The legend on the coin reads PACE P[opuli] R[omani] TERRA Any rite or religious act whatever required the invocation of Janus first, with a corresponding invocation to Vesta at the end (Janus primus and Vesta extrema). Plutarch. Another way of investigating the complex nature of Janus is by systematically analysing his cultic epithets: religious documents may preserve a notion of a deity's theology more accurately than other literary sources. [126], Κήνουλος (Coenulus) and Κιβουλλιος (Cibullius) are not attested by Latin sources. [165], This dialectic was reflected materially by the location of the temple of Mars outside the pomerium and of the temple of Quirinus inside it. [143] For the same reason everybody devoted a short time to his usual business,[144] exchanged dates, figs and honey as a token of well wishing and made gifts of coins called strenae. Renard connects the epithet's meaning to the cu(i)ris, the spear of Juno Curitis as here she is given the epithet of Sororia, corresponding to the usual epithet Geminus of Janus and to the twin or feminine nature of the passage between two coupled posts. Dumézil. It is noteworthy that the two groups of Salii did not split their competences so that one group only opened the way to war and the other to peace: they worked together both at the opening and the conclusion of the military season, marking the passage of power from one god to the other. [164] Because of the working of the talismans of the sovereign god they guaranteed alternatively force and victory, fecundity and plenty. [42] Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as at marriages, deaths and other beginnings. These epithets, which swap the functional qualities of the gods, are the most remarkable apparent proof of their proximity. For other uses, see, God of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and ending, 1. [154] Since borders often coincided with rivers and the border of Rome (and other Italics) with Etruria was the Tiber, it has been argued that its crossing had a religious connotation; it would have involved a set of rigorous apotropaic practices and a devotional attitude. However Janus was the protector of doors, gates and roadways in general, as is shown by his two symbols, the key and the staff. Janus-like heads of gods related to Hermes have been found in Greece, perhaps suggesting a compound god. didrachm from Rome or south Italy dating to 225-12 BCE, referring to the fact Augustus boasted that he had closed the doors of this shrine three times during Janus in W. Smith above p. 550-551. The structure of the patrician sodalitas, made up by the two groups of the Salii Palatini, who were consecrated to Mars and whose institution was traditionally ascribed to Numa (with headquarter on the Palatine), and the Salii Collini or Agonales, consecrated to Quirinus and whose foundation was ascribed to Tullus Hostilius, (with headquarter on the Quirinal) reflects in its division the dialectic symbolic role they played in the rites of the opening and closing of the military season. Janus is called Quirinus (after an early Italic god) and also Geminus ("twin, two faced"). R. Schilling above p.128, citing Festus s. v. spolia opima p. 204 L. Ovid above I 128: "libum farraque mixta sale". [259] Analogous Iranian formulae are to be found in an Avestic gāthā (Gathas). Livy I 26, 13; Paulus ex Festus p.399, 2 L ; Pseudo Aurelius Victor, R. Schilling "Janus, dieu introducteur, dieu des passages" in, For a thorough listing of the hypotheses advanced cf. After the new readings proposed by A. Maggiani, in case 3 one should read TINS: the difficulty has thus dissolved. [241] However Martianus's depiction does not look to be confined to a division Heaven-Earth as it includes the Underworld and other obscure regions or remote recesses of Heaven. This fact created a problem as the god of beginnings looked to be located in a situation other than the initial, i.e. And third, Janus is the Roman god of war--the war we fight against stereotypes commonly held against us."[267]. The sites of the cults of Janus at Rome, Taylor, Rabun, "Watching the Skies: Janus, Auspication, and the Shrine in the Roman Forum,", Objections by A. Meillet and A. Ernout to this etymology have been rejected by most French scholars: É. Benveniste, R. Schilling, G. Dumezil, G. Capdeville. The compound term Ianus Quirinus was particularly in vogue at the time of Augustus, its peaceful interpretation complying particularly well with the Augustan ideology of the Pax Romana. [244] According to Capdeville he may also be found on the outer rim of the Piacenza Liver on case 14 in the compound form CULALP, i.e., "of Culśanś and of Alpan(u)" on the authority of Pfiffig, but perhaps here it is the female goddess Culśu, the guardian of the door of the Underworld. "[175] Another analogous correspondence may be found in the festival of the Quirinalia of February, last month of the ancient calendar of Numa. The interpretation of Consus as god of advice is already present in Latin authors[125] and is due to a folk etymology supported by the story of the abduction of the Sabine women, (which happened on the day of the Consualia aestiva), said to have been advised by Consus. [97] Poets tried to explain this rite by imagining that the gate closed either war or peace inside the ianus, but in its religious significance it might have been meant to propitiate the return home of the victorious soldiers. Dionysius of Halicarnassus I 61: Iasos would have unduely aspired to the union with Demeter; Diodorus Siculus V 49: Iasion is on the contrary asked for the union by Demeter and from it Plutos is born. V. Müller, "The Shrine of Janus Geminus in Rome", This does not mean that there was any particular link between the, References in A.B. The editor of Lydus R. Wünsch has added Cedrenus's passage after Lydus's own explanation of Coenulus as ευωχιαστικός, good host at a banquet. [226] Dumézil and Schilling remark that as a god of the third function Quirinus is peaceful and represents the ideal of the pax romana i. e. a peace resting on victory. [251] Unlike Janus, however, Isimud is not a god of doorways. Many reconstructions have been proposed:[64] Havet reads: "Cozeui adoriose" = "Conseui gloriose" on the grounds of Paulus's glossa s.v. [197] Her nature looks to be also associated with vegetation and nurture: G. Dumezil has proved that Helernus was a god of vegetation, vegetative lushness and orchards, particularly associated with vetch. Janus owes the epithet Iunonius to his function as patron of all kalends, which are also associated with Juno. Nonetheless he is inferior to the sovereign god Oðinn: the Minor Völuspá defines his relationship to Oðinn almost with the same terms as those in which Varro defines that of Janus, god of the prima to Jupiter, god of the summa: Heimdallr is born as the firstborn (primigenius, var einn borinn í árdaga), Oðinn is born as the greatest (maximus, var einn borinn öllum meiri). In the Middle Ages, Janus was taken as the symbol of Genoa, whose Medieval Latin name was Ianua, as well as of other European communes. J. S. Speÿer above esp. [261] The comune of Selvazzano di Dentro near Padua has a grove and an altar of Janus depicted on its standard, but their existence is unproved. Since movement and change are interconnected, he has a double nature, symbolised in his two headed image. [120] The rite is discussed in detail in the section below. 16 writes Drakon might have lived at the time of Augustus, R. Schilling thinks he lived only after Pliny the Elder. His function of custos guardian is highlighted by the location of his temple inside the pomerium but not far from the gate of Porta Collina or Quirinalis, near the shrines of Sancus and Salus. F. Altheim History of Roman Religion London 1938 p. 194; V. Basanoff Les dieux des Romains Paris 1942 p. 18. In Greece Crane, Cranea is an epithet of Athens, meaning the rocky city; the Cranai are nymphs of rocks, or Naiads of springs. From Ianus derived ianua ("door"),[8] and hence the English word "janitor" (Latin, ianitor). This was the most important shrine to the Crane is a nymph of the sacred wood of Helernus, located at the issue of the Tiber, whose festival of 1 February corresponded with that of Juno Sospita:[196] Crane might be seen as a minor imago of the goddess. It did not give rise to a new epithet though. G. Dumézil, "Remarques sur les armes des dieux de troisième fonction chez divers peuples indo-européens".