page_title: Sol Invictus
section_title: Invictus as epithet
hierarchical_section_title: Sol Invictus / Invictus as epithet
caption_attribution_description: English: Dedication slab representing the Sun god crowned by solar rays, the Moon goddess bearing a crescent on her hair, and an old man, perhaps Jupiter Dolichenus. From the area of the barracks of the Equites Singulares, via Tasso, Rome. Français&#160;: Plaque votive représentant le Soleil, la Lune et un vieil homme, sans doute Jupiter Dolichenus. Provenance&#160;: caserne des Equites Singulares, via Tasso à Rome. Italiano: Lastra con raffigurazione di Sole, Luna e Giove Dolichenus. Dall'area della caserna degli Equites Singulares, via Tasso, Roma.
context_page_description: Sol Invictus 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 the last third-part of the reign of Constantine I. The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387, and there were enough devotees in the fifth century that the Christian theologian Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.
context_section_description: Invictus ("unconquered, invincible") was an epithet utilized for several Roman deities, including Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Apollo, and Silvanus. It had been in use from the 3rd century BC. The Roman cult to Sol is continuous from the "earliest history" of the city until the institution of the Christian cult as the exclusive state religion. Scholars have sometimes regarded the traditional Sol and Sol Invictus as two separate deities, but the rejection of this view by S. E. Hijmans has found supporters.
  An 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 Anicetus. While he may perhaps have had in mind an allusion to his own cognomen, which is the Latinized form of the Greek equivalent of invictus, ἀνίκητος (aniketos), the earliest extant dated inscription that uses invictus as an epithet of Sol is from AD 158. Another, stylistically dated to the 2nd century, is inscribed on a Roman phalera (ornamental disk): inventori lucis soli invicto augusto ("I glorify the unconquerable sun, the creator of light.") Augustus is a regular epithet linking deities to the Imperial cult.
  Sol Invictus played a prominent role in the Mithraic mysteries, and was equated with Mithras. The relation of the Mithraic Sol Invictus to the public cult of the deity with the same name is unclear and perhaps non-existent.
caption: Dedication made by a priest of Jupiter Dolichenus on behalf of the well-being (salus) of the emperors, to Sol Invictus and the Genius of the military unit equites singulares Augusti[9]
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