Sator Squares

 Soldiers have battles to fight and training to do. In between is time off.  The Roman soldiers amused themselves with puzzles.  In particular they liked palindromes, puzzles of perfect word squares that the maker challenges his buddies to solve.  One soldier presents a word or partial word square and the others tried to solve it. The trick with palindromes is to make the square read forwards or backwards, vertically and even diagonally.  One clever Latin palindrome that can be read 4 ways is found on many military training grounds carved into walls and pillars. It is called the SATOR square.

         S A T O R

         A R E P O

         T E N E T

         O P E R A

         R O T A S

The game might start with the leader writing SATOR as the first line and first column.  Challenge is to fill out the square so that it reads the same phrase horizontally, vertically, backwards from the bottom both horizontally and vertically. Solving it depends on knowing words that, written backwards in Latin, are still a word.

 The translation of the finished square is Sator (The sower) Arepo (some odd name) Tenet (holds, operates, masters) Opera (work) Rotas (wheels). “The sower, Arepo, operates the wheels that work.” (Latin, unlike English, has word endings that define the grammar and assumed articles, and word order can be interchanged in sentences and they will still say the same thing.)  Amazingly enough, SATOR squares are found in nearly 30 tiny house churches dating before 150 AD as well as in military barracks.(not graffiti—the letters were carved into the stone)  The earliest is in a bakery shop in Pompeii (destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD) that was run by a military veteran.  His proud record of service is carved prominently on the wall of the eatery.  In the back of his shop was a room that one would guess is a storage room, but it was almost empty. Here was erected a small Christian altar, fish symbols, and the enigmatic Sator Square. This secret little church belonged to a retired soldier and its discovery stunned archeologists.  It had long been thought that Roman soldiers were not accepted into Christian company since they went into battle calling on the Roman gods to protect them. Here was direct evidence that soldiers and Jesus Christ were a match from the beginning. See also Phillipians 1:13.

 But who was the sower, AREPO? There is no such Latin word or name known.  No doubt the puzzle maker would tell his pagan buddies in a public setting that he made the name up to fix the puzzle. But if one writes Arepo in Greek it means Alpha and Omega written in a short Aramaic form.   In quiet company, it allowed a Christian soldier to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, who holds the whole world’s working ‘wheels’ in His hand.  Who, more than a army man needs real assurance of a Savior, Lord and Friend who holds your life and the universe in control? After all, each day may bring death. The Sator Squares are found in Italy and even as far away as Sweden.  Who would make a better secret traveling evangelist than a soldier constantly getting new orders?  In some churches, the letters are rearranged next to the square to form a cross saying PATERNOSTER crossing at the N.  Then around the cross are two remaining A’s (alphas )and two O’s (omegas).