Ianus

[Sidenote: Ianus.] whiche fadeth as a floure, thold Romaines do picture Ianus with two faces, a face behind, & an other before, which resem - ble a wiseman, who alwaies ought to knowe thinges paste, thynges presente, and also to be experte, by the experience of many ages and tymes, and knowledge of thynges to come.

A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike because all other partes of Rhetorike are grounded thereupon, euery parte sette forthe in an Oracion vpon questions, verie profitable to bee knowen and redde Richard Rainolde

The same notion is most likely at the root of the two great domestic cults of Vesta, 'the hearth,' and Ianus, 'the door,' though a more spiritual idea was soon associated with them; we may notice too in this connection the worship of springs, summed up in the subsequent deity Fons, and of rivers, such as Volturnus, the cult-name of the Tiber.

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

But as the little community grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements, the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated with the sacred oak upon the Capitol -- the hill between Palatine and Quirinal -- comes more and more into prominence as a bond of union and the central point of the state's religious life: it tends indeed to take the place of priority, which had previously been occupied by Ianus.

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

At first, in all probability, the worship was actually of the objects themselves, but by the time that Rome can be said to have existed at all, 'animism' had undoubtedly transformed it into a veneration of the indwelling spirits, Ianus, Vesta, and the

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

This is all less imaginative than the development of Ianus, but the underlying feeling is intensely Roman and there could be no clearer idea of the natural adaptation of the household-cult to the religion of the state.

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

= -- We left Ianus as the _numen_ of the house-door: he passes into the state exactly in the same capacity: the state too has its

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

Of the domestic worship of Ianus no information has come down to us, but we may well suppose that as the defence of the door and its main use lay with the men of the household, so they, under the control of the _pater familias_, were responsible for the cult of its spirit.

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

Naturally enough in the worship of the household Vesta had her seat at the hearth, Ianus at the door, and the 'gods of the storehouse' (_Penates_) at the cupboard by the hearth, but the same idea appears too in the state-cult.

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

Ianus: a door has two sides, it can both open and shut; therefore, as early as the song of the Salii, he has developed the cult-epithets

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914

To the rustic stratum possibly belongs also the _augurium salutis populi_, though later it was a yearly act celebrated whenever the Roman army was not at war and so became connected with the shutting of the temple of Ianus.

The Religion of Ancient Rome Cyril Bailey 1914