taking precedence of even Jove himself;1 at every solemn sacrifice he first was propitiated by offerings of wine, incense, mola salsa, and sweet cakes, lest he should bar the portals of the celestial mansions against the prayers and oblations of the suppliant.3 The first month of the year received its name from him; the first day of the year was his high festival; he shared the homage rendered to Juno on the first day of each succeeding month, being hence termed Janus Junonius, and under the title of matutine pater (father of the morning)5 he presided over the first dawn of every day. Several of his attributes are enumerated in the lines of Septimius Serenus.6 Iane pater, Iane tuens, dive biceps, biformis, When called upon at the commencement or termination of a war, he was addressed as Janus Quirinus (the warrior); and it is well known that the doors of his temple were never closed except in peace, a practice the origin of which seems to have been unknown to the ancients, since they generally refer to a romantic legend which would appear to have been invented to explain it. In a battle fought under the city walls with the kinsmen of the Sabine virgins, so ran the tale, the Romans hastily closed a gate towards which the enemy were approaching. As soon as it was shut, it flew open of its own accord the miracle was repeated a second and a third time; at this critical moment the Roman line gave way, the warders fled in consternation, and the victorious Sabines were about to dash forward in the pursuit, when suddenly a torrent of water, bursting from the temple of Janus, rushed through the archway and dispersed or swallowed up the advancing host. Hence the gates of the temple of this god were left open in war that he might be ever ready to lend his aid.7 1 Thus, for example, the devoting prayer preserved by Livy VIII. 9, begins "Jane, Jupiter, Marspater, Quirine, Bellona, Lares, Divi Novensiles, Dii Indigetes," &c. 2 Cic. N. D. II. 27. "Quumque in omnibus rebus vim haberent maximam prima et extrema, principem in sacrificando Janum esse voluerunt".. See also Ov. Fast. I. 127. 171. Macrob. S. I. 9. The cake was called ianual, i.e. ianuale libum. See Fest. in verbo. From the cakes called popana offered to Janus on the Kalends, he was named Popano, according to Varro, as quoted by Lydus de Mens. IV. 1. 2. 3 Ov. Fast. I. 173. Macrob. S. 1. 9. 4 Macrob. S. I. 9. According to Lydus, or at least the authors whom he followed, the twelve Salii were instituted by Numa to hymn the praises of Janus, according to the number of the months, and twelve altars were dedicated to him. See Lydus IV. 1, and Varro quoted by Macrob. S. 1. 9. 5 Thus Hor. S. II. vi. 20. Matutine pater, seu Jane libentius audis. 6 Quoted by Terentianus Maurus. 7 So Macrobius S. I. 9. He says that the gate was, from this circumstance, called the Porta Janualis, and that it was at the foot of the Viminal. He must surely mean the Capitoline Hill. Ovid. Fast, I. 259, also tells the story, and endeavours to connect it somehow or other with the treachery of the fair and frail Tarpeia. The custom is said by Livy to have been established, along with most of the other religious ceremonies of the Romans, by Numa, but Virgil carries it back to an epoch much more remote, and describes in noble verses the opening of the gates of Janus when the people of Latinus had resolved to assail Æneas and the Trojan band. Mos erat Hesperio in Latio, quem protenus urbes More iubebatur, tristesque recludere portas. Æn. VII. 601. And on the other hand, Horace in his ode to Augustus, C. IV. xv. 8. vacuumque duellis Janum Quirinum clusit... The most ancient temple of Janus stood near the extremity of the Argiletum, not far from the spot where the theatre of Marcellus was erected in later times. Like all the other shrines of Janus it consisted merely of an open arch, the opposite sides of which could be closed with doors,2 and is believed by some to have been actually a gateway connecting different quarters of the city.3 It is certain that archways placed at the end of streets or elsewhere were called Jani;4 and we read in Livy XLI. 27. that the censors Q. Fulvius Flaccus and A. Postumius Albinus (B. C. 174) inclosed the forum with shops and porticoes "et tres Janos faciebant." Two of these are supposed to have stood at the opposite extremities of the forum and one in the middle, and to have been termed respectively Janus summus, Janus medius, Janus imus, of which the Janus medius was a station frequented by the money lenders. This will explain two passages in Horace which have given rise to much controversy, the first is in Ep. I. i. 54. 1 Servius on Virg. Æn. VII. 607. The greatest confusion prevails with regard to the situation of the different temples of Janus, as may be seen from the researches of modern topographers. • Plutarch calls it a νεώς δίθυρος. 3 See Niebuhr's Roman History. 4 Cicero in the passage referred to above, N. D. II 27. still speaking of Janus, adds " ex quo transitiones perviæ iani, foresque in liminibus profanarum ædium ianuæ nominantur." Virtus post nummos! hæc Ianus summus ab imo i.e. "such are the principles inculcated from one end of the forum to the other;" the second in S. II. iii. 18. postquam omnis res mea Ianum Ad medium fracta est, aliena negotia curo. "after I was ruined by the usurers.' Janus was usually represented with two heads (hence bifrons; biceps; biformis; geminus ;) looking in opposite directions, grasping a key in his left hand and a staff in his right, the latter being, according to Macrobius, an emblem of his power, as rector viarum. The oldest copper Asses of Rome, Etruria, and perhaps some other Italian states, bear a head of Janus upon one side, and the rude effigy of a ship's prow on the other. We shall soon see the manner in which these devices were interpreted. On the taking of Falerii, a figure of Janus is said to have been discovered with four heads,' and he was from that time worshipped at Rome under this form also. A temple of Janus Quadrifrons still remains, near the Velabrum, in tolerable preservation, consisting of two arches intersecting each other at right angles, and thus presenting openings upon four sides. The ancients were much perplexed by the appearance and attributes of this deity, and a great variety of hypotheses were broached concerning his nature. Some, reasoning from the fact that he presided over the beginning of all things, supposed him to be Chaos, and thus Ovid makes him say. Fast. I. 103. Me Chaos antiqui, nam res sum prisca, vocabant. Others believed that he was a personification of heaven, others that he was the prince of the air, others that he was Mars, others that he represented the united divinities of Apollo and Diana.2 According to the most rational theory, he was the Sun-God of the Tuscans. In this capacity he might be said to open and to close each day and each year, and thus to be the door-keeper of heaven. This is strongly corroborated by the circumstance that his statues had fre. quently the numbers CCC marked3 on one hand, and LV on the other, 1 Serv. on Virg. Æn. V1I. 607. 2 See Macrob. I. 9. Lydus de Mens. IV. 2. 3 Or holding that number of pebbles. See Lydus and Macrobius as above, and Piin. H. N. XXXIV. 7. which was afterwards changed to LXV, when the Solar superseded the Lunar year. Under this view, the double or quadruple head might indicate the all-seeing eye of the Sun (TavÓTTηs,) which scans the universe and descries both the past, the present, and the future; or the four heads might be symbolical of the four seasons. Ovid makes him assign two reasons for his double head; the one, that it was a relic of the primitive disorder of Chaos; the other, which we shall give in the poet's own words, is amusing enough. Omnis habet geminas, hinc atque hinc, ianua frontes; Utque sedens vester primi prope limina tecti Sic ego prospicio, cælestis ianitor aulæ, Fast. I. 135. When the Pragmatic system, which undertook to rationalise all the legends of mythology and reduce them to real history, became fashionable in Rome,' Janus was represented as an ancient king of Italy, who reigned along with a native princess Camese, from whom the district was called Camasene,2 while the royal city was Janiculum. Saturnus arrived in Italy at this period, was hospitably received, and instructed his entertainers in agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Peace, prosperity, and happiness were everywhere diffused under the joint sway of Janus and Saturnus, and the latter founded Saturnia, on what was afterwards called the Capitoline hill, immediately opposite to Janiculum. The coins of the country were impressed on one side with a double head, typical of the wisdom of their original monarch which enabled him to look forward into the future as well as back upon the past; while the reverse bore a ship in honour of the stranger who came from beyond the seas.3 Virgil alludes to this tale when he makes Evander exclaim to Æneas, Hæc duo præterea disiectis oppida muris, 1 It first became generally diffused when Ennius translated the work of Euhemerus. 2 Others make Camasene to be the name of the sister of Janus. See Lydus IV. 2. Varro. L. L. V. 10. Macrob. S. 1. 7. Creuzer, after an elaborate investigation, proves, to his own satisfaction, that the term means fishwife! 3 Macrob. S. 1. 7. and Ovid more circumstantially. Fast. I. 229. Multa quidem dicici: sed cur navalis in ære Dicta quoque est Latium terra latente Deo. Ipse solum colui, cuius placidissima lævum Hic, ubi nunc Roma est, incædua sylva virebat; Arx mea collis erat, quem cultrix nomine nostro We may conclude by observing that there was another version of the story, in which Janus was represented as being himself a foreigner, who emigrated from Perrhæbia to the region of the west and took up his abode on the Janiculum. He was the inventor of chaplets, rafts, and ships, and the first who coined brazen money; he married his sister Camese, and had a son Æthex and a daughter Olistene.1 OVID FASTI. I. 149. THE poet introduces the following charming description by inquiring of Janus why the year begins in the depth of winter rather than in spring, when all nature awakes into new life. 9. (Ignota...hirundo.) The Greek and Latin poets frequently speak of the swallow as heralding, by its return, the approach of spring; thus Ov. Fast. II. 853, at the close of the month of February, exclaims, Fallimur? an veris prænuntia venit hirundo, Et metuit, ne qua versa recurrat hyems? 1 Plutarch Q. R. XXII. and Athenæus XV. 46, who gives most of the above particulars from a work " On Stones," by a certain Draco of Corcyra. |