Today, January 9, is also known as the Festival of Janus. In the Roman pantheon of pagan gods, Janus was the god of doorways (latin word januae) and archways (latin word jani). Rome, even before the twins Romulus and Remus appeared, was a city that honored its entrances and exits with ceremonies and sacred holidays.
Rome was, and still is, filled with free standing archways that lead to important buildings and homes. It always seemed odd to me that you’d be walking down a street in Rome and come across a random archway that cars and pedestrians have to maneuver around. But back in the early days of Rome, walking or marching through an archway or doorway offered luck and peace because going in and out of doorways and entrances symbolized new beginnings.
The Roman army, in particular, marched out of the city through particular gates in specific fashions, in order to promote luck in battle. Rome’s most famous gate was the Janus Geminus. It was on the north side of the Roman Forum with a shrine to Janus at the base of the gate. This gate had rectangular bronze double doors which were left open during times of war and kept closed during peacetime. According to Livy, an ancient Roman historian, the doors were only closed twice between 7th Century BC (aka the reign of Numa Pompilius) and 1st Century AD (aka the reign of Caesar Augustus).
Early Romans believed that Janus’s association with doorways and archways came about because he was, at first, considered the god of all beginnings and passages (both real and metaphorical). The beginning of a day, week, or year–hence we get the name January for the first month of the year. He was also in charge of new endeavors, like the first battle in a war, the first meeting of a new business, or the first planting of spring crops. But even beyond new beginnings, he was also called the two-faced god (or four-faced god within a four-way arch) because if he was the father of new beginnings, he could also see the past. It was believed that in order to succeed in a new endeavor, you had to understand what happened to you before and accept the good and the bad. This idea has also been extended to major life transitions as well as to traveling and taking journeys.
Today, many Janus statues stand in Rome with two faces, one facing forward and one facing backwards. His feast day is January 9 which had once been part of an ancient rite knows as agonium, an event that happened 3-4 times a year where rams were sacrificed in order to appease the Roman pantheon for random reasons. And here’s a fun ancient Roman note: Janus and the nymph Camasene had a baby boy named Tiberinus. When Tiberinus almost drowned in the river Albula, and was saved, the river was renamed the Tiber. Tiberinus, as an adult, saved the twins Romulus and Remus from being murdered along the banks of the River Tiber. The twins eventually grew up and became the founders of Rome around 750 BC. I hope you all have a happy Sunday!
