Sol Invictus Feast

Stone slab from the barracks of the Equites singulares, dating to about 150-200 A.D., now in the Baths of Diocletian, Rome.
It shows Sol Invictus, with his radiated head, the Moon and a bearded figure, perhaps to be interpreted as Iuppiter Dolichenus (the divinity of the city of Doliche, in Asia Minor, that the Romans identified with Jupiter).
In ancient Roman religion the sun had no particularly significant function, before his identification with the Greek Helios, of whom he acquired the attributes and the mythological connotations. In his oldest form, he was called with the name of Sol Indigetes and a feast of agricultural nature was devoted to him on December 11. In the Imperial age was introduced the cult of Sol Invictus, who acquired some of the characteristics of the Iranian solar deity Mithra, imported from Asia. In particular, the emperor Elagabalus (218-222 A.D.) introduced his cult in Rome, because he had himself inherited the function of priest of the Sun god of Emesa, the Syrian city in which he was born. The Roman Senate was from the beginnings opposed to this cult, and when the emperor was murdered in 222 the worship of the Syrian god was proscribed, but it was reintroduced by Aurelian (270-275 A.D.), who saw in the quasi-monotheistic Sun theology a means to guaranteeing the unity of the Empire. It survived until the advent of Christianity, and the dies natalis (“birthday”) of the Sun God, which was celebrated on December 25, was inherited by the new religion.


[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stele_Sol_Invictus_Terme.jpg]