|
NAME: Janus, Ianus, Janus Geminus, Janus Bifrons, Janus Quadrifrons
SYMBOLS: Doors, archways, gates. bunch of keys. sunrise, sunset, the numbers 300 & 65.
USUAL IMAGE: A man's profile with two faces facing in opposite directions, the faces do not
look exactly alike, and in early versions one is bearded while the other is clean shaven.
HOLY BOOKS: Aeneid by Virgil
HOLY DAYS:The Month of January, January 1st, Jan. 9th, Agonalia to Janus, at whitch time
a ram was sacrified to Janus. March 30th
PLACE OF WORSHIP: Temple, often one that is a symmetrical square with four doors, one
for each direction, and three windows each side, one for each month.
RELATIVES: Ouranos (father), Apollo and unnamed human woman (father & mother) in other traditions, Juturna Goddess of wells &
springs (wife), Fontus or Fons `god of wells´ (son.) Jana Goddess of the Moon (wife) in the Janarra Tradition of La Vecchia Religione
revival of the 14th century, the Hours (children in another myth)
SYNODEITIES: Bhairava `terrible' Ksetrapala (Hindu), Kushi-Dama-Nigi-Haya-Hi `soft fast
sun' (Shinto), Patadharini `bearing a cloth' Buddhist.
DETAILS: Janus the Roman god of sunrise, sunset, doorways, change, beginnings, and the boundary between such things as the past
& future, civilization & barbarism, youth & adulthood, war & peace, was one of the few Roman gods not to have a Greek counterpart.
A very old god, his story has changed many times over the years. In different eras he was described as a human who founded a great
town and invented money and was awarded the status of being a god, to being the son of Apollo with a human woman in one myth, while in another he said to have been created
directly by Father Sky Ouranos as a gift for Hecate. (it didn't work out between them.)
While his worship died out around the 5th century, he made a return the the 14th century in La Vecchia Religione, an attempted revival
of Italy's Pagan past, only this time his wife from the old days, Juturna the Goddess of springs was replaced by Jana, a moon Goddess.
His appearance has also varied greatly from one time and place to another. Always with two faces he is somethings only an immobile
head that must be cared for by his children the Hours, to a fully formed man, holding a staff and set of keys who just happens to look in two different realms at the same time.
Of note is the fact that while he is one man with two faces, it's not a given that those faces
look alike.
Sometime shown clean shaven, sometimes with a bead, sometimes one each, whatever
the case the faces bearded or not seldom are twins.
As the god who watched the boarder between war and peace his temple doors were kept open during war and only shut in times of
peace, which throughout most of Roman history, no matter the prevailing beliefs about his origins or form, his were the most open temples of all.
|
Thus he. Then, with erected eyes and hands, The Latian king before his altar stands. "By the same