Who was the Roman god of the sun?
"would stand at dawn to catch the first rays of sunshine as they prayed. The celebration of the winter solstice (which influenced Christmas) was part of the Roman cult of the unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus). Christian churches were built with an orientation so that the congregation faced toward the sunrise in the East. Tonatiuh, the Aztec god of the Sun, was usually depicted holding arrows and a shield and was closely associated with the practice of human sacrifice. The sun goddess Amaterasu is the most important deity in the Shinto religion, and she is believed to be the direct ancestor"
"Sol Invictus Sol Invictus (""Unconquered Sun"") was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. On 25 December AD 274, the Roman emperor Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree about whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol, a revival of the cult of Elagabalus, or completely new. The god was favored by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on their coins until Constantine I. The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387, and there were enough devotees in"
"Sol (mythology) Sol is the personification of the Sun and a god in ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult re-appear with the arrival in Rome of the Syrian Sol Invictus, perhaps under the influence of the Mithraic mysteries. Recent publications have challenged the notion of two different sun gods in Rome, pointing to the abundant evidence for the continuity of the cult of"
"Janus and that he had a counterpart, Jana, who was Luna. As such, they were to be regarded as the highest of the gods, receiving their sacrifices before all the others. Such views appear to have been restricted to an erudite elite—no ancient source aside from Macrobius mentions the equation of Sol with Janus—and had no impact on the well-attested cult of Sol as independent deity. Sol (mythology) Sol is the personification of the Sun and a god in ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was"
"to the deity Elagabalus as ""also called Jupiter and Sol"" (""fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis""). While this has been seen as an attempt to import the Syrian sun god to Rome, the Roman cult of Sol had existed in Rome since the early Republic. The Roman ""gens Aurelia"" was associated with the cult of Sol. After 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. Where previously priests of Sol had been simply ""sacerdotes"" and tended to belong to lower"
"Helios Helios (; ""Hēlios""; Latinized as ""Helius""; in Homeric Greek) is the god and personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia (according to Hesiod), also known as Euryphaessa (in ""Homeric Hymn 31"") and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. Helios was described as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. In the ""Homeric"
"Summanus Summanus () was the god of nocturnal thunder in ancient Roman religion, as counterposed to Jupiter, the god of diurnal (daylight) thunder. His precise nature was unclear even to Ovid. Pliny thought that he was of Etruscan origin, and one of the nine gods of thunder. Varro, however, lists Summanus among gods he considers of Sabine origin, to whom king Titus Tatius dedicated altars ""(arae)"" in consequence of a votum. Paulus Diaconus considers him a god of lightning. The name ""Summanus"" is thought to be from ""Summus Manium"" ""the greatest of the Manes"", or ""sub-"", ""under"" + ""manus"", ""hand""."
"Elagabalus (deity) Elagabalus , Aelagabalus, or Heliogabalus is a Syro-Roman sun god. Although there were many variations of the name, the god was consistently referred to as Elagabalus in Roman coins and inscriptions from AD 218 on, during the reign of emperor Elagabalus. Elagabalus was initially venerated at Emesa in Syria. The name is the Latinised form of the Semitic ""Ilāh hag-Gabal"", which derives from Ilāh ""god"" and ""gabal"" ""mountain"" (compare ""jabal""), resulting in ""the God of the Mountain"", the Emesene manifestation of the deity. The cult of the deity spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the"
"roundel of a circular representation of the zodiac or the seasons. These combinations ""may have represented to an agricultural Jewish community the perpetuation of the annual cycle of the universe or ... the central part of a calendar"". Sol Invictus Sol Invictus (""Unconquered Sun"") was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. On 25 December AD 274, the Roman emperor Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree about whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol, a revival of the cult"
"Belenus Belenus (also ""Belenos, Belinus, Bel, Beli Mawr"") is a sun god from Celtic mythology and, in the 3rd century, the patron deity of the Italian city of Aquileia. Called the ""Fair Shining One"" (or ""The Shining God""), he was one of the most ancient and most-widely worshiped Celtic deities and is associated with the ancient fire festival and modern Sabbat Beltane. He was associated with the horse (as shown by the clay horse figurine offerings at Belenos's Sainte-Sabine shrine in Burgundy) and also the wheel. Perhaps like Apollo, with whom he became identified in the ""Augustan History"", Belenos was"
"figure, manifested as a goddess but also perceived as the eye of the sky father Dyeus. During the Roman Empire, a festival of the birth of the ""Unconquered Sun"" (or ""Dies Natalis Solis Invicti"") was celebrated on the winter solstice—the ""rebirth"" of the sun—which occurred on December 25 of the Julian calendar. In late antiquity, the theological centrality of the sun in some Imperial religious systems suggest a form of a ""solar monotheism"". The religious commemorations on December 25 were replaced under Christian domination of the Empire with the birthday of Christ. The Tiv people consider the Sun to be"
"Sol, and the lack of any clear differentiation—either in name or depiction—between the ""early"" and ""late"" Roman sun god. The Latin ""sol"" for ""Sun"" is the continuation of the PIE heteroclitic ""*Sehul- / *Sh-en-"", cognate to Germanic ""Sol"", Sanskrit ""Surya"", Greek ""Helios"", Lithuanian ""Saulė"". Also compare Latin ""sol"" to Etruscan ""usil"". Today, ""sol"" (or variations of it, such as Italian ""sole"" or French ""soleil"") is still the main word for ""sun"" in Romance languages. ""Sol"" is used in contemporary English by astronomers and many science fiction authors as the proper name of the Sun to distinguish it from other stars"
"identity was often combined with other gods, forming an interconnection between deities. Ra Ra (; or ""rˤ;"" also transliterated ""rˤw;"" cuneiform: ""ri-a"" or ""ri-ia"") or Re (; , ""Rē"") is the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon sun. In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the major god Horus into Ra-Horakhty (""Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons""). He was believed to rule in all parts of the"
"of the sea. He can take the form of all animals of the zodiac. Some lists, cited by Hyginus, of the names of horses that pulled Helios' chariot, are as follows. Helios Helios (; ""Hēlios""; Latinized as ""Helius""; in Homeric Greek) is the god and personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia (according to Hesiod), also known as Euryphaessa (in ""Homeric Hymn 31"") and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. Helios was described as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole"
"of light and the coming of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman Empire at the ""Dies Natalis"" of Sol Invictus, the ""Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun,"" on December 25. It was customary for the Romans to represent divine figures as kings of Latium at the time of their legendary origins. Macrobius states explicitly that the Roman legend of Janus and Saturn is an affabulation, as the true meaning of religious beliefs cannot be openly expressed. In the myth Saturn was the original and autochthonous ruler of the Capitolium, which had thus been called the ""Mons Saturnius"" in"
"which may be suns for their own planetary systems. According to Roman sources, the worship of Sol was introduced by Titus Tatius shortly after the foundation of Rome In Virgil he is the grandfather of Latinus, the son of Sol's daughter Circe who lived not far from Rome at Monte Circeo. A shrine to Sol stood on the banks of the Numicius, near many important shrines of early Latin religion. In Rome Sol had an ""old"" temple in the Circus Maximus according to Tacitus (AD 56 – 117), and this temple remained important in the first three centuries AD. There"
"Ra Ra (; or ""rˤ;"" also transliterated ""rˤw;"" cuneiform: ""ri-a"" or ""ri-ia"") or Re (; , ""Rē"") is the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon sun. In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the major god Horus into Ra-Horakhty (""Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons""). He was believed to rule in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was synonymous"
"for the god in Rome to (at least) four. He also instituted games in honor of the sun god, held every four years from 274 onwards. The identity of Aurelian's Sol Invictus has long been a subject of scholarly debate. Based on the ""Augustan History"", some scholars have argued that it was based on Sol Elagablus (or Elagabla) of Emesa. Others, basing their argument on Zosimus, suggest that it was based on the Šams, the solar god of Palmyra on the grounds that Aurelian placed and consecrated a cult statue of the sun god looted from Palmyra in the temple"
"the dawn. The Romans considered the planet Lucifer particularly sacred to the goddess Venus, whose name eventually became the scientific name for the planet. The second century Roman mythographer Pseudo-Hyginus said of the planet: Ovid, in his first century epic ""Metamorphoses"", describes Lucifer as ordering the heavens: In the classical Roman period, Lucifer was not typically regarded as a deity and had few, if any, myths, though the planet was associated with various deities and often poetically personified. Cicero pointed out that ""You say that Sol the Sun and Luna the Moon are deities, and the Greeks identify the former"
"known by the Latinised name of his god and his priesthood, Elagabalus. The 14-year-old emperor brought his solar-mountain deity from his native Emesa to Rome and into official imperial cult. In Syria, the cult of Elagabalus was popular and well established. In Rome, it was a foreign and (according to some ancient sources) disgusting Eastern novelty. In 220 AD, the priest Elagabalus replaced Jupiter with the god Elagabalus as ""sol invictus"" (the unconquered Sun) and thereafter neglected his Imperial role as ""pontifex maximus"". According to Marius Maximus, he ruled from his degenerate ""domus"" through prefects who included among others a"
"Aurora (mythology) Aurora () is the Latin word for dawn, and the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Like Greek ""Eos"" and Rigvedic ""Ushas"", ""Aurora"" continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, ""Hausos"". In Roman mythology, Aurora renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the sun. Her parentage was flexible: for Ovid, she could equally be ""Pallantis"", signifying the daughter of Pallas, or the daughter of Hyperion. She has two siblings, a brother (Sol, the sun) and a sister (Luna, the moon). Roman writers rarely imitated Hesiod and later"
"Solar deity A solar deity (also sun god or sun goddess) is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The Sun is sometimes referred to by its Latin name ""Sol"" or by its Greek name ""Helios"". The English word ""sun"" stems from Proto-Germanic *""sunnǭ"". The Neolithic concept of a ""solar barge"" (also ""solar bark"", ""solar barque"", ""solar boat"" and ""sun boat"", a mythological representation of the sun riding in a boat) is"
"of the Sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton. In Proto-Indo-European religion, the Sun was personified as the goddess ""*Sehul"". Derivatives of this goddess in Indo-European languages include the Old Norse ""Sól"", Sanskrit ""Surya"", Gaulish ""Sulis"", Lithuanian ""Saulė"", and Slavic ""Solntse"". In ancient Greek religion, the sun deity was the male god Helios, but traces of an earlier female solar deity are preserved in Helen of Troy. In later times, Helios was syncretized with Apollo. In the Bible, mentions the"
"has been found as far away as Woerden (Netherlands), near the Roman ""limes"". The god was later imported and assimilated with the Roman sun god known as Sol Indiges in republican times and as Sol Invictus during the second and third centuries CE. In Greek the sun god is Helios, hence ""Heliogabalus"", a hybrid conjunction of ""Helios"" and ""Elagabalus"". When the Emperor Macrinus came to power, he suppressed the threat against his reign from the family of his assassinated predecessor, Caracalla, by exiling them—Julia Maesa, her two daughters, and her eldest grandson Elagabalus—to their estate at Emesa in Syria. Almost"
"This anonymous tract also states: ""But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December ... the eight before the calends of January [25 December] ..., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord...? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice."" The rival ""History of Religions"" hypothesis suggests that the Church selected December 25 date to appropriate festivities held by the Romans in honor of the Sun god Sol Invictus. This feast was established by Aurelian in 274. An"
"In Proto-Indo-European religion, the moon was personified as the male god ""*Mehnot"". The ancient Sumerians believed that the Moon was the god Nanna, who was the father of Inanna, the goddess of the planet Venus, and Utu, the god of the sun. Nanna was later known as Sîn, and was particularly associated with magic and sorcery. In Greco-Roman mythology, the Sun and the Moon are represented as male and female, respectively (Helios/Sol and Selene/Luna); this is a development unique to the eastern Mediterranean and traces of an earlier male moon god in the Greek tradition are preserved in the figure"
"from the late Roman Sol Invictus, whom they believed was a predominantly Syrian deity. Neither the epithet ""indiges"" (which fell into disuse sometime after Caesar) nor the epithet ""invictus"" are used with any consistency however, making it impossible to differentiate between the two (see Sol Invictus, see also Di indigetes). ""Sol Invictus"" (""Unconquered Sun"") was long thought to have been a foreign state-supported sun god introduced from either Emesa or Palmyra in Syria by the emperor Aurelian in 274 and overshadowing other Eastern cults in importance, until the abolition of Classical Roman religion under Theodosius I. However the evidence for"
"church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme now stands. If still in use by the 4th-century, it would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. Since the reign of Septimius Severus, sun worship had increased throughout the Empire. Elagabalus saw this as an opportunity to set up his god, El-Gabal, as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon. El-Gabal, renamed ""Deus Sol Invictus"" or ""God the Undefeated Sun"", was placed over even Jupiter. As a sign of the union between the two religions, Elagabalus gave either Astarte, Minerva, Urania, or some combination of the three,"
"of the Roman pantheon. The god was renamed ""Deus Sol Invictus"", meaning ""God of the Undefeated Sun"", and was honored even above Jupiter. Elagabalus and his entourage spent the winter of 218 in Bithynia at Nicomedia, where the emperor's religious beliefs first presented themselves as a problem. The contemporary historian Cassius Dio suggests that Gannys was in fact killed by the new emperor because he pressured Elagabalus to live ""temperately and prudently"". To help Romans adjust to having an oriental priest as emperor, Julia Maesa (Soaemias's mother) had a painting of Elagabalus in priestly robes sent to Rome and hung"
"be sacred to the principal god of Roman mythology, whose name comes from the Proto-Indo-European vocative compound *""Dyēu-pəter"" (nominative: *""Dyēus-pətēr"", meaning ""Father Sky-God"", or ""Father Day-God""). In turn, Jupiter was the counterpart to the mythical Greek ""Zeus"" (Ζεύς), also referred to as ""Dias"" (Δίας), the planetary name of which is retained in modern Greek. The ancient Greeks knew the planet as Phaethon, meaning ""shining one"". The astronomical symbol for the planet, , is a stylized representation of the god's lightning bolt. The original Greek deity ""Zeus"" supplies the root ""zeno-"", used to form some Jupiter-related words, such as ""zenographic"". ""Jovian"""
"Tiwaz (Luwian deity) Tiwaz (Stem: Tiwad-) was the Luwian Sun-god. He was among the most important gods of the Luwians. The name of the Proto-Anatolian Sun god can be reconstructed as ""*Diuod-"", which derives from the Proto-Indo-European word ""*dei-"" (""shine"", ""glow""). This name is cognate with the Greek Zeus, Latin Jupiter, and Norse Tyr. While Tiwaz (and the related Palaic god Tiyaz) retained a promenant role in the pantheon, the Hittite cognate deity, was largely eclipsed by the Sun goddess of Arinna, becoming a god of the day, especially the day of death. In Luwian cuneiform of the Bronze Age,"
"Senate""). They held the title of ""Augusta"" as well, suggesting that they may have been the power behind the throne. Indeed, they exercised great influence over the young emperor throughout his reign, and can be found on many coins and inscriptions—a rare honor for Roman women. Since the reign of Septimius Severus, sun worship had increased throughout the Empire. Elagabalus saw this as an opportunity to install Elagabal as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon. The god was renamed ""Deus Sol Invictus"", meaning ""God the Undefeated Sun"", and honored above Jupiter. As a token of respect for Roman religion,"
"the Roman syncretism, Mercury was equated with the Celtic god Lugus, and in this aspect was commonly accompanied by the Celtic goddess Rosmerta. Although Lugus may originally have been a deity of light or the sun (though this is disputed), similar to the Roman Apollo, his importance as a god of trade made him more comparable to Mercury, and Apollo was instead equated with the Celtic deity Belenus. Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by ""interpretatio Romana""; 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus identifies him as the chief god of the Germanic peoples. Mercury is known to the Romans as"