01 · The stories
Myths & defining acts
In Ovid's Fasti, Janus himself explains his double form, his place at the start of the year and his rites (Fasti 1.89–288).
02 · Sacred lineage
Family & relations
Janus is a Roman god without a Greek family tree. Ovid has him speak of the reign of Saturn (Fasti 1.193–194).
Greek literary genealogies and Roman cult identities are not interchangeable. Explore the family tree and its traditions.
03 · Places of devotion
Abode & sacred sites
His temple at the bottom of the Argiletum in Rome, built by Numa according to Livy; and the Janiculum hill, where modern sources place him.
04 · Two traditions
Greek & Roman perspectives
The Greek perspective
Ovid says Greece has no god like him: 'nam tibi par nullum Graecia numen habet' (Fasti 1.90).
The Roman perspective
Livy says Numa built the temple of Janus as an index of peace and war: open, it signified that the nation was in arms; closed, that all the surrounding peoples were at peace (Livy 1.19). Modern reference works record that the Janus Geminus was closed under Numa, once after the First Punic War, three times under Augustus, and once under Nero. Ovid describes the Agonalia, on 9 January, as the day when Janus was to be propitiated (Fasti 1.317–318).
05 · Extensive analysis
A closer reading
Janus is a Roman god without a Greek counterpart: Ovid says so himself. He is tied to beginnings and passages, and in Livy's account his temple doors were opened for war and closed for peace. Ovid opens his calendar poem, the Fasti, with Janus, the god of the first month.
06 · Primary sources
What the sources say
These are the main ancient passages behind this entry, with what each one actually says.
- Ovid, Fasti book 1, lines 65–66, 89–90 and 193–194
Ovid addresses two-headed Janus as the origin of the year, who alone of the gods sees his own back; he says Greece has no god like him; and Janus recalls the reign of Saturn.
Read the passage - Ovid, Fasti book 1, lines 317–318
Janus is to be propitiated on the Agonalia, four days after the Nones, that is, 9 January.
Read the passage - Livy, Ab Urbe Condita book 1, chapter 19
Numa builds the temple of Janus at the bottom of the Argiletum as an index of peace and war: open when the nation is in arms, closed when all surrounding peoples are at peace.
Read the passage - Wikipedia, Janus, a modern summary section on the doors of the temple
The Janus Geminus was closed under Numa, once after the First Punic War, three times under Augustus and once by Nero; Janus is also said to be present on the Janiculum.
Read the passage
07 · Story & deeper insight
Janus and the gates of peace
Ovid stages a conversation with Janus to explain the god's two faces, his precedence in ritual and the gifts exchanged at the beginning of the year. Janus governs passages: an entrance can permit movement or prevent it, and a beginning connects what has ended with what has yet to happen.
The doors associated with his Roman sanctuary were conventionally linked to war and peace, open in wartime and closed when peace was claimed. Closure was an exceptional public statement. It expressed an official view of Rome's condition, rather than a guarantee that violence had disappeared everywhere.
Janus has no straightforward Greek counterpart, and forcing one onto him loses the point of his Roman identity. His double face is not principally a moral emblem of dishonesty. It suits a deity who watches both directions of a threshold. His prominence shows how Roman religion could place an ordinary spatial experience at the foundation of ritual and political time.