The Sator Square appears on stones worn by time, engraved among the ruins of ancient Roman cities as well as in the silent cloisters of medieval abbeys. Its five Latin words, arranged so that they can be read in any direction, reappear among the tiles of precious floor mosaics or along the margins of sacred manuscripts: “sator arepo tenet opera rotas“. This palindromic epigraph is one of the most fascinating enigmas in history. It is a timeless puzzle, suspended between symbol and language, which seems to challenge the limits of human understanding. Many have attempted to interpret it, proposing philological, religious, apotropaic and esoteric readings, but the meaning of the inscription remains shrouded in mystery. The Sator Square was not just a linguistic game, but contained a symbolic message that is so difficult for us to decipher today.
Its inscrutable enigma has spanned centuries and continues to test our ability to understand the past. We do not know who created the Sator Square or when. Our only chance of tracing its origins is to follow the long path of history, where every discovery is a clue to be examined and catalogued. It is a journey through two thousand years.
The impenetrable Sator Square
The Sator Square is a Latin inscription that has been the subject of research and interpretation for centuries due to its mysterious meaning. The epigraph consists of five words of five letters each, often arranged to form a magic square with a palindromic structure:
The Sator Square can be read in any direction, a feature that has contributed to its popularity throughout history as a linguistic game and, evidently, also as a talisman believed to have apotropaic powers. Archaeologists have found the inscription across a wide geographical area, including Europe, Asia Minor and Africa.
The unknown origins
There are still many aspects of the palindromic inscription that need to be clarified. Starting with its origins: for a long time, it was believed that the Sator was a medieval Christian symbol, as it is found mainly in churches, abbeys and manuscripts from that period. The epigraph is engraved, for example, in the cloister of the Valvisciolo Abbey in Sermoneta (13th century). We can also find the Sator Square in a circular mosaic floor in the Collegiate Church of Sant’Orso in Aosta (12th century) and in the presbytery of San Giovanni Decollato in Pieve Terzagni (12th century). Its words are on a stone block outside the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Siena (13th century) and the Pieve di San Giovanni in Campiglia Marittima (12th century). We can read them on a wall in Brusaporto or on the side portal of the Parish Church of Arcè (12th century).
However, to the great surprise of scholars, the Sator inscription has also been found in some archaeological sites dating back to the Roman Empire. Therefore, despite the quantity of medieval finds, almost always linked to Christian places of worship, the Sator originates from antiquity. Furthermore, doubts that the epigraph may have pagan origins have materialised during excavations in Pompeii, where archaeologist Matteo della Corte found two engravings with the magic square, a sensational discovery destined to shake all certainties and reveal the enigma in all its complexity. What was the Sator Square really? And to whom was its mysterious message addressed?
The mysterious meaning
Even more obscure is the literal meaning of the inscription, rendered untranslatable by the unknown term arepo, which unfortunately has no equivalent in any other Latin text. Scholars have proposed numerous translations, ranging from the religious to the magical-esoteric, from cosmology to politics1, depending on the meaning given to the terms:
- SATOR is generally translated as “sower” or, in a biblical sense, “Creator”. The first person to refer to a deity using the term “Sator” was Cicero in 44 BC. In his translation of Sophocles’ Trachiniae, Hercules acclaims his father Zeus as caelestum sator2.
- AREPO is a hapax legomenon: a term that appears only in the Sator Square.
- TENET is the third person singular form of the verb to hold, support or guide.
- OPERA could indicate the ablative “with care” or the accusative plural of opus “the works”.
- ROTAS is an accusative plural: the “wheels” or, in a symbolic sense, the “celestial spheres”.
If we consider the word Arepo as a proper noun, we cannot go beyond the uncertain interpretation: “The sower Arepo carefully holds the wheels”3. For Jérôme Carcopino, however, the term was an instrumental ablative indicating a type of plough or agricultural cart used in Gaul, derived from the name of the land measure arepennis. Therefore, he proposed the translation: “The sower, with the plough, carefully holds the wheels”4.
A boustrophedon pattern?
According to some scholars, the Sator Square can only be understood by alternating the reading direction in each row. For example, following the order of the words “sator opera tenet, tenet opera sator“, the term arepo disappears. Thus, we can interpret the phrase as “as ye sow, so shall ye reap”5. Interestingly, the “boustrophedon” pattern, from the Greek boustrophēdón, indicated to the ancients the movement of the ox (boûs) leading (stréphein) the plough. According to another version, arepo refers to the Areopagus. This was the hill in Athens sacred to the god Ares, seat of the city court and, figuratively, of humanity. Therefore, reading “sator opera tenet arepo rotas“, the phrase could be: “The sower decides his work, the Areopagus his destiny”. Finally, if we repeat only “sator opera tenet“, the translation becomes “The sower possesses the works”, often interpreted as the Christian saying “God is the Lord of creation”.
The Sator Square, a two-thousand-year-old enigma
The first attempts to explain the meaning of the square date back to the 17th century, when the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher discovered a variant of it in Abyssinia. In his Arithmologia sive de abitis numerorum mysteriis, the scholar noted that the locals used to invoke Christ with the names of the five nails of the cross, which they called: “sador, alador, danet, adera, rodas“6. Until well into the 19th century, all studies dealing with the inscription, mostly of a philological nature, placed it within the context of medieval Christianity, as no examples prior to the 8th century were known. Consequently, translations also followed this line of thought. It seemed obvious that the “Sator” in the epigraph referred to God or Christ, the “sower” of the Gospel parable.
However, suspicions soon began to arise that the Sator Square was much older. In 1868, Francis Haverfield discovered the palindrome on the plaster of a house in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, among the ruins of the Roman city of Corinium Dobunnorum7. The inscription, in square form, began with the word rotas:
Haverfield was the first to argue that the Sator was of late antique origin. This was suggested by the classical Latin words and epigraphic style of the Cirencester inscription, dates from between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD. Furthermore, the existence of a Roman prototype could also explain the widespread use of the magic square in Europe and the Middle East. In the academic world of the time, the thesis provoked mixed reactions. While it was met with scepticism on the one hand, on the other it gave rise to a new school of thought according to which the Sator Square was a symbol of the early Christians.
The hypothesis of the crux dissimulata and the anagram of the Paternoster
One of the first hypotheses was that the inscription concealed a secret message, like the Christograms during the period of persecution. Since they could not openly profess their faith, the early Christians resorted to stratagems, anagrams and acrostics. It was therefore thought that the word tenet was a crux dissimulata, in which the letter “t”, shaped like a Greek tau, indicated the cross:
Furthermore, in 1926, the evangelical pastor Felix Grosser noticed that an anagram of the Sator Square was “Pater Noster” twice8. According to Grosser, the remaining letters A and O represented the Alpha and Omega from the passage in Revelation attributed to Christ: ” I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End”9. Finally, there were interpretations of the term “arepo” as a Christian acrostic. One example above all: “Aeternus Rex Excelsus Pater Omnipotens” , “Eternal King, Exalted Father, Almighty”.
The Sator Square of Dura Europos
An important contribution to the question of the origins of the Sator Square came from excavations conducted in 1931–1932 by Michael Rostovtzeff for Yale University and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Dura Europos, now in Syria10. Three inscriptions of the Sator were found on a wall of the temple dedicated to Artemis and the local deity Azzanathkona, converted by the Romans for military purposes in the early 3rd century, while another was discovered in the following years. The Persians destroyed Dura Europos in 256 AD. Thus, there was no longer any doubt that the epigraph was already widespread in Roman times. In addition, the city was home to an important domus ecclesiae. Therefore, there was general agreement among scholars that the Sator originated around the 3rd century in the Christian sphere. However, a new and sensational discovery would soon call everything into question.
The discovery of the Sator in Pompeii
On 12 November 1936, archaeologist and epigraphist Matteo della Corte discovered the Sator Square on column LXI of the Palestra Grande (Great Gymnasium), among the ruins of Pompeii11. The epigraph was irregular and, like the one in Cirencester, began with the word rotas. Only then did Della Corte recognise the same inscription in a fragment of plaster he had observed in the atrium of the house of Publius Paquius Proculus, in Via dell’Abbondanza, in 192512. It was a great discovery: the findings in Pompeii provided a reliable terminus ante quem for the creation of the Sator. Indeed, the famous eruption of the Mount Vesuvius buried the city in 79 AD. Furthermore, the inscription could have been made after 62 AD. In this year a terrible earthquake destroyed many buildings, including the Palestra Grande, which was rebuilt following the event.
The Sator Square: a Christian or pagan inscription?
Matteo della Corte also interpreted the Sator Square as a Christian inscription. He thought that a family of believers inhabited the house of Publius Paquius Proculus. However, the first-century Pompeian finds have led other scholars to hypothesise a pagan origin. For archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri, the Sator was a literary game, or a magic formula, that already existed in pre-Christian times13.
One hypothesis is that the epigraph celebrated the origins of Rome14. This cult had already been attested in other inscriptions in Pompeii. For example, Margherita Guarducci reported: “Roma olim amor milo amor”, graffitied on a house in Regio I15. Furthermore, in the basement of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, home to a 3rd-4th century domus, near the Sator we can read the palindrome “Roma summus amor”. Returning to Pompeii, the Sator Square was perhaps a ritual or apotropaic formula that accompanied the reconstruction of the city after the earthquake of 62 AD, a catastrophe to be averted in the future and exorcised. From other epigraphic evidence, we also know that Publius Paquius Proculus was a candidate for the public office of duumvir16. Therefore, the Sator engraved in the atrium of his home may have had a propitiatory and auspicious meaning.
An invocation to Saturn?
The Sator of the Palestra Grande was on the first column near a pagan distyle sacellum. This temple was dedicated to an unknown deity. Matteo della Corte wrote: “it is not known whether it was Hercules, Iuventus, Flora, or another deity protecting the Collegium Iuventutis“17. The inscription appears between two greetings addressed to a certain Sautrian, whom some scholars have identified with the god Saturn18. In Roman religion, Saturn was the god of agriculture and the regeneration of time. One of Saturn’s iconographic attributes was the gladius falcatus, the agricultural sickle. The ancient Greeks called it harpe (ἅρπη), a term similar to arepo.
Was the magic square therefore an invocation to Saturn, the sower (sator)? Myth has it that the god reigned at the beginning of time in a golden age called Saturnia Tellus20. The Romans remembered this period as an era of peace and equality. Therefore, every year, from 17 to 23 December, they celebrated Saturnalia. During the festivities, social rules and hierarchies were overturned and slaves were served by their masters. On a ritual level, this allowed for the restoration of lost moral order and the regeneration of time and seasons. The term rotas may refer to this concept. It is interesting to note that in the basement of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, in the same rooms of the Sator, there is a figurative cycle representing scenes related to agriculture and the months.
The Sator in the Middle Ages: a cultural reinterpretation
After ancient times, the Sator Square did not disappear at all. We find it transcribed in some early medieval manuscripts. However, it is likely that its original meaning had been lost by that time. The palindromic formula reappears in the codex Isidori Mercatoris decretalium collectio (Ord. I, no. 4), kept in the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Modena-Nonantola and dated around 882. On page 155r of the manuscript there is a series of Versus Rome, including “Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor“. The palindromic inscription must have reminded the copyist of two others, which he noted in small ink letters in the right-hand margin of the same page: “rotas opera tenet arepo sator” and “Roma muro luceas summus saeculorum amor“.
In manuscript 384 of the Montecassino Archive, dating back to the 9th-10th century and containing writings by Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory the Great, the Sator is visible at the bottom of page 154. In this case, the phrase is inaccurate: “rotas opera tenet arpos tor“. It is possible that the copyist was unaware of its palindromic reading. This testifies to the fact that in the early Middle Ages the formula was handed down orally.
From rotas to sator
From Roman times until the first transcriptions in early medieval codices, the Sator inscriptions always begin with the word rotas. However, from a certain point onwards, the palindrome appears rotated and the first word becomes sator. In this form, for example, we find it on folio 74a of codex 448 in the Dijon Library, dated to the 10th century, at the end of a text by the Venerable Bede. Thus, the Sator Square has undergone a process of cultural reinterpretation over time. In the Middle Ages, the inscription now emphasises the Sator: according to the Christian view, the sower is God. Some important religious orders, such as the Cistercians and the Knights Templar, certainly contributed to its spread21. However, in the Middle Ages, the palindrome was not their exclusive domain. On the contrary, it was adapted to various contexts, architectural and even liturgical, while retaining a generic apotropaic function.
The Sator of Campiglia Marittima
One of the best-known examples of the medieval Sator is on the exterior of the Pieve di San Giovanni in Campiglia Marittima. The inscription appears on a rectangular block of white limestone, just below the roof of the northern transept:
SATOR AREPO M(a)TH(eu)S – TENET OPERA – ROTAS MCSS
The Sator inscription, arranged in three lines, includes both capital and uncial letters. It has an unusual median dash in the letter “a” in the form of a chevron. The palindromic reading of the epigraph is interrupted by the name of Master Matteo, the builder of the Pieve and certainly also the creator of the Sator. Finally, the inscription bears the date of its affixing: MCSS, which could correspond to 1172 (Mille Centum Septuagesimus Secundo) or 1177 (Mille Centum Septuaginta Septem). In the parish church of Campiglia Marittima, the Sator formula probably had a magical-apotropaic function. The architect Matteo had it affixed to ensure the church’s protection from evil and natural disasters.
The Sator Square of Siena
In Siena, the Sator is clearly visible on a block of stone located on the left side of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. We can date the inscription to the 13th century. Probably, it was incorporated at the time of the construction of the imposing building. This perhaps happened after 1238, when the works were entrusted to the Cistercian monks of San Galgano. The Sator of Siena reflects the usual formula of the palindromic magic square. It features uncial and capital letters typical of the transition phase between Romanesque and Gothic. In this case too, the formula may have served to prevent the devil from crossing the threshold between the profane world and the sacred dwelling place of God by entering the Cathedral.
The Sator of Pieve Terzagni, a liturgical function?
In Pieve Terzagni, in the church of San Giovanni Decollato, there are a few fragments remaining of the Sator Square. The Latin phrase was once located in the centre of a large floor mosaic in the presbytery. Unfortunately, the work was altered during the Baroque period and the surviving tiles were in many cases rearranged haphazardly. Today, we can distinguish only the word rotas, corresponding to the last column of the palindromic square. Aus’m Weerth, who visited the church in 1873, proposed a reliable reconstruction of the mosaic. The scholar placed the Sator formula in the centre of the presbytery area.
The inscription was surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists, a griffin and another beast. Furthermore, towards the nave, the mosaic tiles showed the protomartyr Stephen holding the Gospel. The saint is enclosed in a small aedicule and named with his insignia in Greek (Stephanus diakwuws). The Sator had a clear liturgical function: it marked the position of the mobile altar, in front of the priest’s seat. Instead, the lectern was located near the depiction of Saint Stephen. The Sator in Pieve Terzagni ultimately had a Christological and sacred invocation value. According to the Gospels, in fact, the sower is God and the seed is his word. The Sator was therefore a metaphor for Holy Scripture which, like the Merkavah of the prophet Ezekiel, the chariot of fire driven by the beings of the Tetramorph, a prefiguration of the evangelists, reached all corners of the earth with its wheels.
“When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels”.
Book of Ezekiel 1:19-20
The Sator inscription in Arcè
The parish church of San Michele in Arcè dates back to the 12th century. On the southern side, a portal shows the Sator inscription on the archivolt, carved in white stone and tuff. The words, arranged in a single line, are in capital letters between two rough continuous lines. The phrase, preceded by a cross, is incomplete and ends with the word rotat instead of rotas. In Arcè, the Sator may have originated from popular tradition, which attributed magical and apotropaic properties to it. Scholars A. Brugnoli and F. Cortellazzo have also hypothesised an alternative translation of the epigraph. The scholars have suggested that arepo would indicate a plot of land (from arepennis) and rotas the convent. Therefore: “The sower of an arepo maintains the convent with his work”23.
The circular Sator of Aosta
The presbytery mosaic in the Collegiate Church of Sant’Orso in Aosta includes the Sator, here exceptionally in circular form. Scholars date the work to the first half of the 12th century on the basis of palaeography. The Sator surrounds a medallion depicting the fight between Samson and the lion, a metaphor for Christ defeating the devil.
The inscription in Valvisciolo Abbey
The Valvisciolo Abbey in Sermoneta was an ancient seat of the Templars and later of the Cistercians. Here the Sator appears on a wall of the cloister, built in the second half of the 12th century. The engraving is in the form of concentric rings, divided into segments. The Sator of Valvisciolo, has a shape that we could describe as cosmological. It expressed an important concept for medieval man: God guides creation and all works.
Does the Sator Square have a meaning that goes beyond its literal sense?
In conclusion, the Sator Square is an extraordinary mystery of archaeology, that is still the subject of debate and new hypotheses and interpretations. Archaeologists have found no definitive evidence to prove its Christian or pagan origin, nor to shed light on its true translation. What is certain, however, is that over the centuries the inscription has acquired new meanings, adapting to changes in history and cultural contexts. It is possible, moreover, that the Sator Square was conceived to contain multiple interpretations, which change depending on the observer. Thus, a farmer will read that “the sower, with his cart, carefully holds the wheels”, but a man with a higher level of knowledge will understand that “the Creator skilfully maintains his works”. Meanwhile, for two thousand years now, the Sator has been hiding its secrets from our eyes.
Samuele Corrente Naso
Notes
- R. Cammilleri, Il quadrato magico. Un mistero che dura da duemila anni, Rizzoli, 2004. ↩︎
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, De natura deorum; Tusculanae disputationes, II, 21, 44-45 BC. ↩︎
- R. G. Collingwood, The Archaeology of Roman Britain, London, 1930. ↩︎
- J. Carcopino, Le Christianisme secret du “carré magique”, Museum Helveticum, vol. 5, n. 1, 1948. ↩︎
- D. Fishwick, An Early Christian Cryptogram?, University of Manitoba, 1959. ↩︎
- A. Kircher, Arithmologia sive de abitis numerorum mysteriis, Rome, 1655. ↩︎
- F. J. Haverfield, A Roman Charm from Cirencester, in Archaeological Journal, LVI, 1899. ↩︎
- F. Grosser, Ein neuer Vorschlag zur Deutung der Sator-Formel, Archiv für Religionwissenschaft, XXIV, 1926. ↩︎
- Book of Revelation 21:6. ↩︎
- M. I. Rostovtzeff, The excavations at Dura-Europos, Preliminary report V, 1934, 159, no. 481; Preliminary report VI, 1936, 486, no. 809. ↩︎
- M. Della Corte, Il crittogramma del “Pater Noster” rinvenuto a Pompei, in Rendiconti della Pontifica Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 12, 1936. ↩︎
- M. Della Corte, Pompei: Epigrafi della casa di P. Paquio Proculo (Reg. I, Ins. VII n. 1), in Notizie e Scavi, 1929. The domus is located in the Regio I, Insula VII. ↩︎
- A. Maiuri, Notizie degli scavi, 1939 ↩︎
- N. Iannelli, Misteri, culti e segreti dell’antica Roma, Angelo Pontecorboli Editore, Firenze, 2014. ↩︎
- M. Guarducci, Dal gioco letterale alla crittografia mistica, in Aufstieg und niedergang der romischen welt, Roma, 1978. ↩︎
- G. O. Onorato, Iscrizioni pompeiane la vita pubblica, Sansoni, Firenze, 1957. ↩︎
- M. della Corte, Case ed abitanti di Pompei, 1965. ↩︎
- R. T. Ganiban, Virgilian Prophecy and the Reign of Jupiter, in Brill’s Companion to Valerius Flaccus, edito da Mark Heerink and Gesine Manuwald, Brill Academic Publishers, 2014. ↩︎
- Dr. Vollmers Wörterbuch der Mythologie aller Völker, Stuttgart, 1874. Link to the image. ↩︎
- Publius Vergilius Maro, Georgics, II, 173. ↩︎
- A. Giacomini, Sator, Codice templare, Edizioni Penne e Papiri, 2004; R. Giordano, L’enigma perfetto. I luoghi del Sator in Italia, Edizioni Universitarie Romane, Roma, 2013. ↩︎
- Ernst Aus’m Weerth, Der Mosaikboden in St. Gereon zu Cöln, 1873. ↩︎
- A. Brugnoli e F. Cortellazzo, L’epigrafe del Sator a San Michele di Arcé, in Annuario Storico della Valpolicella, XXX , 2013-2014. ↩︎
