Home > Janus (mythology)

Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, births and other beginning. He was representative of the middle ground between barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities and youth and adulthood.

He supposedly came from Thessaly in Greece and shared a kingdom with Camese in Latium. They had many children, including Tiberinus. Janus and his later wife, Juturna, were the parents of Fontus. He had another wife named Jana.

As the sole ruler of Latium, Janus heralded the Golden Age, introducing money, laws and agriculture (making him a culture hero).

When Romulus and his men stole the women of the SabineSabine (in Latin and in Italian, Sabina is a sub-region of Latium, Italy, on the North-East of Rome toward Rieti. It is named after the Sabines an ancient people that were in Latium before Rome was founded. The legend says that Romans abducted Sabine womes, Janus caused a hot spring to erupt, causing the would-be attackers to flee. In honor of this, the doors to his temples were kept open during war so that he could easily intervene. The doors and gates were closed during peace.

His two faces (originally, one was always bearded, one clean-shaven; later both bearded) originally represented the sunThe Sun (also called Sol is the star in our solar system. Planet Earth orbits the Sun. Other bodies that orbit the Sun include other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust. Not all objects passing through the solar system have been orbitally capt and the moonFor other moons in the solar system see natural satellite. For other uses see Moon (disambiguation). The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth. It has no formal name other than "The Moon" although it is occasionally called Luna ( Latin for moon to d. He was usually depicted with a key. Janus head is a popular phrase for deception, that is, when action does not match speech.