Janus
In Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. Most often he is depicted as having two heads, facing opposite directions: one head looks eastward and the other westward. Symbolically they look simultaneously into the future and the past, back at the last year and forward at the new,
Etymology
The etymologies proposed by the ancient and modern may be brought under three categories. Each of them bears implications for the nature of the god itself.
The first one is grounded into a detail of the definition of Chaos given by Paul the Deacon: hiantem, hiare, be open, from which word Ianus would derive for the subtraction of the aspiration. This etymology is related to the notion of Chaos which would define the primordial nature of the god. The idea of an association of the god to the Greek concept of Chaos looks cotrived, as the initial function of Janus suffices in explaining his place at the origin of time.
Another etymology proposed by Nigidius Figulus is related by Macrobius: Ianus would be both Apollo and Diana Iana, by the additon of a D for the sake of euphony. This explanation has been accepted by A. B. Cook and J. G. Frazer. It supports all the assimilation of Janus to the bright sky, the sun and the moon. It supposes a former *Dianus, formed on *dia- < *dy-eð(2) from IE root *dey- shine represented in Latin by dies day, Diovis and Iuppiter. However the form Dianus postulated by Nigidius is not attested.
The interpretation of Janus as the god of beginnings and transitions is grounded onto a third etymology indicated by Cicero, Ovid and Macrobius which explains the name as Latin deriving it from the verb ire ("to go"). It has been conjectured to be derived from the Indo-European root meaning transitional movement (cf. Sanskrit "yana-" or Avestan "yah-", likewise with Latin "i-" and Greek "ei-".).Iānus would then be an action name expressing the idea of going, passing, formed on the root *yā- < *y-eð(2)- theme II of the root *ey- go from which eō, ειμι.
Functions
While the fundamental nature of Janus is debated, the complex set of its functions may be seen as organised around a simple principle: in the view of most modern scholars that of the god's presiding over all beginnings and transitions, whether abstract or concrete, sacred or profane. Interpretations concerning the fundamental nature of the god either limit it to this general function itself or emphasize a concrete or particular aspect of it (identitfying him with light the sun, the moon, time, movement, the year, doorways, bridges etc.) or see in the god a sort of cosmological principle, i. e. interpret him as an uranic deity.
The function of god of beginnings has been clearly expressed by numerous ancient sources, among them most notably perhaps by Cicero, Ovid and Varro (preserved in Augustine). As a god of movement he looks after passages, causes the startings in actions, presides on all beginnings and since movement and change are bivalent, he has a double nature, symbolised in his two headed image. He has under his tutelage the stepping in and out of the door of homes, the ianua, which took its name from him, and not viceversa. Similarly his tutelage extends to the covered passages named iani, and foremostly to the gates of the city: the cultual gate of the Argiletum, named Ianus Geminus or Porta Ianualis from which he protects Rome against the Sabins. He is also present at the Sororium Tigillum, where he guards the terminus of the ways in from Latium. He has an altar, later a temple near the Porta Carmentalis where was the end of the road leading to Veii, as well as being present on the Janiculum, a gateway from Rome out to Etruria.
The connexion of the notions of beginning (principium) and movement and transition (eundo) has been clearly expressed by Cicero. In general, Janus was the patron of concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, (such as the religion and the gods themselves), he too holds the access to the heaven and other gods: this is the reason why men must invoke him first, regardless of the god they want to placate. He is the initiator of the human life, of new historical ages, and economical enterprises: in myth he first minted coins and money bears his effigy on one face.
Because of his initial nature he was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. This is also one of the xplanations of his image with the heads looking in opposite directions. Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, deaths and other beginnings. He was representative of the middle ground between barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities, and youth and adulthood. Having jurisdiction on beginnings Janus had an intrinsic association with omens and auspices.
According to a legend, he had received the gift to see both future and past from the god Saturn in reward for the hospitality received.
Several scholars suggest that he was likely the most important god in the Roman archaic pantheon. He was often invoked together with Iuppiter (Jupiter).
According to Macrobius citing Nigidius Figulus and Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as Apollo or the sun and moon, whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity.
Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month Januarius after Janus, according to a tradition at the time considered the highest divinity. Numa also introduced the Ianus geminus (also Janus Bifrons, Janus Quirinus or Portae Belli) , a passage ritually opened at times of war, and shut again when Roman arms rested. It formed a walled enclosure with gates at each end, situated between the old Roman Forum and that of Julius Caesar, which had been consecrated by Numa Pompilius. In the course of wars, the gates of the Janus were opened, and in its interior sacrifices and vaticinia were held to forecast the outcome of military deeds. The doors were closed only during peacetime, an extremely rare event. The function of the Ianus Geminus was supposed to be a sort of good omen: in time of peace it closed the wars within, in time of war or sometimes to keep peace inside; in times of war it was open to allow the return of the people on duty. A temple of Janus is said to have been consecrated by the consul Gaius Duilius in 260 BCE after the Battle of Mylae in the Forum Holitorium. The four-side structure known as the Arch of Janus in the Forum Boarium dates to the 1th century CE: it was built by emperor Domitian.
Cultual epithets
A way to enquire into the complex nature of Janus is that of analysing systematically his cultual epithets. Religious documents may preserve a more accurate notion of the theology of a deity than other literary sources,
The main sources of Janus's cultual epithets are the fragments of the Carmen Saliare preserved by Varro in his work De Lingua Latina, a list preserved in a passage of Macrobius's Saturnalia (I 9, 15-16), another in a passage of Johannes Lydus in his De Mensibus (IV 1), a list by Cedrenus in his Historiarum Compendium (I p. 295 7 Bonn), partly dependent on Lydus's, and one in Servius Honoratus's commentary to the Aeneis (VII 610).
Janus's association with non Roman gods
Janus-like heads of gods related to Hermes have been found in Greece, perhaps suggesting a compound god. William Betham argued that the cult arrived from the Middle East and that Janus corresponds to the Baal-ianus or Belinus of the Chaldeans sharing a common origin with the Oannes of Berosus.[42]
In the Middle Ages, Janus was also taken as the symbol of Genoa, whose Latin name was Ianua, as well as of other European communes.
Other myths
Janus was supposed to have shared a kingdom with Camese in Latium. They had many children, including Tiberinus.
When Romulus and his men kidnapped the Sabine women, Janus caused a volcanic hot spring to erupt, resulting in the would-be attackers being buried alive in the deathly hot, brutal water and ash mixture of the rushing hot volcanic springs that killed, burned, or disfigured many of Romulus's men. Romulus was in awe of the god's power. (Later on, however, the Sabines and Rome became allies.) In honor of this, the doors of a walled roofless structure called 'The Janus' (not a temple) were kept open during war after a symbolic contingent of soldiers had marched through it. The doors were closed in ceremony when peace was concluded. Augustus and Nero both advertised universal peace, which had led to 'the closing of the Janus', during their reigns.
