesus Christ's birthday,
08:59Dies Natalis Christi, to appropriate the festival of Sol Invictus' birthday, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti,
09:06held on the same date. The calendar of Philokalis, CC.336 AD, is the earliest record of both the
09:13Natalis Invicti and Christ's birthday, being marked on December 25th. Stephen Hyman's argues that the
09:19earliest certain evidence for a festival of Sol Invictus on December 25th is from Julian,
09:2530 years later. He suggests that the pagan feast might have been a reaction to the Christian one
09:30rather than vice versa. The early church linked Jesus Christ to the Sun and referred to him as
09:35the true Sun, Sol Verus, or the Sun of Righteousness, Sol Justitiae, prophesied by Malachi. The Christian
09:43treatise De Solstitius et Aquinoctius from the late 4th century AD, associates Jesus' birth
09:49with the birthday of the Sun and Sol Invictus. Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December,
09:55the 8th before the calends of January, the 25th of December. But they, the pagans,
10:01call it the birthday of the Invincible One, Invictus. But who then is as invincible as our Lord,
10:08who defeated the death He suffered? Or if they say that this is the birthday of the Sun,
10:13well, He Himself is the Son of Justice. In a late 4th century Christmas sermon,
10:18Augustine of Hippo said, Let us keep this day with due solemnity, not like those who are without
10:24faith on account of the Sun, but because of Him who made the Sun. He, incarnate, stands above that
10:31Sun which is worshipped as a god. The theory is mentioned in an annotation of uncertain date,
10:37added to a manuscript by 12th century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar Salabi. The scribe wrote,
10:42In these solemnities and revelries, the Christians also took part. Accordingly, when the doctors of
10:57the church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and
11:02resolved that the true nativity should be solemnized on that day. Another theory is that Christmas was
11:08calculated as nine months after a date chosen as Christ's conception, the Annunciation, March 25th,
11:16the Roman date of the Spring Equinox. This theory was first proposed by French priest and historian
11:21Louis Duchesne in 1889. Imagery of Saul may have been appropriated by Christians. A mosaic dated to
11:28around 300 AD in the tomb of the Julii, an apparently Christian tomb in the Vatican Necropolis,
11:34is generally thought to depict Jesus as Saul, Helios, or Apollo. Stephen Hyman suggests that it is simply
11:42a representation of Saul, or a figure representing the sun.
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