Historia Augusta, the teenaged Severan heir adopted the name of his deity and brought his cult image from Emesa to Rome. Once installed as emperor, he neglected Rome’s traditional State deities and promoted his own as Rome’s most powerful deity. This ended with his murder in 222.
The Historia Augusta refers to the deity Elagabalus as “also called Jupiter and Sol” (fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis).
This has been seen as an abortive attempt to impose the Syrian sun god on Rome; but because it is now clear that the Roman cult of Sol remained firmly established in Rome throughout the Roman period, this Syrian Sol Elagabalus has become no more relevant to our understanding of the Roman Sol than, for example, the Syrian Jupiter Dolichenus is for our understanding of the Roman Jupiter.
Sol Invictus
Aurelian
Aurelian in his radiate crown, on a silvered bronze coin struck at Rome, 274-275
The Roman gens Aurelian was associated with the cult of Sol. After his victories in the East, the emperor Aurelian thoroughly reformed the Roman cult of Sol, elevating the sun-god to one of the premier divinities of the empire. Where previously a priests of Sol had been simply sacerdotes and tended to belong to lower ranks of Roman society, they were now pontifices and members of the new college of pontifices instituted by Aurelian. Every pontifex of Sol was a member of the senatorial elite, indicating that the priesthood of Sol was now highly prestigious. Almost all these senators held other priesthoods as well, however, and some of these other priesthoods take precedence in the inscriptions in which they are listed, suggesting that they were considered more prestigious than the priesthood of Sol. Aurelian also built a new