Sol Invictus in the context of "Names of the days of the week"

Tolistobogii (in other sources Tolistobogioi, Tolistobōgioi, Tolistoboioi, Tolistobioi, Toligistobogioi or Tolistoagioi) is the name used by the Roman historian, Livy, for one of the three ancient Gallic tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Trocmi and Tectosages. The tribe entered Anatolia in 279 BC as a contingent of Celtic raiders from the Danube region, and settled in those regions of Phrygia which would later become part of the Roman province of Galatia. The Galatians retained their Celtic language through the 4th century AD, when Saint Jerome mentions that the Galatians still spoke a Celtic language in his times.

Sol is the personification of the Sun and a god in ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods: The first, Sol Indiges (Latin: the deified sun), was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did the solar cult re-appear with the arrival in Rome of the Syrian Sol Invictus (Latin: the unconquered sun), perhaps under the influence of the Mithraic mysteries. Publications from the mid-1990s have challenged the notion of two different sun gods in Rome, pointing to the abundant evidence for the continuity of the cult of Sol, and the lack of any clear differentiation – either in name or depiction – between the "early" and "late" Roman sun god.

The study of Jesus in comparative mythology is the examination of the narratives of the life of Jesus in the Christian gospels, traditions and theology, as they relate to Christianity and other religions. Although the vast majority of New Testament scholars and historians of the ancient Near East agree that Jesus existed as a historical figure, most secular historians also agree that the gospels contain large quantities of ahistorical legendary details mixed in with historical information about Jesus's life. The Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke are heavily shaped by Jewish tradition, with the Gospel of Matthew deliberately portraying Jesus as a "new Moses". Although it is highly unlikely that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels directly based any of their accounts on pagan mythology, it is possible that they may have subtly shaped their accounts of Jesus's healing miracles to resemble familiar Greek stories about miracles associated with Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine. The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are usually seen by secular historians as legends designed to fulfil expectations about the Messiah.

The Gospel of John bears some influences from Platonism, and may also have been influenced in less obvious ways by the cult of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, though this possibility is still disputed. Later Christian traditions about Jesus were probably influenced by Greco-Roman religion and mythology. Much of Jesus's traditional iconography is apparently derived from Mediterranean deities such as Hermes, Asclepius, Serapis, and Zeus and his traditional birthdate on 25 December, which was not declared as such until the fifth century, was at one point named a holiday in honour of the Roman sun god Sol Invictus. At around the same time Christianity was expanding in the second and third centuries, the Mithraic Cult was also flourishing. Though the relationship between the two religions is still under dispute, Christian apologists at the time noted similarities between them, which some scholars have taken as evidence of borrowing, but which are more likely a result of shared cultural environment. More general comparisons have also been made between the accounts about Jesus's birth and resurrection and stories of other divine or heroic figures from across the Mediterranean world, including "dying-and-rising gods" such as Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, although the concept of "dying-and-rising gods" itself has received scholarly criticism.

The gens Stertinia was a plebeian family of ancient Rome. It first rose to prominence at the time of the Second Punic War, and although none of its members attained the consulship in the time of the Republic, a number of Stertinii were so honoured in the course of the first two centuries of the Empire.

The popularly named "Tomb of the Julii" (Mausoleum "M") survives in the Vatican Necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. The serendipitous discovery near the crypt has a vaulted ceiling bearing a mosaic depicting a solar deity with an aureole riding in his chariot, within a framing of rinceaux of vine leaves.

The surrounding Christian iconography, such as other mosaics in this tomb depicting Jonah and the whale, the good shepherd carrying a lamb (the kriophoros motif), and fishermen have led to an interpretation of the deity as Christ, known in this form as "Christus-Sol" or "Christ-Apollo". Due to these symbols, the tomb is interpreted as an early Christian vault. Allen Brent has described it as a "synthesis between Christ and Apollo", in the context of Emperor Aurelian's promotion of Sol Invictus as the chief god of the Roman Empire. According to Brent, Sol Invictus - "with whom Apollo also could be identified" - represented the "shared deity of all individual gods", and the Christian creators of the Tomb of the Julii wished to "express the metaphysical order in the cosmos in terms of a Christian syncretism".