'Sol Invictus'

ℹ️ Sol Invictus (Classical Latin: [s̠ɔːl inˈwik.t̪us̠], "Unconquered Sun"), sometimes simply known as Helios, was long considered to be the official sun god of the later Roman Empire. In recent years, however, the scholarly community has become divided on Sol between traditionalists and a growing group of revisionists.

In the traditional view, Sol Invictus was the second of two entirely different sun gods in Rome. The first of these, Sol Indiges, or Sol, was an early Roman deity of minor importance whose cult had petered out by the first century AD. Sol Invictus, on the other hand, was a Syrian sun god whose cult was first promoted in Rome under Elagabalus, without success. Some fifty years later, on 25 December AD 274, the Roman emperor Aurelian established the cult of Sol Invictus as an official religion, alongside the traditional Roman cults.

⚙️