Prayer to Sol

"Apollo, God of Light" by Meynier, circa 1790s

Sol is the deity that is the sun. In the Roman tradition Sol is identified with Apollo, God of healing (and illness), light, music, poetry and prophecy. He is traditionally conceived of as a beautiful youth with long, golden hair. Alternate names for Apollo include Phoebus, the Greek Helios and Sol Invictus, the invincible sun. In the Germanic tradition Sol is a beautiful Goddess, also known as Sunna, who will give birth to a new sun before she is destroyed at Ragnarok. Like Apollo, she is associated with hope, light and divine protection. I do not know if I regard Sol as a God or Goddess. Excepting northern Europe, Indo-European religions generally conceive of Sol as male, but were we to sail to Japan every devout citizen there would swear that Sol (Amaterasu) is female, and it is the same amongst Indigenous Australians (Yhi), and no doubt among many other peoples. Nonetheless, wherever you go Sol is the embodiment of the sun, warmth, light and life. It is in consideration of these fundamental aspects that the following prayers are put forth.

How Many Polytheists / Pagans Are There?

Actor Jeremy Irons lights a huge effigy of the "Borgia Bull"
in a Pagan inspired celebration in season two of The Borgias

One thing seems certain – there are not too many people in Western nations who identify as polytheists … or are there? If social media, such as Facebook and reddit, is anything to go by there are perhaps only a few thousand people in the English speaking world who practice Roman polytheism. The number of Germanic polytheists in English language dominant countries seems to be higher, but even then it seems the numbers are only in the tens of thousands at most.* Statistical information only gets us so far, because meaningful data is limited, with the United Kingdom giving us perhaps the best hint of the true numbers. In the 2011 UK census the following written answers were given to “what is your religion”:**

Incense – Offerings to the Gods

Italic incense burner, 4th century BCE
Source: liveauctioneers.com

When prayers are made to the Gods it is traditional for them to be accompanied by offerings, which may be quite humble. This is the case in both Roman and Germanic polytheism. For example, amongst Vikings we know that offerings of bread, meat, onions, milk and either mead or ale could be included alongside prayers.* Likewise, amongst the early Romans offerings were often without ostentation. In keeping with the traditions instituted by Numa, an early Roman king renowned for his piety, the most traditional offerings were made of “flour, drink-offerings, and the least costly gifts” (Plutarch, The Life of Numa), thus spelt, bread, specially prepared sacrificial cakes (often sweetened with honey), wine, milk, flowers and local herbs. Of these latter ingredients early forms of incense would have been made, simply by placing them on burning charcoal, as was the usual practice for burning incense in the ancient world. By the imperial age Rome’s trading ties stretched far and wide and exotic goods from the east were added to the list of popular offerings (Ovid, Fasti, Jan 9), but by far the most popular of all was frankincense, the burning of which became synonymous with Pagan worship.

Pagan Funeral Rites

Source: www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones

I’ve heard it said that there is a spiritual lesson to be learnt in contemplating death, thus I attempt to summarise traditional Germanic, Celtic and Roman funerary practices below. 

Germanic funerary customs

The numerous Germanic burial mounds scattered across Europe appear to be connected to the worship of Vanir Deities (associated with fertility); they are the kinds of Gods that farmers and fishermen would have particularly revered, or indeed anyone to whom fertility was important. It seems that those inhumed in burial mounds were thought to live after death as spirits connected with the land. Davidson notes that there “seems to be some link between elves and the dead within the earth” (Scandinavian Mythology at 117). 

The Religion of the Rus – Viking Heathens

Artist: Vsevolod Ivanov. Source: renegadetribune.com

In the early 10th century a devout Muslim diplomat was sent by the powerful Abbasid Caliph to teach the intricacies of Islam to a king of the Volga Bulghars, deep inside Russia, who had recently converted – possibly so he could enlist the help of the Caliphate in his struggles to defend his kingdom against the nearby Khazars. This Arab traveller is now commonly known as Ibn Fadlan and he has become famous for his account of the polytheistic peoples he encountered on his journey, especially the Turks and the Rus – both peoples would, respectively, become Islamic and Christian within a century or so of his account. The Rus were (most scholars believe) originally Vikings who, over a roughly 200 year period, assimilated with the Slavs of Russia and gave their name to that great nation. The 12th century Russian Primary Chronicle is the primary source for this assertion. We also have corroborating evidence from, inter alia, another Muslim called Ibn Rustah, a Persian scholar who authored an encyclopedia that was completed in 913 – his entry relating to the Rus is thought to derive from an anonymous source dating from the 860s, and in it he seems to suggest the Rus and the Slavs are distinct from each other when he writes:

The Germanic God and Gods of Fire

"Thor's Battle" by Winge (1872)

Something that has long puzzled me about Germanic polytheism is the apparent absence of the worship of a God or Goddess of fire. Fire must have been an integral aspect of ancient and medieval Germanic life and in many other Pagan religions is accorded due reverence. That ancient Germanic Heathenry shared this characteristic is suggested by Julius Caesar who, in one of the earliest historical descriptions of the Germanic people, specifically mentions that fire was, along with the sun and the moon, highly revered by the Germanic tribesmen he came into contact with. So why is this great Germanic God of fire so seemingly elusive to us now?

What has survived from the myths of the Norsemen puts forth three of the more obvious candidates:

• Surt – a powerful and destructive giant from Muspellsheim, the realm of fire; it is prophesised that he will ride out as leader against the Gods at Ragnarok with a weapon that shines like the sun and, after defeating the foremost God of fertility (Freyr), he will burn the world; this final act of destruction is necessary in order for the renewed earth, renewed men and renewed Gods to emerge from the ashes of the old.

• Logi – a giant whose name literally means “fire”; he is most famous for outdoing Loki in an eating contest; for fire consumes more swiftly than man or God. Snorri Sturluson tells us that “the one called Logi was wildfire itself” (The Prose Edda). Arguably, Logi could be considered to be Surt by another name, or as one who manifests from the same destructive fiery realm.

Pagan Swear Words, Expletives and Exclamations

The TV series Spartacus is full of inventive expletives

When I experience momentary frustration or surprise I tend to outburst variously with “Jesus Christ!”, “Christ almighty!”, “crikey Moses!, “oh my God!” and other biblical profanities.* These words flow out of my mouth impulsively, and in a sense they are just meaningless words, and yet sometimes after I unthinkingly exclaim them they bring home to me just how close Christian thinking still is. Should I then switch my expletives to a Pagan mode? On television and online I have come across the following alternatives:

• Gods be good!
• Juno’s c-nt!
• Juno’s peacock!
• Jupiter’s cock!
• Jupiter’s eyebrows!
• Neptune’s beard!
• Odin’s Raven!
• Pluto’s thorny cock!

The Problem with Mythology

"The Rape of Europa" by Reni (1639)

We should probably be cautious when we read myths – too many of them are the spun out creation of storytellers that risk reducing the Gods to characters in a fairy tale. The great, divine and essential nature of the Gods may thus be obscured. It may to wise to be mindful that the popularity of some myths in the ancient world may have contributed to the decline of polytheism – and may also impede contemporary comprehension of the Gods. Christian writers of the Roman era, such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Minucius Felix, invoked Greco-Roman myths to mock the Gods, and therefore belief in them. The Christian poet Prudentius went so far as to write “depart adulterous Jupiter, defiled with sex with your sister” (cited in Beard 2 at 361). If we were to accept myths at face value then the early Christian fathers could be occasionally convincing, in terms of eroding our belief in the Gods. If we understand that myths may be beautiful and instructive in some way (sometimes acting as a gateway to sacred knowledge, for deep truths may be embedded within, as may be the case for many of the stories that we think of as no more than fairy tales: bbc.com), but that they should always be treated with caution and never treated as somehow equivalent to religious scripture, then we get closer to the truth.

Reading the Runes

Anglo-Saxon ring with Runic inscriptions
(8th-10th century CE)

In 98 CE the Roman historian Tacitus described the divination methods of the Germanic people:

“They attach the highest importance to the taking of auspices [typically by observing the movements of animals, especially birds and horses] and the casting of lots. Their usual procedure with the lot is simple. They cut off a branch from a nut [or fruit] bearing tree and slice it into strips. These they mark with different signs and throw them at random onto a white cloth. Then the state’s priest, if it is an official consultation, or the father of the family, in a private one, offers prayers to the Gods and looking up towards heaven picks up three strips, one at a time, and, according to which sign they have previously been marked with, makes his interpretation. If the lots forbid an undertaking, there is no deliberation that day about the matter in question. If they allow it, further confirmation is required by taking the auspices [Tacitus, Agricola and Germania, Oxford World’s Classics at 42].”

In this passage we seem to have the earliest recorded description of Germanic divination and, possibly, the use of Runic markings to do so. Tacitus does not refer to the Runic alphabet explicitly, only that strips of wood were marked “with different signs”. These signs could have been of anything, and certainly there is a possibility that they were not Runic at all but, perhaps supporting the case, the earliest archeological evidence of Runes dates from the second century CE – only one lifetime after Tacitus’ description. Professor Page of the University of Cambridge writes:

Superstition

My black cat: Blix Long-Claw

Nearly 2000 years’ ago the Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote “religio honours the Gods, superstitio wrongs them” (cited in Beard et al, Religions of Rome: Volume 1 at 216). In ancient Rome “religio” was a word associated with conspicuous, but not excessive, reverence for and piety towards the Gods. Seneca’s comment suggests that religio stands in contrast to superstitio. But what is superstitio? In the propaganda war against Paganism, Christians claimed that anything that was Pagan was superstitio. In an earlier age it was the other way around. To some extent superstitio was, originally, any religious practice which seemed thoroughly strange, unappealing and inexplicable, thus Jews were condemned for superstitio for engaging in the seemingly bizarre practice of circumcision, among other things. But there is much more to the word than xenophobia. Superstitio implies a lack of self-control, excessive devotion, and perhaps an inappropriate desire for knowledge, such as might be thought to be obtained via certain magical rites (Beard et al, Religions of Rome: Volume 1 at 217).

My Other Roman Pagan Website

Painting of a woman writing by Zocchi (b. 1874)

Update, February 2026: due to sign-in problems the website at romanpagan.wordpress.com is now defunct. I explain this further in a post I made in January 2026 at The Other Website is Gone.

Update, January 2016: I have decided to discontinue the website at the old url due to back-end problems associated with it that were not fun to deal with. However, I have not abandoned the idea behind the website, which was to repurpose content from this blog in a way that is more navigable for people new to Roman polytheism. Therefore, a virtually identical website can now be found at romanpagan.wordpress.com - though note that it is not as polished as the old one was.

The original post read as follows

I thought it might be fun to create a website drawing largely on content created for this blog; essentially the idea is to present content that I have created for this blog (plus some additional content) in a more navigable way. To be honest it has not been that fun putting it together (in fact it has been more complex and stressful than I was expecting) but I have put so much work into it I thought I may as well publish it. I own the domain name for a year, so I am thinking of it as a potentially temporary venture, whereas I am more or less committed to blogging, so long as I enjoy it (which I still do). I wish to emphasise that this website presents one person’s interpretation of Roman polytheism. I don't know everything there is to know about Roman polytheism, I am just someone who is rather keen on it, and is as addicted to writing, researching and the pursuit of knowledge as I am addicted to the internet.

Written by M' Sentia Figula (aka Freki), find me at neo polytheist

A Long List of Deities

Janus head on a silver quadrigatus coin (225 BCE)

Ancient Roman polytheism was a bit like the English language, insofar as "new" Gods were continually borrowed and absorbed into the Religio Romana from other pantheons, just as English continually borrows and absorbs foreign words, without being particularly concerned with maintaining linguistic "purity". Similarly, the traditional mindset of Roman spirituality is open, and it is perhaps for this reason that there are more Deities associated with Roman polytheism than can possibly be counted. Thus, it is impossible to list all of them. Even if a historian was able to tell you the name of every Deity recorded from the Roman era (and such a list would surely list Deities in the hundreds if not the thousands) this would still not comprise a complete list, because from the polytheistic world view every river, every grove, every force of nature is divine and likely has some kind of spirit, or Deity, attached to it. Due to these facts the following attempt to list over 100 of the more well known Roman Deities is not comprehensive:

Mars – the Virile God

Marble head of Mars Ultor (c. 2nd century CE)

Simply put, Mars is the God of war, specifically the violence of the warrior within the context of war (Scheid, An Introduction to Roman Religion, at 156). Naturally he is a patron God of the military, but also of less favourably viewed forms of violence, such as banditry, as Apuleius makes clear in The Golden Ass when the leader of a band of robbers says: 

“‘Well now, we’re going to sell the girl and since we’re going to recruit new associates, why not make an offering to Mars the Comrade, though we have no animal fit for the sacrifice, and not even enough wine for a proper drinking bout. Grant me ten of you then, and that should be sufficient to raid the nearest village and furnish a … banquet for us all.’ 

Then he departed, while the rest set about building a large fire, and piled up an altar of green turf to the god Mars. 

On Plagiarism

"Boreas" by John William Waterhouse (1903)

Yesterday I discovered that a website has appropriated a huge amount of content from this blog, ie, entire blogposts, one after the other, and has not only failed to cite the author (me) but has also claimed copyright over content on their website which is in fact stolen from this blog! I don't want to promote traffic by posting a link to it but please know that the people behind this website, if you should come across it, are charlatans. 

While it is theoretically flattering (though not in fact) that they would think content written by me is worth appropriating as their own, what they are doing feels like a most hurtful violation. It is small consolation to discover that they have ripped off many other blogs as well. Small also to see that their most popular post was written by me.


Postscript (2018): there are only two websites that validly reproduce my work, they are romanpagan.blogspot.com and romanpagan.wordpress.com [defunct as of 2026]. If you ever see my content on another website please do not hesitate to contact me by leaving a comment at the end of one of my blogposts.

Organised Religion – A Perspective

Expulsion of heretics (c. 1415 illustration), British Library

Organised religion is a double edged sword. On the one hand organising religion allows religious beliefs to be preserved and propagated – this gives that religion accessibility, strength and potentially longevity. It also enhances the social aspect of religion, acting as a means by which a religious community can come together. On the other hand, organised religion can and does give rise to some serious problems. The main problem, as I see it, is that it is prone to encouraging individuals to believe that they somehow have a monopoly on divine truth. Flowing on from this, members of religious organisations may be prone to developing less flexible attitudes to their own religion, and then impose these onto other would be members of this religion and even non-members (who might be thought of destined to an undesirable future state for not believing in the spiritual authority of the organisation). It can even go so far that some organisations believe they can represent their deity’s approval, and feel entitled to exclude and shun members over trivial theological differences. In this case the believer’s ability to communicate with the divine is superficially abrogated in favour of the believer’s relationship with the leaders of an organisation, some of whom may be corrupt, stupid, fanatical and/or unkind. 

Prayer to Venus

"Tannhauser in Venusberg" by Collier (1901)

Venus is the Goddess of love in all its guises, as well as fertility, regeneration and divine protection from harm, for she is a life-giver. Ancient sources suggest that the offerings that most please her are roses, mint, myrtle, garlands of flowers, wine* and incense. As she is a maternal Goddess, milk** is also a suitable offering, perhaps even more so if mixed with crushed poppy and honey removed from the comb (Ovid recommends that newly wed women should drink this mixture in honour of Venus), or with a small amount of rose water added. More elaborate offerings might include baked goods in the shape of a dove, a horned ram or a bull (these animals were sacrificed to her in ancient Rome); golden jewellery, especially necklaces, and pearls may also please the Goddess. During rituals in her honour, it is traditional for worshippers to wear white if possible, and to cover their heads (capite velato), as it is when praying to most Roman Gods. Prayers should be made with open palms (manu supina) and respect for her images is well conveyed by blowing a kiss in their direction. 

The Nicholson Museum

In the mid to late 19th century many educated British men and women were obsessed with ancient Greece and Rome. Adventurous British people of this era often found themselves in the colonies, including New South Wales, Australia. One of these fellows was Sir Charles Nicholson, who was a founder of the University of Sydney, which is now the oldest Australian university. The university was founded in 1850; seven years later Nicholson travelled to Europe, inter alia, to do a grand tour of Italy, Greece and Turkey and buy antiquities for what became, in 1860, the university's Nicholson Museum.

Freyr – Lord of Plenty

"Freyr Icon" by Jesseca Trainham

In Germanic polytheism, neatly put, Freyr is the God of good times, peace and plenty.  He is a protecting God of the earth and a male fertility God par excellence. Of the Roman Gods he is most like Faunus. Like Faunus, Freyr is associated with the fruitful earth and fertile flocks. Implicitly, both Gods are strongly associated with male sexuality. Respected Cambridge scholar H R Ellis Davidson goes so far as to speculate that ceremonies involving sexual abandon may have been among the wilder rites associated with Freyr in pre-Christian times (Gods and Myths of Northern Europe at 126). This sexual aspect of the God is not simply about hedonism, it is about something far more serious and fundamental – it represents an affirmation of life and a continuation of this same force. For Freyr is not only fertile, he is wise (Poetic Edda; Skirnir’s Journey). When Freyr is honoured crops succeed, livestock flourishes and people enjoy good health. H R Ellis Davidson describes Freyr thus: 

Contemporary Shrines

Here follows a celebration of contemporary shrines. 

My Lararium / household shrine, particularly dedicated to the household Gods, Mercury and Venus

Lararium of Lucanus, a Roman Pagan/polytheist from near Washington DC (Mercury depicted)

Apollo – God of Healing, Music and the Sun

Copy of the Apollo Belvedere (2nd century CE)

Apollo’s cult in Rome

In both the Roman and Hellenic pantheons Apollo is the God of healing (and illness), light, music, poetry and prophecy. The ancients often identified Apollo with the sun itself and thereby twinned with the moon, thus Diana. In this guise he may be known as Sol, Phoebus or Helios. Popular mythology designates him as the son of Jupiter and Latona, though Cicero records that in ancient times there were multiple myths in relation to the Gods – some with which we are no longer familiar.  For example, by one tradition Minerva is the mother of Apollo and by another his father is Vulcan. Despite conflicting mythologies, ancient authors agree on his fundamental attributes. Foremost, at least in the Roman pantheon, he is a God associated with healing, good health and protection from disease (Beard et al; Turcan; Warrior). The earliest evidence we have of his worship in Rome dates to the 5th century BCE, when an appeal to heal a pestilence and a vow to honour him with a temple was made – though we know he was worshipped in Pompeii since at least the 6th century BCE. By the 3rd century BCE Ennius listed Apollo as one of the Dii Consentes, ie, one the major Gods of Rome, and coinage bearing his image was minted. His cult became even more celebrated during the reign of Augustus, who especially promoted Apollo, inter alia, by dedicating a magnificent new temple to him on the Palatine Hill where the Sibylline books came to be kept. More than this, Augustus specifically identified himself with Apollo in various ways. When he was a young man he famously dressed as Apollo at a lavish party. In his war with Mark Antony he credited Apollo’s favour as the reason for his victory. A myth even arose that he was the son of the God, as recorded by Suetonius: