By Water & Blood

Book 1, Chapter 9: On Janus

And since we have recalled that Janus reigned with Saturn, and what the mythographers and what the natural philosophers think about Saturn has already been related, we shall also bring forward what is put about by both schools concerning Janus.

The mythographers relate that under the reign of Janus all houses were protected by religion and sanctity, and that for this reason divine honors were decreed to him, and that for his merits the entrances and exits of dwellings were consecrated to him. Xenon, too, in the first book of his Italica, reports that Janus was the first in Italy to build temples to the gods and to institute the rites of sacred worship, and that therefore he earned a perpetual place at the front of sacrifices. Some think he is called two-faced because he both knew the past and foresaw the future.

But the natural philosophers consecrate him with great arguments for divinity. For there are those who say that Janus is the same as Apollo and Diana, and affirm that in this one figure both divinities are expressed. Indeed, as Nigidius also reports, among the Greeks Apollo is worshipped under the name Thyraeus, and they celebrate his altars before their doors, showing him as powerful over exits and entrances. The same Apollo among them is also called Agyieus, as being set over the city streets; for they call the ways within the pomerium agyiai, while they assign to Diana, as Trivia, power over all roads. But among us the name Janus shows that he presides over all doorways (ianuae), which is like Thyraeus. For when he is figured with a key and a staff, it is as though he were the guardian of all gates and the director of roads.

Nigidius pronounced that Apollo is Janus and that Diana is Iana, with the letter D added, which is often placed before the letter I for the sake of euphony: as in reditur, redhibetur, redintegratur, and the like.

Some wish Janus to be shown as the sun, and therefore twofold, as having power over either gate of heaven: who at his rising opens the day and at his setting closes it; and who is invoked first whenever a divine rite is celebrated for any god, so that through him access may be opened to the one to whom the sacrifice is made, as though he himself transmitted the prayers of suppliants through his gates to the gods. Hence his image is often fashioned holding in the right hand the number three hundred and in the left sixty-five, to demonstrate the measure of the year, which is the sun's chief power.

Others have held that Janus is the world, that is the heaven, and that he is so called from going (eundo), because the world always goes as it rolls in a circle and, making a beginning from itself, is brought back into itself. Whence also Cornificius in the third book of his Etymologies says: "Cicero names him not Janus but Eanus, from going." Hence too the Phoenicians, expressing his image in their rites, fashioned a serpent drawn into a circle and devouring its own tail, so that it may appear that the world both is nourished from itself and revolves upon itself. Therefore among us as well he looks toward four quarters, as the image of him brought from Falerii shows. Gavius Bassus, in the book he composed on the gods, says that Janus is fashioned two-faced as the doorkeeper of the upper and the lower world, and four-formed as embracing all the regions of the world in his majesty. In the most ancient songs of the Salii also he is sung as "god of gods."

Marcus Messala, too, colleague of Gnaeus Domitius in the consulship of 53 B.C. and likewise an augur for fifty-five years, begins thus concerning Janus: he who fashions all things and likewise rules them joined the force and nature of water and earth—heavy and tending to sink into the deep—with that of fire and air—light and fleeing aloft into the immense—by surrounding them with the sky: which greatest force of the sky bound together two unequal forces.

In the rites also we invoke "Janus Geminus," "Janus Pater," "Janus Junonius," "Janus Consivius," "Janus Quirinus," "Janus Patulcius" and "Clusivius." Why we invoke him as Geminus we have already said above; as "Father," as god of gods; as "Junonius," as holding the entrance not only of the month of January but of all the months—for all the Kalends are in Juno's dominion, whence also Varro in the fifth book of his Divine Antiquities writes that twelve altars were dedicated to Janus for as many months; as "Consivius," from sowing (conserendo), that is from the propagation of the human race, which is sown with Janus as author; as "Quirinus," as powerful in wars, from the spear which the Sabines call curis; as "Patulcius" and "Clusivius," because in war his gates stand open, in peace they are shut.

Of this matter the following cause is related. In the Sabine war, which was undertaken on account of the rape of the maidens, when the Romans were hastening to shut the gate that lay at the foot of the Viminal hill (which afterward, from the event, was called the Janualis), because the enemy were rushing upon it, after it had been shut it was soon opened of its own accord; and when the same thing had happened a second and a third time, a great many armed men stood as guards before the threshold, because they could not shut it. And while fighting was going on most fiercely on another side, suddenly a rumor brought word that our men had been routed by Tatius. For this reason the Romans who were guarding the approach fled in terror; and when the Sabines were about to burst in through the open gate, it is said that from the shrine of Janus through this gate a great force of torrents burst forth with boiling waters, and that many bands of the enemy perished, either burned by the heat or swallowed by the swift whirlpool. For this reason it was resolved that in time of war, as though the god had gone forth to the aid of the city, the doors should be unbarred. So much concerning Janus.