Caelus or Coelus (; ) was a primordial

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

of the

sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans, and is a form of Roman folklore. "Roman mythology" may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to th ...

and

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

, and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

(compare 'sky', 'heaven', whence English ''celestial''). The deity's name usually appears in masculine grammatical form when he is conceived of as a male generative force.

Identity

The name of Caelus indicates that he was the Roman counterpart of the

Greek god In ancient Greece, deities were regarded as immortal, anthropomorphic, and powerful. They were conceived of as individual persons, rather than abstract concepts or notions, and were described as being similar to humans in appearance, albeit larg ...

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a Supercritical fluid, supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or Volatile ( ...

(Οὐρανός, ''Ouranos''), who was of major importance in the theogonies of the Greeks, and the Jewish god

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes call ...

couples him with

Terra Terra may often refer to: * Terra (mythology), primeval Roman goddess * An alternate name for planet Earth, as well as the Latin name for the planet Terra may also refer to: Geography Astronomy * Terra (satellite), a multi-national NASA scient ...

(Earth) as ''pater et mater'' (father and mother), and says that they are "great deities" (''dei magni'') in the theology of the mysteries at

Samothrace Samothrace (also known as Samothraki; , ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a municipality within the Evros regional unit of Thrace. The island is long, in size and has a population of 2,596 (2021 census). Its main industries ...

. Although Caelus is not known to have had a cult at Rome, not all scholars consider him a Greek import given a Latin name; he has been associated with

Summanus Summanus () was the god of nocturnal thunder in ancient Roman religion, as counterposed to Jupiter, the god of diurnal (daylight) thunder. His precise nature was unclear even to Ovid. Pliny thought that he was of Etruscan origin, and one of t ...

, the god of nocturnal thunder, as "purely Roman." Caelus begins to appear regularly in Augustan art and in connection with the cult of

Mithras Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman Empire, Roman mystery religion focused on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian peoples, Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (''yazata'') Mit ...

during the Imperial era.

Vitruvius Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...

includes him among celestial gods whose temple-buildings ''(

aedes ''Aedes'' (also known as the tiger mosquito) is a genus of mosquitoes originally found in tropical and subtropical zones, but now found on all continents except Antarctica. Some species have been spread by human activity: ''Aedes albopictus'', ...

)'' should be built open to the sky. As a sky god, he became identified with Jupiter, as indicated by an

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

that reads '' Optimus Maximus Caelus Aeternus Iupter''.

Genealogy

According to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

and

Hyginus Hyginus may refer to: People *Hyginus, the author of the '' Fabulae'', an important ancient Latin source for Greek mythology. *Hyginus, the author of the ''Astronomia'', a popular ancient Latin guide on astronomy, probably the same as the author ...

, Caelus was the son of Aether and Dies ("Day" or "Daylight"). Caelus and Dies were in this tradition the parents of Mercury. With

Trivia Trivia is information and data that are considered to be of little value. Modern usage of the term ''trivia'' dates to the 1960s, when college students introduced question-and-answer contests to their universities. A board game, ''Trivial Purs ...

, Caelus was the father of the distinctively Roman god

Janus In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus ( ; ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (''Ianu ...

, as well as of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

and Ops. Caelus was also the father of one of the three Jupiters, the fathers of the other two being Aether and Saturn instead. In one tradition, Caelus was the father with Tellus of the

Muses In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...

, though this was probably a mere translation of ''Ouranos'' from a Greek source.

Myth and allegory

Caelus substituted for Uranus in Latin versions of the myth of Saturn (

Cronus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or ; ) was the leader and youngest of the Titans, the children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky). He overthrew his father and ruled dur ...

) castrating his heavenly father, from whose severed genitals, cast upon the sea, the goddess

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

(

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

) was born. In his work '' On the Nature of the Gods'', Cicero presents a

Stoic Stoic may refer to: * An adherent of Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed i ...

allegory As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...

of the myth in which the castration signifies "that the highest heavenly aether, that seed-fire which generates all things, did not require the equivalent of human genitals to proceed in its generative work." For

Macrobius Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was ...

, the severing marks off

Chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Science, technology, and astronomy * '' Chaos: Making a New Science'', a 1987 book by James Gleick * Chaos (company), a Bulgarian rendering and simulation software company * ''Chaos'' (genus), a genus of amoebae * ...

from fixed and measured

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

(Saturn) as determined by the revolving Heavens (Caelum). The ''semina rerum'' ("seeds" of things that exist physically) come from Caelum and are the elements which create the world. The divine spatial abstraction ''Caelum'' is a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

for Olympus as a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

ical heavenly abode of the divine, both identified with and distinguished from the mountain in ancient Greece named as the home of the gods. Varro says that the Greeks call Caelum (or Caelus) "Olympus." As a representation of space, Caelum is one of the components of the '' mundus'', the "world" or ''

cosmos The cosmos (, ; ) is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order. Usage of the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos is studied in cosmologya broad discipline covering ...

'', along with ''terra'' (earth), ''mare'' (sea), and ''aer'' (air). In his work on the

cosmological Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

systems of antiquity, the Dutch Renaissance

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

Gerardus Vossius Gerrit Janszoon Vos (March or April 1577, Heidelberg – 19 March 1649, Amsterdam), often known by his Latin name Gerardus Vossius, was a Dutch classical scholar, theologian, and polymath. Life He was the son of Johannes (Jan) Vos, a Protestant ...

deals extensively with Caelus and his duality as both a god and a place that the other gods inhabit. The ante-Nicene Christian writer

Lactantius Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius () was an early Christian author who became an advisor to Roman emperor Constantine I, guiding his Christian religious policy in its initial stages of emergence, and a tutor to his son Crispus. His most impo ...

routinely uses the Latin theonyms Caelus, Saturn, and Jupiter to refer to the three divine hypostases of the

Neoplatonic Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...

school of

Plotinus Plotinus (; , ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a Greek Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius ...

: the First God (Caelus), Intellect (Saturn), and Soul, son of the Intelligible (Jupiter).

In art

It is generally, though not universally, agreed that Caelus is depicted on the

cuirass A cuirass ( ; ; ) is a piece of armour that covers the torso, formed of one or more pieces of metal or other rigid material. The term probably originates from the original material, leather, from the Old French word and the Latin word . The us ...

of the ''

Augustus of Prima Porta The Augustus of Prima Porta () is a full-length Roman portraiture, portrait statue of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The statue was discovered on April 20, 1863, during archaeological excavations directed by Giuseppe Gagliardi at the Villa of ...

'', at the very top above the four horses of the Sun god's ''

quadriga A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in classical antiquity and the Roman Empire. The word derives from the Latin , a contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. In Latin the word is almos ...

''. He is a mature, bearded man who holds a cloak over his head so that it billows in the form of an arch, a conventional sign of deity ''(

velificatio ''Velificatio'' is a stylistic device used in Roman art, ancient Roman art to frame a List of Roman deities, deity by means of a billowing garment. It represents "vigorous movement," an theophany, epiphany, or "the vault of heaven," often appearin ...

)'' that "recalls the vault of the

firmament In ancient near eastern cosmology, the firmament means a celestial barrier that separates the heavenly waters above from the Earth below. In biblical cosmology, the firmament ( ''rāqīaʿ'') is the vast solid dome created by God during the G ...

." He is balanced and paired with the personification of Earth at the bottom of the cuirass. (These two figures have also been identified as Saturn and the Magna Mater, to represent the new Saturnian "

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

" of Augustan ideology.) On an altar of the

Lares Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ) were Tutelary deity#Ancient Rome, guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an ama ...

now held by the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...

, Caelus in his chariot appears along with

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

- Sol above the figure of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

Nocturnus and the ''templum''

As ''Caelus Nocturnus'', he was the god of the night-time, starry sky. In a passage from

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

, Nocturnus is regarded as the opposite of Sol, the Sun god. Nocturnus appears in several inscriptions found in

Dalmatia Dalmatia (; ; ) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Through time it formed part of several historical states, most notably the Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia (925 ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, in the company of other deities who are found also in the

schema of

Martianus Capella Martianus Minneus Felix Capella () was a jurist, polymath and Latin literature, Latin prose writer of late antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education. He was a native ...

, based on the Etruscan tradition. In the Etruscan discipline of divination, Caelus Nocturnus was placed in the sunless north opposite to Sol to represent the polar extremities of the axis (see ''

cardo A ''cardo'' (: ''cardines'') was a north–south street in Ancient Rome, ancient Roman cities and military castra, camps as an integral component of Urban planning, city planning. The ''cardo maximus'', or most often the ''cardo'', was the main ...

''). This alignment was fundamental to the drawing of a ''

templum The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans. This legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on ...

'' (sacred space) for the practice of

augur An augur was a priest and official in the ancient Rome, classical Roman world. His main role was the practice of augury, the interpretation of the will of the List of Roman deities, gods by studying events he observed within a predetermined s ...

Mithraic syncretism

The name ''Caelus'' occurs in dedicatory inscriptions in connection to the cult of

. The Mithraic Caelus is sometimes depicted allegorically as an eagle bending over the sphere of heaven marked with symbols of the planets or the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac ...

. In a Mithraic context he is associated with Cautes and can appear as ''Caelus Aeternus'' ("Eternal Sky"). A form of Ahura-Mazda is invoked in Latin as ''Caelus Aeternus Iupiter''. The walls of some mithrea feature allegorical depictions of the cosmos with

Oceanus In Greek mythology, Oceanus ( ; , also , , or ) was a Titans, Titan son of Uranus (mythology), Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys (mythology), Tethys, and the father of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods ...

and Caelus. The mithraeum of

Dieburg Dieburg () is a small town in southern Hesse, Germany. It was formerly the seat of the district ("Kreis") of Dieburg, but is now part of the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg. History Early mentions of Dieburg date back to the early 13th century, with ...

represents the tripartite world with Caelus, Oceanus, and Tellus below Phaeton-Heliodromus.

Jewish syncretism

Some Roman writers used Caelus or Caelum as a way to express the

monotheistic Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...

god of Judaism (

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...

identifies the Jewish God with Caelus as the highest heaven ''(summum caelum)'', saying that

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

worship the ''

numen Numen (plural numina) is a Latin term for "divinity", "divine presence", or "divine will". The Latin authors defined it as follows:For a more extensive account, refer to Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (), a god "whose numen everything obeys", ...

'' of Caelus;

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Britannica.com. (; ; ; s ...

uses similar language.

Florus Three main sets of works are attributed to Florus (a Roman cognomen): ''Virgilius orator an poeta'', the ''Epitome of Roman History'' and a collection of 14 short poems (66 lines in all). As to whether these were composed by the same person, or ...

has a passage describing the

Holy of Holies The Holy of Holies ( or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also ''hadDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God in Judaism, God's presence) appeared. According ...

in the Temple of Jerusalem as housing a "sky" ''(caelum)'' under a golden vine. A golden vine, perhaps the one mentioned, was sent by the Hasmonean king Aristobulus to Pompeius Magnus after his defeat of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, and was later displayed in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

, ''Epitome'' 1.40 (3.5.30): "The Jews tried to defend

; but he '' ompeius Magnus' entered this city also and saw that grand Holy of Holies of an impious people exposed, Caelum under a golden vine" ''(Hierosolymam defendere temptavere Iudaei; verum haec quoque et intravit et vidit illud grande inpiae gentis arcanum patens, sub aurea vite Caelum).'' Finbarr Barry Flood, ''The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture'' (Brill, 2001), pp. 81 and 83 (note 118). The ''

Oxford Latin Dictionary The ''Oxford Latin Dictionary'' (or ''OLD'') is the standard English lexicon of Classical Latin, compiled from sources written before AD 200. Begun in 1933, it was published in fascicles between 1968 and 1982; a lightly revised second edition ...

'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), p. 252, entry on ''caelum'', cites Juvenal, Petronius, and Florus as examples of ''Caelus'' or ''Caelum'' "with reference to

Jehovah Jehovah () is a Romanization, Latinization of the Hebrew language, Hebrew , one Tiberian vocalization, vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the proper name of the God in Judaism, God of Israel in the Hebrew BibleOld Testament. The Tetr ...

; also, to some symbolization of Jehovah."

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Roman religion Roman gods Sky and weather gods Arts gods