Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus is also the name of an English Pagan folk band.
Worship of the sun (sol) did exist among the indigenous Roman deities. However it was a minor part of the pantheon, and always as 'sol et luna', the sun and the moon. A temple to the pair existed in Republican Rome, and an inscription referring to repairs to it exists from the late first century.
In the East, there were many solar deities, including the Greek Helios, who was largely displaced by Apollo. Some of these used the title 'Sol Invictus' (the unconquered sun). The Roman cult of Mithras referred to the sun as "the eye of Mithra". Among these sungods was the Baal ("lord") of Emesa, or El-Gabal, Latinised as Elgabalus. During the Severan dynasty, the high priest became Roman emperor as Heliogabalus, and brought his deity Elgabalus Sol Invictus to Rome. With his death in 222 CE, the god reverted to being a Syrian god.
In 274 the emperor Aurelian organised a new system of official worship of the sun as Sol invictus. Almost no literary evidence exists about the cult. Aurelian's mother had been a priestess of the sun. He attributed his victories in the East to the sun. He built a splendid new temple in Rome, and created a new body of pontifices to support it (pontifex solis invictus) and endowed it. Sol invictus appeared on his coins and those of his successors.
The cult continued to be an important part of paganism as long as it existed. What beliefs if any were associated with it are unknown. Pontifices were senators and men of distinction, as inscriptions show.
When Constantine the Great became emperor, there was no immediate change in coinage, until just before the First Council of Nicaea, when SOL INVICTO COMITI ("committed to the invincible sun") disappears from his coins. In general the policies of Constantine in the West towards paganism were more conservative than in the East, which he had conquered.
Games were held on the December 25 in honour of the sun. Since these were very popular, and Christians also attended, drawn in by the festivities, it is possible that the celebration of Christmas on that date was a deliberate move by the Roman church to eradicate the last traces of paganism. But the ancient sources are not clear.
Bibliography
G.H.Halsberghe (The Cult of Sol Invictus, Leyden 1972). This is the only standalone study, but was described correctly by Dr. Richard Gordon as 'wretched'. It confounds the Roman state sol invictus cult with the worship of Elgabalus Sol Invictus. However it does contain a set of the testimonia, albeit in the original languages(!).
