The Roman Sun: Symbolic Variation in Ancient Solar Worship

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THE ROMAN SUN:

SYMBOLIC VARIATION IN ANCIENT SOLAR WORSHIP

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

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I. Introduction

Aristarchus of Samos must have devised his heliocentric model of the solar system in the third century BCE, as his pupil Archimedes records his controversial arguments shortly

thereafter. Unlike most other learned men of his day, he proposed that the sun and stars remained “unmoved,” while the Earth and all the other heavenly bodies revolved around it.1 Greeks like Aristarchus were some of the first to record their observations and calculations of the sun and other planetary bodies, or perhaps the first whose astronomical works survived, as it is

understandably a global activity. Aristarchus’s heliocentric views must have been in the

minority, but nevertheless, advancements in Greek cosmology showed a high level of interest in the sun and its movements in the Greek and Roman world at that point in time. As ancient astronomy often overlapped with philosophy, and philosophy with religion, and religion with politics, this conceptualization of the sun was rather multidimensional, as it could also be

considered in a more immaterial, intellectual manner apart from its cosmic form. It could even, at times, be significant in both aspects simultaneously.

Sun worship, through deities like Helios in Greece and Sol in Rome, can thus provide another model through which to understand the ancients’ views of the sun. The very fact that solar observation, study, and characterization was a global phenomenon is what makes solar divinity interesting; the way it was characterized at any given time can be a window into a particular society’s needs and methods of symbolic expression. Roman solar worship, in

particular, seems to have taken a variety of different forms throughout the Republic and into the imperial period, and it is worth exploring what values those forms could reflect in Roman society. But the Roman Sol, the sun god sometimes equated or confused with Helios due to their

1_{Archimedes, Sand Reckoner}

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closeness in representation, seems to have taken on many forms and personalities over time— how, then, are we to make sense of his evolution, and what may this progression tell us about the nature of solar divinity in Rome? What does it mean in regards to how the Romans approached their religions and deities?

The history of Roman solar worship has, so far, been overly simplified amongst scholars. Subject to imaginary divisions and sequences in narrative, Sol is usually deemed responsible for far-reaching trends like orientalization and solar monotheism that do not make sense in light of literary and iconographic evidence. Additionally, the frameworks that have been placed around the study of Sol are largely incorrect and much too neat and straightforward to be an accurate reflection of his changes over time. For example, the distinction between an earlier Sol/Helios figure and a later Sol Invictus is unfounded, and denatures the diverse web of religious

symbolism and political propaganda through which solar worship functioned. It has survived into modern scholarship, however, and it is part of a much larger trend amongst historians that

focuses entirely on origins of religious symbols and their attached meanings—who must have been responsible for influence, and thus how that affected the character of the deity. This focus, as we will find with the work of major twentieth-century scholars, then translated to these forced divisions of Sol’s nature as a divine presence in Rome—conjuring this narrative behind the evolution of solar worship and solar symbolism that does not exist apart from our own far removed conceptualizations of it.

In order to set the motion of Roman solar worship on a more fruitful path, past

approaches should first be examined in their effectiveness and overall usefulness to the study of Sol. As I plan to address a variety of different literary and iconographical forms of Sol

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the Republican Sol, Imperial Sol, and also Sol within Mithraism. By analyzing the manner in which scholars like Franz Cumont, Roger Beck, and Gaston Halsberghe characterized and compartmentalized Sol, we can then deconstruct those narratives and in turn focus on coming to terms with variation in expression and meaning. For as we will discover when mapping the textual evidence for sun worship, origins are never clear, nor are they necessarily relevant to how the cult functions in any given context.

As an overview of major literary and iconographic forms will show, focusing on variation—whether by region, style, or context—is a much more informative method of

investigation, and difference serves as a more interesting inquiry than similarity based on ethnic roots impossible to prove. Solar iconography will be given attention more generally as well as within the realm of Mithraism, in imperial propaganda, and on coinage, but as it is beyond the scope of this study to provide an extensive survey of the material, the discussion will be kept brief. My aim is rather to propose a different approach to studying Roman solar worship and to provide examples as to how that could be useful, taking into account the diversity of symbolic meanings and forms of representation across regions, time periods, and changing social and religious traditions.

Through utilizing the miscalculations and skewed methodologies of past historians, we can thus formulate a new approach emphasizing Sol’s variety of meanings and representations. Sol as a cosmic and divine force can then be better understood in his particular contexts within the Roman pantheon at different moments throughout the Republic and Empire. It will become apparent that solar worship—and the veneration of the Roman Sol in particular—was not singular, but rather (in literary sources) highly diversified; Sol’s role and personality could vary according to region, chronology, or by the function of the text itself. And his representation in

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different forms of iconography further demonstrates the difficulties of relating meaning to image as well as interpreting the Romans’ symbolic language. Sol is at once his own self-contained divine figure, a cosmic symbol, a personality to be used to promote ideas of imperial victory, and many other forms all at once. The entire characterization and function of Sol thus depends more on his surrounding context than his own essence as a sun god, and any understanding of his place in Roman society, politics, or religion depends on recognizing those symbolic variations and what function they had in the broader Roman world.

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II. Trends in Scholarship

In order to formulate a new approach to understanding the sun as a divinity in Rome, it is necessary to first review the major work already done on the subject. The history of scholarship surrounding Sol is as complicated as his own story, for we find that its focus and conclusions are subject to contemporary political opinion as well as at times based on questionable sources. However, my intention here is not to interpret or disprove the arguments of each author presented beyond summary, but rather to examine their focus on origin in a broader sense and what conclusions they made in regards to how Sol’s roots influenced his nature as a Roman deity. Here we will begin by exploring the academic environment surrounding solar religion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that provided the foundation upon which later studies grew. Then two more recent studies will be presented, in particular that of Steven E. Hijmans which, apart from its approach, is followed closely throughout my own analysis. By sampling these former approaches, we can then come to terms with the assumptions and categories placed on Sol, which then became self-evident as the conversation progressed. Past works on solar worship can then serve as a useful backdrop against the textual and iconographic evidence, which calls into question much of their methodology and overall concerns.

Nineteenth-century Ideas and Orientalism

One of the earliest influential scholars who studied Sol and his role in Roman religion was Georg Wissowa in the nineteenth century. Although many of his methods and ideas are no longer accepted by historians today, he is still an important figure to mention, as the study of Sol was shaped and molded by the questions he asked. For Wissowa and for many other historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were focused on origins—what, if any, parallels

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could be drawn between Sol and solar worship outside of Rome, and what this meant as to the identity and character of Sol himself. First, Wissowa divided Sol into two forms which have managed to survive into present-day studies: Sol Indiges as the solar deity referred to in Republican sources, and Sol Invictus as a later, distinct development tied to the East as well as imperial propaganda. “Indiges” is not an easy term to define, as it is mentioned in connection with certain deities at certain moments, but lacks any discernable set of rules or explicit identity. Wissowa postulated that it was added much later for the purpose of differentiating the early Republican Sol from the later one. Livy tells us that Decius Mus invoked the dii indigetes after the novensides,2 which led Wissowa to interpret indiges as “traditional” or as referring to the earlier gods as opposed to those who had been more recently established.

While this line of thinking is no longer followed by historians,3 it was important to Wissowa in his efforts to distance Rome from solar worship. Sol Indiges, according to Wissowa, was actually the Greek Helios who had been adopted into the Roman pantheon. This reveals an ideology at work behind Wissowa’s study; Roman religion had a distinct character to which the idea of solar worship did not adhere in contemporary thought. Hijmans explains that “in

[Wissowa’s] view, the early Romans had straightforward beliefs, with practical gods whose roles were clearly defined, and this excluded more abstract religious concepts. Neither the sun, nor the stars, nor the planets were revered, astrology had no role to play… Therefore Wissowa rejected the belief that Sol was Roman.”4 Sol was thus subject to Wissowa’s own predilections regarding

2_{Livy, The History of Rome 8, 9, 6.} 3

Francesca Prescendi, "Indiges," Brill’s New Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider (Leiden: Brill Online, 2015).

4_{Steven E. Hijmans, “The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome,” PhD diss., Rijksuniversiteit} Groningen (2009), page 3.

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“Romanness” and was presented as a phenomenon with roots elsewhere, dissociated from Rome altogether.

Wissowa’s separation between Sol Indiges and Sol Invictus, as well as his postulation that the early Sol was actually Helios, reflected larger trends occurring within scholarship during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Hijmans points out, Wissowa’s arguments were dependent upon (and worked backwards from) a pre-existing ideology regarding the nature of religion and ethnicity, and this was entrenched within the much larger overall treatment of the East versus the West. Astral religion and its constituents as a category (including solar worship) were regarded as inherently eastern, foreign to Rome and thus nonnative to the ideas and values of the Western society thought to be produced from it. It is crucial to recognize the intrinsic link between religion and ethnic identity within nineteenth-century scholarship; Hijmans identifies it as the “ethnocentric approach to religion,”5 in which the manner of one’s religious ideas and rituals directly reflects the character of the ethnic group that practiced it. But this could function in a more nationalistic way, turning in on itself to project the desired character of one’s own group as opposed to another.

The nationalism prevalent in early studies like Wissowa’s should be understood against the background of orientalism as a larger trend during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Solar religion was downplayed precisely because of the association between it and the East, and scholars like Wissowa wished to distance themselves from what scholarship held as the inferior Eastern character. Edward Said’s classic study on orientalism provides a succinct overview of popular opinion on Western character versus the Eastern character: Said explains that “the European is a close reasoner; his statements of fact are devoid of any ambiguity; he is a natural

5_{Ibid, page 8.}

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logician, albeit he may not have studied logic; he is by nature sceptical and requires proof before he can accept the truth of any proposition; his trained intelligence works like a piece of

mechanism.”6 On the contrary, the mind of the Easterner is “wanting in symmetry”7 and faulty in reason, logic, and explanations. The Oriental is “gullible, devoid of energy and initiative, much given to fulsome flattery, intrigue, cunning, and unkindness to animals; Orientals cannot walk on either a road or a pavement (their disordered minds fail to under-stand what the clever European grasps immediately, that roads and pavements are made for walking); Orientals are inveterate liars, they are lethargic and suspicious, and in everything oppose the clarity, directness, and nobility of the Anglo-Saxon race.”8 In this light, then, we can perceive Wissowa’s arguments as an exercise in cultural strength. The nineteenth century in particular was a time for vast European expansion, in which the East was already viewed as subservient to the dominant West. It was against this imperialist atmosphere that Sol, held as an oriental deity in his later forms, had to be completely disconnected from the West in his infancy as well.

The implications of nineteenth-century nationalistic ideas driving the study of Sol are clear. Questions were essentially limited—the focus on origin coupled with the ideological struggle over East and West left little room for possibility in variation. Notions of what the solar cult should have been led inquiries into what it was, and many of these assumptions (especially regarding Sol’s Eastern nature) were carried on in later works. The orientalism prevalent during the period combined with nationalistic attitudes effectively placed Sol into categories that have not broken down entirely; a separation is still maintained between Indiges and Invictus, for instance, and the latter’s oriental nature is still assumed in many characterizations. As we will

6_{Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1977), page 38.} 7_Ibid.

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begin to see, the more neatly-placed the framework, the less we truly know about individual forms of Sol and solar worship within Rome.

Cumont’s Shift to the East

As the twentieth century began, scholarship took an interesting turn with the work of Franz Cumont, the Belgian archaeologist and historian well-known for his work on Mithraism and the eastern mystery cults. While traditional opinion held Sol to be a foreign entity, Cumont essentially agreed—but he traced Roman solar worship to Syria in particular, and thus shifted the argument to the East. According to Hijmans, Cumont “radically changed the tone of the

discussion, but strengthened its basic tenets, providing a general oriental background against which the development and spread of the cosmic solar cult could be understood.”9 Rather than simply asserting the solar cult’s oriental beginnings and re-framing them in a Syrian context, Cumont argued for a fundamental competition between Roman religion and these new cults from the East. He says that “in order to gain the masses and the cream of Roman society (as they did for a whole century) the barbarian mysteries had to possess a powerful charm, they had to satisfy the deep wants of the human soul, and their strength had to be superior to that of the ancient Greco-Roman religion.”10 Suddenly not only did Sol descend from Eastern religion, but Roman religion had allowed itself to be infiltrated.

One of Cumont’s basic arguments revolves around a decline in traditional Roman worship. Citizens were disillusioned after the fall of the Republic and Augustus’s reforms had failed, according to Cumont, and this created a classic vacuum of religious fervor to which the

9_{Hijmans, “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome,” page 17.}

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oriental religions satisfied.11 In addition, he says there were no great scientific discoveries to keep Romans imaginative or hopeful; their overall spirit in regards to the worship of their gods had dwindled. Cumont eloquently puts forth that “the world cursed with sterility, could but repeat itself; it had the poignant appreciation of its own decay and impotence.”12 As the empire aged, so did the character of men13 and the general integrity and morale of Romans, and thus he argues that they were attracted to the emotion and vigor of the oriental cults. Roman religion was really two-faced, then, according to Cumont; traditional gods were worshipped out of civic duty, and participation in oriental cults (this could be Isis, Mithras, or the Baals, etc.) was considered “the expression of a personal belief.”14 In regards to the worship of the sun within these

mysteries, particularly Mithraism on which Cumont focused much of his work, Sol takes on an inherently personal nature when considered in light of Cumont’s characterization of oriental cults within the Roman Empire.

However, Cumont offered more practical reasons for the spread of oriental religions westward. Communication via newly-established trade routes from the Latin provinces to hard-to-reach areas in Syria played a key role in transmitting religious ideas. Newly-acquired knowledge of exotic religious cultures combined with the disparities and general moral

melancholia within traditional Roman deities and rituals caused an influx of oriental mysteries in the later Empire. These mysteries appealed to Romans in a variety of ways according to Cumont, as we have discussed, but he goes so far as to assert that Eastern religions appealed to the

Romans’ intellect through their dealings with Chaldean astrology, seen as highly superior to the

11_{Ibid, page 39.}

12_{Ibid, page 34.} 13_{Ibid, page 42.} 14_{Ibid, page 44.}

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Romans’ “infantile religion.”15 Cumont explains that “Syria was Rome's teacher and predecessor,”16 and thus Rome took over the astrological ideas prevalent in the oriental mysteries; Cumont postulates that those ideas eventually fused with other Semitic and Roman traditions to culminate in one idea of the divine. “The last formula,” Cumont writes, “reached by the religion of the pagan Semites and in consequence by that of the Romans, was a divinity unique, almighty, eternal, universal and ineffable, that revealed itself throughout nature, but whose most splendid and most energetic manifestation was the sun.”17 The sun is both a part of astrological mystery promoted by the Eastern cults and a sort of global truth for Cumont, and thus he neatly ties together the influx of the oriental mysteries and their reverence for the sun with the increasing presence of Christianity.

Cumont’s work on oriential religions and their spread into the Roman traditions of the imperial period shifted the argument to the East in terms of influence—not only did they disseminate into Rome, but Rome was so fundamentally weakened religiously that they were quickly accepted. As for Sol himself, sun worship was caught up in Cumont’s combination of astrology and morality that swept into Rome via trade routes from Syria. He assumed that the textual evidence and iconography for the later imperial Sol must have been directly inspired by this oriental influx, and most importantly, that Romans themselves were aware of this and readily accepted it. In this astrology/morality combination, Sol could also take on more symbolic

attributes, especially when working back from what we know to be the ultimate result:

monotheism. For Cumont, Sol is both an oriental and consolidating force that moved into Rome through a wider acceptance of astral religion and a desire for depth of religious meaning.

15_{Ibid, page 31.}

16_{Ibid, page 134.} 17_Ibid.

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Recent Scholarship

The conversation surrounding Sol during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was thus concentrated on eastern influence. It makes sense, then, for more recent historians to focus their works on reacting to those foundational approaches. Two interesting examples can be found in G.H. Halsberghe’s Cult of Sol Invictus of 1972 and, more recently, Steven Hijmans’ “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome” [2009]. Although Halsberghe and Hijmans were

answering essentially the same question—what is the real identity of Sol?—they took different approaches to their studies and raised important questions in interpreting sources.

Halsberghe’s Sol followed the earlier precedents and was divided into Sol Indiges and Sol Invictus. However, Halsberghe argued for a distinctly Roman character of Republican Sol, relying on the Fasti of Philocalus for evidence of an “autochthonous Sol.”18 Halsberghe himself is ambiguous on the precise meaning of the term “indiges,” but goes against the claim that it differentiated Sol from his later imperial (and thoroughly Eastern) form, arguing that the Romans had no need, at the time, to discern between them. But according to Halsberghe, Sol maintained a continuous presence throughout the period, and especially towards the “switch” to imperial Sol. The later Sol Invictus was promoted as early as Marc Anthony, who portrayed the sun god as all-powerful on coins, but it was Augustus’s veneration of Apollo that inspired this new personality of the solar deity. Halsberghe explains that Augustus “was determined first and foremost to give new luster to the ancient cults of the Roman people and if necessary to rescue them from

oblivion,” and by this promotion he thus “laid the basis for the extension of the theology of the sun a few centuries later.”19 In Halsberghe’s conception of Sol’s identity, it was double—the Republican sun god was thoroughly Roman, but in the second century, Syrian solar traditions

18_{Gaston H. Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus (Leiden: Brill, 1972), page 28.} 19_{Ibid, page 29.}

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infiltrated Rome under the emperor Elagabal. He thus calculates that “this cult knew two distinct periods of brilliant growth,”20_{but it is still treated as one single cult that changed over time.}

Another facet of Halsberghe’s argument that should be noted is the importance placed on the cult of Sol as a whole, especially during the imperial period. The reason given for

Halsberghe’s interest in Sol Invictus is “the great influence its dogma exerted on the religious life of the Empire for three long centuries,”21 but this dogma was caught up in the political agendas of the period as well. Promoted especially by Eastern astronomers, sun worship was an overarching concept that connected divinity with the emperor and vice versa, so that even though Sol was becoming steadily more popular through “literary and romantic fictions,”22 Halsberghe explains that “the political ends of the empire were served by these theological concepts.”23 Political policy and aspiration under such emperors as Elagabalus and Aurelian thus furthered the veneration of Sol and his new role as protector, victor, and all-encompassing god. Halsberghe notes that “the emperors came to see themselves as the comites of the sun god,” so it was a gradual process through which the relationship between Sol and the emperors (and as such, the empire as a whole) evolved over time. Halsberghe bases this argument largely on the Historia Augusta’s representation of both Elagabalus and Aurelian, marking the introduction of

Elagabalus’s Sol and his oriental nature as the beginning of the switch between Roman Sol and this new Sol Invictus. Sol’s popularity then remained relatively constant but was further

promoted by Aurelian24 and later emperors. He even justifies the lack of monuments for Sol, pointing to the damnatio memoriae of Elagabalus as an excuse; it was the hatred toward

22_{However, Halsberghe offers no examples of such works.} 23_{Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus, page 37.}

24_{Halsberghe presents Aurelian’s mother as a priestess of the sun god (page 130), although his} only source is the Historia Augusta, which is highly controversial.

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Elagabalus, not Sol Invictus, that spurred the destruction of his temples and projects, and thus why we cannot find more evidence for Sol’s importance in the Roman pantheon.25

We receive a much-needed change of pace in Hijmans’ dissertation on the cult of Sol. While his goal is also to take another look at the hypotheses established by earlier historians, Hijmans differs from other scholars’ work in his extensive look at solar iconography, and his conclusions seem to both conform to, and deviate from, past work on the subject. For Hijmans, Sol is a continuous force similar to that which was argued by Halsberghe, but evidence for Sol’s importance is treated more critically; he is said to have never been elevated above other

prominent deities in the Roman pantheon, even through his role in the Mithraic mysteries, and his overall significance in Roman religion is downplayed.26 Furthermore, there is no distinction between an earlier Roman Sol Indiges and a later oriental Sol Invictus—Hijmans makes the case that Sol should be regarded as wholly Roman throughout his presence in both the Republic and Empire. The driving force behind Sol’s changing personality depended on the degree of

flexibility of the Romans as well as the progression of scientific knowledge. For Sol’s primary role, according to Hijmans, was a symbol of the cosmos (as exemplified in Sol’s combination with Luna in a large portion of solar iconography), but he could be used to represent certain ideas when they were appropriate. Sol was a power to invoke—none of his symbolic functions were necessarily unique to him, but it was in those wider contexts and Sol’s purpose in terms of both religion and politics that painted a somewhat ambiguous identity.

But it is Hijmans’ look at solar iconography that acts as the backbone of the study, and he organizes this vast amount of information into three general types: Sol depicted in a youthful

25_{Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus, page 127.}

26_{Steven Hijmans, “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome,” PhD diss., Rijksuniversiteit} Groningen (2009), page 621.

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bust, Sol standing with a whip or glove, and Sol as a charioteer driving the quadriga.27 However, Hijmans recognizes that although these are straightforward categories as they appear to us, they depend on widely varying context as well as regional modifications—they are meant as the stylistic choices of representing Sol, not necessarily the only ways in which it has been done. One of the most important contributions Hijmans makes to the study of solar worship within Rome is his explanation of the relationship between visual representation and symbolic meaning. Sol’s appearance on coins, reliefs, mosaics, and other monuments is not interpreted as reflecting an “intrinsic meaning,” but rather simply the conventional symbolism of the time, or whatever meaning the Romans built via symbolic forms (whip, globe, chariot, etc.) within the

expression.28 For example, Sol and Luna are quite often portrayed together in what appears to be cosmic symbolism—sun and moon, or the heavens as a whole—but the meaning or desired function of individual representations depends on outer context, such as what scene they are framing and their exact location within this scene. In this way Hijmans’ study is helpful indeed, as the overall fluidity of Sol’s representations can be seen and understood in the light of the complexity that is symbolic language within Roman religious and political iconography.

Halsberghe and Hijmans thus offer two very distinct, yet connected studies of the

worship of Sol. They disagree on ethnic identity—while Halsberghe follows closely the evidence given by the Historia Augusta and takes the oriental character of Sol Invictus as a given fact, Hijmans advocates the notion that the ethnic identity of Sol never changed. He breaks down the former mindset of Indiges versus Invictus and instead offers a more critical view of the sources that led scholars to that point. But despite this fundamental difference, both Halsberghe and Hijmans still treat the veneration of Sol as one continuous phenomenon despite fluctuations, and

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as such, Sol is then one single force. The Republican Sol mentioned in the Fastii, for example, is the same Sol reinvigorated by Augustus, Elagabal, Aurelian, Constantine, and others, even though the inspiration, symbolism, and characteristics might have varied according to the agendas of each.

So while Wissowa and Cumont stretched the argument between two poles—that is, the idea that solar religion was not a part of “real” Rome, and the counter-point that Rome willingly and deliberately took on the oriental solar cult, Halsberghe set the precedent for more nuanced studies that allowed for some variation. For the first time, Sol could be considered in both a Roman and Eastern context at once. Hijmans took Halsberghe’s foundation and questioned its merits, concluding on the basis of both textual and iconographical evidence that there is no sound argument for an oriental identity at all. However, Sol’s treatment as one homogenous deity (even despite major differences over time) as well as scholars’ focus on origins only leaves us with more questions about the nature of Sol.

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III. Textual Evidence

As others’ interpretations have been focused on up to this point, it would be beneficial to present the main sources upon which they relied, both textual and iconographic. Our catalogue of solar iconography groups representations of Sol and the Greek Helios together, as they are held to be so close in nature and form that they are largely indistinguishable. In light of this grouping, I shall include major literary evidence for both forms of the sun god so that its function and role within different contexts can be best evaluated. I aim to provide a general overview and

interpretation of Helios/Sol’s characterizations in the textual evidence, whether in the way he is utilized by the writer, his abilities and general personality, or his place in a wider network of gods. With a sense of the diverse ways in which Helios/Sol can be depicted verbally, we can then have a solid base upon which to understand him visually.

Helios

The earliest characterization of Helios is of course that which is found in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Because of the nature of oral tradition, we can assume that Homer (either as a single entity or the later-chosen representative of a group of writers who exemplified their period in Greek history) expressed the nature of the gods as they were to early Greeks. But it is also equally plausible that Homer’s Helios acted as an early foundation upon which the god’s function and personality could then be altered as time progressed and as Homer’s attributed works took their prominent place in Greek culture. Helios is a minor figure in both the Iliad and Odyssey, but in both works he seems to take on an almost omniscient quality. In the Iliad, Zeus mentions Helios when he conjures a thick cloud within which to hide himself and Hera from view of men and other gods: the cloud is so opaque that Zeus says “might not even Helios

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discern us twain, albeit his sight is the keenest of all for beholding.”29 The sun deity is thus connected with acute vision, which makes sense in terms of the sun as a light source, but in the Odyssey this is taken a further step forward. The flocks of Helios Hyperion are mentioned several times, and come to the forefront of the story when Odysseus’s men go against his orders and choose to sacrifice them. In his warning to Odysseus regarding the flocks, the Theban Teiresias characterizes Helios as he “who oversees and overhears all things,”30 but later, when Odysseus recalls Teiresias’s advice, Helios is he “who gives joy to mortals.”31 So the solar deity is at once close to man, in that he gives him joy, while also acting as an all-seeing judicial force.

But we also see some early trends in symbolism in the Homeric Hymn to Helios, which combined all of these qualities with a more physical conception of the sun and its activity. Like the Iliad and Odyssey, the Hymn to Helios portrays him as having keen sight through mentioning his “piercing gaze” and “far-seen face,” and it also appears that Helios and joy are still closely connected as the author exclaims in his conclusion of the hymn, “Hail to you, lord! Freely bestow on me substance that cheers the heart.”32 But throughout the body of the hymn, Helios is represented through his chosen symbols: attention is drawn to his golden helmet, bright rays and locks, rich fine-spun garment, stallions, and his golden-yoked chariot. Here his movement and activity as part of the cosmos appears to take on its own importance, as once his chariot has ascended into the sky, “he rests there upon the highest point of heaven, until he marvelously drives them down again through heaven to Ocean.”33 This characterization secures Helios’s place as one of the “deathless gods” as he is not only all-seeing but also consistent in his

29_{Homer, Iliad 14. 344-345.} 30_{Homer, Odyssey 11.109.} 31_{Ibid, 12. 269.}

32_{Homeric Hymns XXXI.} 33_Ibid.

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movement across the sky; the sun is thus its own deity with a distinct personality while also a cosmological force that expresses itself in “classic” solar symbols.

Moving into the Classical period, we find that Helios has a wide range of potential qualities depending on what literary genre is being focused upon. For example, for major philosophers of the period, the sun seems to have held quite an important position among gods. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates stands in place for the duration of an entire night, only

abandoning his post once the sun had risen and he had offered prayers to it.34 And in his Apology, we get the sense that worship of the sun was fairly widespread; Socrates, whilst defending himself against the charge of disbelief in the gods of the state, exclaims out of frustration “Do I not even believe that the sun or yet the moon are gods, as the rest of mankind do?”35 His point depends upon Plato’s audience’s knowledge of the sun as a common divine form, and thus his question is “Do you take me to be so different from you?” Helios is clearly well established amongst the Greek gods by Plato’s time, but a closer glimpse can be seen through Xenophon’s Memorabilia in which the sun takes a more demonstrative role. Helios himself is not mentioned here, but Xenophon explains other gods’ natures through the figure of the physical sun: “even the sun, who seems to reveal himself to all, permits not man to behold him closely, but if any attempts to gaze recklessly upon him, blinds their eyes. And the gods' ministers too you will find to be invisible.”36 The sun, even in its purely physical role, is still held to possess properties and qualities that exemplify the divine character. It is comparable, for Xenophon, to “the gods’ ministers” and thus demonstrates the larger conceptualization of the sun as an omniscient moral judge.

34_{Plato, Symposium 200d.} 35_{Plato, Apology 26d.}

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The sun also appears in the works of Greek tragedians, and his role is adjusted

accordingly. In Aeschylus’s Suppliant Women, the sun is the “bird of Zeus”37 and is called upon specifically to save the Danaids from their impending marriage to their cousins. Similarly, in Sophocles’s Elektra, the sun is a force that can intervene on behalf of those it wishes to defend. Here the chorus, upon hearing Elektra’s desire for her own death after the death of her brother Orestes, asks “Where are the thunderbolts of Zeus, or where the shining Sun, if they look upon these things and quietly cover them over?”38 So the sun is again closely related to Zeus, or at least the sun’s qualities are close enough for it to be mentioned in the same breath—but most importantly, it is once again a force to be invoked in the effort to right a certain wrong, or bring relief to an otherwise helpless situation.

Helios clearly had a literary presence as old as Greece itself, but we can also study his place geographically and politically through Pausanias’s Description of Greece. Written much later in the second century CE, Pausanias’s guide was intended to be a general one and thus does not explore intricacies of Helios’s nature as a deity. However, his books on Corinth and Laconia are valuable in determining who worshipped Helios in later Greek history as well as his

relationship to the cities and regions themselves. In Corinth, Pausanias tells us that Helios was part of the founding myth (originally from Athens) and was given “the height above the city”39 in a land dispute with Poseidon, but the latter was rewarded the isthmus and thus remained

Corinth’s dominant god. Sites sacred to Helios included the Acrocorinthus40 and the former city of the Hermionians,41 but he is again only one deity out of many who share Pausanias’s attention.

37_{Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 213.} 38_{Sophocles, Elektra 824.}

39_{Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.1.6.} 40_{Ibid, 2.4.6.}

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His description of Laconia provides interesting examples of Helios’s worship, for at one site the sacrifice of horses seems to be central,42 and at another he is worshipped alongside Pasiphae, who Pausanias equates with a non-local moon goddess.43 From Pausanias, then, we can gather that Helios was certainly well known and established amongst the gods, but he was still relatively minor. Regional variation in myth and ritual are also at play, for Pausanias felt the need to point to the horse sacrifice and association with Pasiphae as unusual characteristics of that particular group or region’s temple practices.

The literary evidence for the worship of Helios in Greece thus does not define him in absolute terms—his nature varies with the aim of the work. What we do know about the Greek sun god is that he was at once divinely personified and considered a cosmic force. As seen in Homer as well as the works of later philosophers and tragedians, there is certainly a trend toward Helios as having extraordinary sight, perhaps simply through sunlight as itself illuminative but also personified in the god’s vision, and this then extends to Helios having astute and objective moral judgment. The thought that these characteristics might have transferred or bled into the Romans’ conceptualizations of the sun is not necessarily unfounded, especially as in the Hymn to Helios we find an early mention of many of the classic solar symbols that remained in use well into Roman Greece and beyond. But Pausanias’s notes on specific sites of temples to Helios demonstrates that again, regional variations in ritual, character, and associations matter—the major literary evidence is thus made up of snapshots of sun worship that show long-term trends in overall personality, yet differences in level of importance as well as ritual.

42_{Ibid, 3.20.4.}

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Sol

As discussed already in the second chapter, the sun god considered to be the Roman mirror image of Helios was usually divided into two categories: the native Sol Indiges and a later oriental-inspired Sol Invictus. In terms of textual evidence, however, these associations become less evident as our sources are rather scant and sometimes debatable in reliability. We would do better, therefore, to take a close look at the major literary sources for the Roman Sol

chronologically and sans traditional classifications, and instead direct attention towards how it was characterized at that particular moment in time—in particular, the context in which Sol was brought up in discussion, his physical presence as a deity in Rome, and varying stories regarding origin and inspiration. In this way, the diversity of his potential applications and significance can instead be mapped and, in a sense, de-generalized.

The earliest sources for Sol place him in quite a traditional role. Varro mentions Sol in an agrarian context in De Re Rustica, explaining that Sol and Luna should be invoked together, as their “courses are watched in all matters of planting and harvesting.”44 Alfred Wolf’s study on Roman agriculture in literature as it related to human values placed Sol, as well as the other deities called upon to bring good fortune to the farm, in part of an “ancient rural guise”45 in which simple farmers were revered as the most virtuous of men. The first book of De Re Rustica, then, was in a sense romanticizing Roman agriculture and presenting Sol in the context of the old Roman deities. The sustainment of farming and agriculture was seen as the sustainment of Rome itself,46 and Sol as a deity was thus rooted in its earliest years and strongest tenants. But Sol also appears to have a more obvious Roman personality; in the second book of Roman Antiquities, the

44_{Varro, De Re Rustica I.1.5.}

45_{Alfred Wolf, “Saving the Small Farm: Agriculture in Roman Literature,” Agriculture and} Human Values (1987): page 68.

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first-century BCE Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives an overview of the activities of Romulus and Tatius and their expansion of the city in its infancy. According to Dionysius, “they built temples also and consecrated altars to those gods to whom they had addressed their vows during their battles… Tatius to the Sun and Moon”47 among others. This presumably coincides with Varro’s depiction of the sun as one of the earliest deities, but in this case, Sol was part of the very foundations of the city and thus had a distinctly political function.

Sources that mention locations for the worship of Sol are rather scarce, but we can get a sense of its prominence from those that identify monuments and shrines. In the first century CE, Quintilian spoke of a “shrine of the Sun, close to the temple of Quirinus”48 in his orthographic teachings in Institutio Oratoria, perhaps suggesting that the temple and altar mentioned by Dionysius was still in use. Similarly, Tertullian, who wrote later in the second or third century CE, identified a temple within the Circus Maximus: “the circus is chiefly consecrated to the Sun, whose temple stands in the middle of it, and whose image shines forth from its temple

summit.”49 And further evidence for the veneration of Sol can be found under the rule of Vespasian in the first century. According to Suetonius, Vespasian rewarded the restorer of the Colossus,50 presumably meaning he had some say in its new façade and dedication. We know that the Colossus was restored to venerate the sun based on Pliny’s Natural History, which reads, “in consequence… of the public detestation of Nero's crimes, this statue was consecrated to the Sun.”51 By the early empire, then, Sol was not just the agrarian deity referenced by Varro, although it is notable that he would include the sun as an integral part of Roman values such as

47_{Dionysius, Roman Antiquities II.50.3.} 48_{Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria I.7.12.} 49_{Tertullian, De Spectaculis VIII.1.}

50_{Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars VIII.18.1.} 51_{Pliny, Natural History XXXIV.18.}

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farming. These examples of monuments to Sol thus tell us he held a modest place in the Roman pantheon—prominent shrines to Sol existed and he seems to have held an important position at certain moments, but amongst a wealth of other deities.

When analyzing origins for Roman solar worship, one of the texts most relied upon by past scholars was the Historia Augusta, which was thought to be written sometime in the fourth century. The text is of course highly problematic, as not only the author and date are called into question, but also the overall aim and viewpoint of the work. It would be most beneficial to approach the Historia Augusta critically, considering whose views it truly represents and what this meant for Sol. His varying treatment can be seen in the chapters detailing the reigns of Elagabalus and Aurelian. The author’s attitude toward Elagabalus is clearly quite negative, focusing on his outrageous behaviors and foreign nature, and this is mirrored in other texts such as Herodian’s History of the Roman Empire. Herodian is sure to mention the “eastern” dress and activity of the emperor,52 and he describes the introduction of Elagabalus’s sun god as something strange—new—to the Romans, always referring to it as “his god” rather than the prior-known, Roman god.53 He is sure to detail Elagabalus’s fall from grace just like Cassius Dio, who records in his Roman History that he and his mother’s bodies were dragged through the streets in a clear act of celebrating their death.54 What becomes abundantly clear from these characterizations is that Elagabalus was not a popular figure amongst the Roman elite who were composing such histories. The lower classes’ reactions to this sun god are not represented here, but those in higher positions clearly wanted to fashion Elagabalus as foreign, his cult incompatible with traditional Roman religion. In his study on the opinion of Elagabalus, Michael Sommer suggests

52_{Herodian, History of the Roman Empire 5.5.10.} 53_{Ibid, 5.6.6-7.}

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that the Roman elite might have shunned his new solar deity on account of the threat it posed to the state pantheon by promoting a monotheistic system of worship, which then had theocratic influences in governmental policies. The conical stone of Emesa itself, venerated by Elagabalus as the physical embodiment of his god, might have represented a sharp denial of the

contemporary Roman conception of divinity, according to Sommer.55 Whatever the source of such contempt against the new solar cult, this Sol appears to be placed outside of Rome’s accepted religious boundaries and thus was considered foreign—therefore we can gather that there were both acceptable and unacceptable ways to venerate the sun in the Roman Empire.

The Historia Augusta’s chapter devoted to Aurelian is quite different in tone from that of Elagabalus and presents his reign in a much more favorable light. It has been used by Halsberghe and others, however, to argue that Elagabalus’s eastern solar deity still had ties to later emperors, but this lacks evidence upon further analysis. The author of the Historia Augusta claims that Aurelian and his soldiers, exhausted from battle, were inspired and invigorated by a certain “supernatural agency”56 that then became known whilst visiting the Temple of Elagabal at Emesa, where Aurelian is said to have “not only established temples there, dedicating gifts of great value, but… also built a temple to the Sun at Rome, which he consecrated with still greater pomp.”57 Palmyra was also mentioned in an alleged copy of one of Aurelian’s letters to one Cerronius Bassus, if the author of the Historia Augusta is to be believed. Having been destroyed in the pillage of the city, Aurelian specifically ordered the Temple of the Sun there “restored to the condition in which it formerly was” as well as further embellished.58 On the surface, it

55_{Michael Sommer, “The Challenge of Aniconism: Elagabalus and Roman Historiography,”} Mediterraneo Antico vol. 11 no. 1-2 (2008), page 588.

56_{SHA IV.25.3.} 57_{SHA IV.25.6.} 58_{SHA IV.31.7.}

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appears as though Aurelian took the Syrian sun god as his own and must have then supplanted it directly back in Rome. However, it should be noted that Elagabal is only named when

designating which temple Aurelian visited, and not mentioned again; when the author refers to the supernatural agency and the temples built and restored, it is always in more generic terms and lacks any mention of a foreign air, as we would expect after Elagabalus’s chapter. As no further information was offered on this new temple venerating the sun in Rome, it is impossible to say what its influences were; what is clear is that it was accepted as a Roman form of sun worship. The Historia Augusta thus presents to us two characterizations of two solar cults, demonstrating not only that Sol had a changing and evolving persona, but that he could be used by different emperors with different effect.

One interesting textual source we have for Sol calls attention to the connections typically made between the sun and Apollo, and may provide a different characterization based on those relationships to other deities. The Carmen Saeculare was thought to be commissioned by Augustus to honor Apollo as his chosen patron deity, but in fact the pair of Sol and Luna mirror the pair of Apollo and Diana in the poem. Interpretations of what these connections represent are highly varied; early scholarship, wishing to distance Sol from Rome and the emperor, argued that Apollo’s association with the sun was wholly incorrect and they were rather two completely separate deities in all aspects.59 Later studies emphasized the political agenda of Augustus that surrounded the commission of the piece, as in G. Karl Galinsky’s analysis, which suggests that the “Carmen Saeculare” was meant to advertise the Augustan secular games. Galinsky draws upon the “indigenous” interpretation of Sol Indiges to connect it to the Latins, and thus the inclusion of the paternal Sol in the poem meant that it was “a celebration to secure the subjection

59_{See Joseph Fontenrose, “Apollo and Sol in the Latin Poets of the First Century BC,”} Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association vol. 70 (1939).

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of the rebellious Latins and to make them over into loyal Roman subjects.”60 Alternately, Apollo and Diana were figures that would appeal to the Greeks and Philhellenic Roman elite, so

according to Galinsky’s analysis the work as a whole represented the Roman tendency to accept the gods of the conquered as their own as a political strategy. But Hijmans offers yet another interpretation; relying upon the nature of the combinations of Apollo/Sol and Diana/Luna that anchor the poem, Hijmans argues that they are presented in a manner that would have evoked the concept of Aeternitas to Roman readers. They balance each other, in a sense, as Hijmans further explains: “The sun and the moon are not unchanging—they appear and disappear, wax and wane, and can even be eclipsed—and yet are infinitely reliable because their changes are themselves unchanging and follow fixed patterns,” and it is in this way that they “refer to the inherently fluctuating nature of eternal stability.”61 The “Carmen Saeculare” is obviously a controversial work, but even if we are unable to pinpoint its precise meaning and context, it raises important questions regarding the manner in which deities like Sol and Apollo were defined in the Roman pantheon—namely, if they were clearly defined at all and in what ways their identity could have been altered in their invocation with other major deities.

The major textual evidence available for Sol thus demonstrates the issues with which we are faced when attempting to map his character and associations chronologically. The earlier Sol referred to by Varro and Dionysius, among others, is traditional and intrinsically tied to Rome as a political entity, but as we have seen in the Historia Augusta, solar worship was not necessarily always considered Roman—While the historical reliability of the work can be debated, it is nevertheless clear that under Elagabalus, elite Romans chose to place Sol outside the limits of respectability, focusing on the foreign nature of his outlandish cult. Aurelian’s Sol was then as

60_{G. Karl Galinsky, “Sol and the ‘Carmen Saeculare,’” Latomus (1967), page 628.} 61_{Hijmans, “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome,” page 563.}

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ambiguous as Elagabalus’s was offensive, demonstrating that the circumstances surrounding Sol’s promotion at certain moments has more to reveal in regards to his character than Sol himself—another words, Sol was less a self-contained personality than an evolving presence that could be called upon in various circumstances. The “Carmen Saeculare” further expounds upon this idea, calling to attention the relationships between gods as well as how certain combinations could invoke larger concepts not necessarily related to the gods on a singular level. Sol is thus malleable, appearing to have at times been considered in his physical role as the sun,

representing agriculture, but also extending to traditional Roman values. At times, and often simultaneously, he is also considered in his more mythical form, but as his components change, Sol himself changes.

---

These varied depictions of the Greek and Roman forms of solar worship do not serve to form any all-encompassing definitions or patterns—on the contrary, what the textual evidence disproves is the notion that any such characterization would be of use. We know that there was probably some type of connection between the way Helios was perceived and how Sol was fashioned just due to the general relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheon, but the evidence is too scarce and vague to argue for a direct, measurable influence at any point in history. Nevertheless, Helios and Sol were both considered in their cosmological roles as well as their roles as deities. The sun was at once a physical presence (thus cyclical, dependable, and connected to agriculture) and a personified god with its own qualities. However, when these sources are analyzed as a whole, what becomes apparent is that the attributes of Helios/Sol vary not just according to geography (as we saw in Pausanias’ descriptions of Corinth and Laconia), but also according to point in time (as in Elagabalus’s Syrian Sol) as well as the overall aim of

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the work he is mentioned within. Based on textual sources alone, details surrounding solar worship are vague—it is only in combination with iconography that his functions can be better understood.

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IV. Iconographic Evidence

In addition to interpreting our scarce literary evidence for the worship of the sun in Rome, the extensive range of iconographic material—reliefs, sculpture, etc.—should also be addressed. As I intend to draw attention to Sol’s diversity of symbolic representation and meaning among such depictions, a general overview of the evidence compiled in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae and its commentary provided by Cesare Letta will be helpful. Additionally, several more specific examples should also be used to show the spectrum of Sol’s different roles and contexts. His appearance on Roman coins will be briefly discussed in a similar manner, first understanding the evolution of Sol’s image on coins before looking more closely at three examples from the imperial period. It is important, however, to place

iconographic types in their own contexts and perspectives; it is necessary for one to organize them in some way in order to properly scrutinize and compare them, but it is also understood that the symbolic language of certain types of representations—funerary monuments, for instance— differs greatly from that of, say, imperial coinage. Keeping this in mind, Sol’s character, properties, and style of rendering then seem to depend almost fully upon his environment and social, religious, and political contexts.

Overview of Sol/Helios in LIMC

The Helios/Sol entry in the LIMC can be adequately summarized by compiling major iconographic patterns into three different categories as it concerns the present study.62 First, according to Letta’s commentary Sol almost always appears in combination with Luna, and this is predictably the largest section in his compilation. But Sol and Luna can appear together in

62_{For a different focus, see Hijmans (1996) page 138. Here I am more concerned about Sol’s} broader function within the scene and variations in projection.

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numerous contexts; for example, they can be depicted alone with little to no further information, as in their simple representation on a lamp in LIMC 314. They can also appear as “attributes or symbols” as in LIMC 325, in which they are shown in two reliefs around a four-sided base. Here Sol and Luna are clearly visible on their own sides—Sol appears radiate, and Luna’s crescent is in place around her head—but it also contains images of a lion, a serpent in a tree, and two cypresses in separate reliefs on the same base. So although “attributes or symbols” sounds rather vague, the meaning behind these various combinations of symbols is not always apparent, and thus we classify them according to how they appear to affect Sol and Luna’s symbolic meaning.

Another important function of Sol and Luna in iconography is cosmic framing. As we shall see in representations of the tauroctony, Sol and Luna can at times be seen in the periphery of the scene in the upper corners, and according to the general theory as Hijmans explains it, they “stress the cosmological character of a given representation, or symbolize its eternity and all-encompassing nature…they are guarantors of cosmic harmony and the universality of cosmic order.”63 At times Sol and Luna may be flanking the scene similarly to the tauroctony, but they can also appear as moving across the periphery of the scene64 or on the respective ends of a relief. For example, the sarcophagus from Santa Chiara in Naples features Sol and Luna standing at either end, aloof and yet intentionally placed on either side of the action in the middle.65

Pushing the cosmic interpretation further, then, some evidence shows Sol and Luna with figures of the zodiac, as in a gem that places four planets (including sun and moon) around a circle with

63_{Hijmans, “The Sun which did not rise in the East; the Cult of Sol Invictus in the Light of} Non-Literary Evidence,” BaBesch vol. 71 (1996), page 143.

64_{An interesting example of this is LIMC 347, in which Sol and Luna appear to be riding in} opposite directions. This led Hijmans (1996) to conclude it was a symbol of cosmic chaos, and thus other “normal” flanking representations must refer to order.

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four zodiac signs.66 Sol and Luna thus have highly diverse representations, ranging from simple renderings by themselves, to interacting with other symbols and figures, to signifying cosmic order by flanking a variety of scenes, to even participating in some sort of zodiacal episode.

One of the larger categories in the LIMC recognizes Sol’s placement in the context of the emperor and imperial Rome. Of course, this too is widely varied, but two examples can serve to give us a sense of what Sol’s job might have been in different scenarios. First, the Colossus of Nero67 is listed despite no renderings being available; however Letta deduces that Nero and Sol were indeed tied together in this statue.68 Nero is represented with solar attributes such as the radiate crown—his personage takes on divine solar characteristics; the emperor is the sun personified, and the sun guides him in his rule. Secondly, on a gem is depicted the emperor Licinius in a front-facing quadriga, with Sol and Luna in the upper left and right corners guiding him.69 Sol is holding a globe and Luna a torch, which then correspond to the globe and torch Licinius carries. Here Sol and Luna are supporting actors, at once maintaining their own

divine/cosmic identity (whatever that may have been to the Romans of the early fourth century) as evidenced by their privileged position, and also lending that nature to the emperor in an act of endorsement. Sol’s function in representations with the emperors is just as nuanced as the other categories we place him in; as with these examples, he is used in a different manner to achieve a different result from a different audience.

Perhaps the most complicated classification is that of simply Sol represented alone (or alone as far as we can tell). An obvious problem is the complete lack of context for many of these entries, as many must have been part of a larger structure or artistic installation of some

66_{LIMC 295.} 67_{LIMC 446.}

68_{Letta places much importance on the symbol of the radiate crown in his commentary.} 69_{LIMC 409.}

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kind; we are left with a huge variety of depictions that are not necessarily helpful in determining any sort of collective character. But the variety can again be noted, for although we have a general solar image “type”—perhaps standing with his right hand raised, holding any number of objects typical of Sol such as a whip or globe—his design can also be subject to slight

differences in artistic symbolism as well as stylistic trends. In a shrine from Rome, which Letta dates to the middle of the third century,70 Sol is depicted in his usual fashion, but he is missing his radiate crown. A full discussion of the scholarly controversy behind the symbolic meaning of the radiate crown is beyond the scope of this study,71 but it is important to recognize that

differences abound in the study of the iconography of Sol—even what are considered his most basic attributes. Styles and trends are similarly important to understanding the character of

representations of the sun god; some, such as a Mithraic relief also from the third century,72 show Sol in a frontward-facing quadriga rather than in profile. While our interpretations of its meaning are only conjecture, it stands as an example of stylistic differences. Only with a much wider context of its use regionally and religiously would we be able to piece its significance together, but these slight alterations can tell us much more about the fluidity of Sol’s nature over time.

Variations in Solar Iconography

As we discussed in the chapter regarding past scholarship on the cult of Sol, the aspect of his worship or invocation that everyone focused upon had to do with origins—Who does solar religion belong to? What aspects of the Roman sun cult can we trace to outside sources? Is Sol an eastern, oriental deity or is he Roman through-and-through? However, in our reading of the

70_{LIMC 93.}

71_{Hijmans suggests that rays must have been painted on and are thus now conveniently lost.} 72_{LIMC 128.}

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major textual sources and overview of the iconographic evidence in the LIMC, it has proven apparent that variance in portrayals and literary references is of more use than focusing on drawing connections in character and symbolism between wide regions and over expansive time periods. While, as we have already seen in the LIMC, these differences can be observed in many different forms in Roman solar iconography, we can find two interesting examples in the figures and symbols that accompany Sol as well as epigraphic variation according to region. Hopefully rather than attempting to build one large identity, the characters of Sol can then be revealed in their own unique contexts.

One of the most important indicators of Roman solar iconography is the object(s) Sol (or Luna) is holding. These can of course vary, but some examples may serve to illustrate the main types. We have seen that in the shrine from Rome depicting a non-radiate Sol, he is wearing a cloak and carrying a whip in his left hand. According to Hijmans’ interpretation of Sol’s common objects, the cloak or chlamys is just attributed to the image of the Greek charioteer73 although he can, at times, appear nude. Hijmans also connects the whip with the Greek

charioteer, but here his explanation is less convincing, as the whip is also a common symbol in busts of Sol and many scenes without the quadriga or horses. It is seen as a solar symbol regardless as only Sol and Luna are given the whip, however the intrinsic meaning behind it is clearly ambiguous. The globe is also a major device related to Sol and Luna as well as emperors. Hijmans explains that the globe represented the cosmos in Greek teaching lessons, and therefore whoever is depicted holding the globe was meant to be the “prime mover” of the cosmos.

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Various emperors, in whose context it probably means “supreme power”, in turn used this concept.74

These sorts of objects and attributes appear consistently enough in solar iconography to be used as indicators of Sol’s identity. For example, Hijmans draws attention to fragments of a statue found on the Esquiline Hill in Rome whose identity is commonly assumed to be Sol, but also raises some concerns.75 In the statue, Sol is depicted in somewhat typical fashion: nude but for a cloak, and with a stone radiate nimbus—however, only one horse accompanies him, thus casting doubt on his identity.76 The importance of Sol’s usual objects is demonstrated by their omission here in this statue, for had they not been missing, they could have made his

identification (or non-identification) undeniable by modern scholarly opinion. Meaning is thus dependent not only on Sol himself, but what is placed with him; the symbolic message is perhaps more complex than we perceive it to be.

But to complicate matters still, the sun can also be tied into other iconographical types altogether, and although they may not be referring to Sol himself as a specific sun god, they are important to mention as they pertain to solar iconography as a whole. We can assume that many of these alternate symbols probably exist, and the sun is (or is said to be) referred to via another solar symbol that appears to be separate from the deity. The eagle and the serpent, for example, are used in interesting ways supposedly related to solar representation. In his study on

eagle/serpent symbolism, Rudolf Wittkower claims that certain eagle statues in Syria represent Helios, with evidence of a Hittite influence.77 The Hittites were supposedly linked to the Syrians

74_{Ibid, page 75.}

75_{Ibid, page 113. See also LIMC 461.} 76_Ibid.

77_{Rudolf Wittkower, “Eagle and Serpent: A Study in the Migration of Symbols,” Journal of the} Warburg Institute vol. 2 no. 4 (1939), page 297.

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through the Assyrians and Persians who then influenced their conceptions of solar divinity through the popular ideas and symbolism of Zoroastrianism, in which the eagle/serpent theme was common. Therefore, according to Wittkower, we can see representations of Helios

(Shamash) between figures of eagles with serpents in their beaks, as in the sun temple in Hatra.78 Furthermore, eagles can be found on second-century Hatrean coins as evidenced by John

Walker’s analysis. The sun god was clearly depicted on the obverse with his usual cloak and rays, while on the reverse an eagle with outstretched wings rose within a laurel wreath.79 While these scholars take the eagle as some sort of vague solar symbol and the eagle/serpent

combination particularly as evidence for Iranian influence, some are more hesitant. Shinji Fukai, for example, in his analysis of Hatrean artifacts, defined the eagles present in the reliefs of the sun temple in Hatra as guardian gods.80 He drew on the same Hatrean coins as proof; for while Walker equated the eagle with the sun god on the obverse, Fukai assumed that this combination must mean the eagle is a sort of protector of the city. Interpretations are thus varied here, but clearly the sun was known to be related to other symbols beyond his representation as a physical god or cosmic logo, and these can vary according to region and cultural influence.

Regional variation is particularly complex with Sol, as in all solar worship as a global phenomenon. Here all of Sol’s regional identities cannot be fully examined, but we can focus on one example to illustrate the slight alterations in character made between cultures within Rome. An interesting altar found in Rome exhibits two inscriptions (one in Latin, and one in Palmyrene) to solar gods Sol and Malakbel, among sculptural reliefs on four sides. George Houston’s 1990

78_Ibid.

79_{John Walker, “The Coins of Hatra,” The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal} Numismatic Society vol. 18 (1958), page 168.

80_{Shinji Fukai, “The Artifacts of Hatra and Parthian Art,” East and West vol. 11 no. 2 (1960),} page 161.