The concept of "two-faced Janus" is known to many only as a phraseology, which is usually applied to an insincere, two-faced man. Unfortunately, all the advantages of the character who gave the name to this epithet, all forgotten long and irretrievably.
Two-faced Janus - who is this?
In ancient Roman mythology, the god of time Janus, the ruler of the Latins, is known. From the omnipotent god of Saturn, he received an amazing ability to see the past and the future and this gift was reflected in the face of the deity - he was portrayed with two faces turned in opposite directions. Hence the name "two-faced", "two-faced." Like all heroes of legends, the king of Latium - the homeland of Rome - gradually turned into a "multifunctional" character:
- the patron of time;
- the keeper of all inputs and outputs;
- god of every beginning and every end;
- the carrier of all good and bad in this world.
The Legend of the Two-faced Janus
Prior to the cult of Jupiter in Roman mythology, his place was occupied by the two-faced Janus - the god of time, who led the day's solstice. He did not do anything much during his reign in the Roman lands, but according to legend he had power over natural phenomena and the patron of all the warriors and their undertakings. Sometimes the character was portrayed with keys in his hand, and his name in Latin is translated as "the door".
There is a legend that, in honor of the two-faced deity, the second Roman king Numa Pompilius erected a temple with a bronze arch and opened the gates of the sanctuary before the war. Through the arch passed soldiers preparing to go to war, and asked the two-faced god of victory. The soldiers believed that the patron would be with them during the battle. The two faces of the deity were a symbol of progress and victorious return. The doors of the temple were not locked during the war and unfortunately for the Roman Empire only three times were closed.
Janus - Mythology
God Janus is one of the oldest in Roman mythology. The calendar month dedicated to him is January (the "yanuary"). The Romans believed that the two-faced taught people calculus, because on his hands were inscribed numbers corresponding to the days of the year:
- on the right hand - 300 (CCC);
- on the left hand - 65 (LXV).
In the first days of the new year, celebrations were held in honor of the deity, gifts were presented to each other and fruits, wine, pies were sacrificed, and the most important person in the state was the high priest who sacrificed the white bull for heaven. Subsequently, with every sacrifice, as at the beginning of each case, a two-armed god was called upon. He was considered more important than all the other characters of the Roman pantheon and was not identified with any of the heroes of Greek mythology.
Janus and Vesta
The cult of the god of time is inseparable from the goddess Vesta, the keeper of the hearth. If the many-faced Janus personified the doors (and all the other entrances and exits), then Vesta guarded that it was inside. She carried the blessed power of fire into homes. Veste was given a place at the entrance to the house, right outside the door, which was called "vestibulum." The goddess was also mentioned at every sacrifice. Her temple was located in the forum opposite the Temple of Two-faced and in it there was always a fire.
Janus and Epimetheus
The Roman god Janus and the titan Epimetheus, who became the first to receive a girl from Zeus, do not interact in mythology, but the characters gave names to two satellites of the planet Saturn, located in close proximity to each other. The distance between the fifth and sixth moon is only 50 km. The first satellite, named "two-faced deity", was discovered by astronomers in 1966, and after 12 years it was found that all this time there are two objects that are moving in close orbits. Thus, the many-faced Janus is also the moon of Saturn, he really has two faces.
The main deity of the Roman pantheon, two-faced Janus, was invisibly present in each of the surrounding gods and gave them supernatural power. He was revered as a sage, a just ruler, a guardian of time. The two-faced lost his status and passed it to Jupiter, but this does not detract from the virtues of the character. Today, this name is absolutely undeservedly called low, deceitful people, hypocrites, but the ancient Romans did not make this sense in this hero.