The Temple of Janus stood in the
Roman Forum near the
Basilica Aemilia
The Basilica Aemilia ( it, Basilica Emilia, links=no) was a civil basilica in the Roman Forum, in Rome, Italy. Today only the plan and some rebuilt elements can be seen. The Basilica was 100 meters (328 ft) long and about 30 meters (98&nbs ...
, along the
Argiletum
The Argiletum (Latin ''Argīlētum''; it, Argileto) was a street in ancient Rome, which crossed the popular district of Suburra up to the Roman Forum, along the route of the current Via Leonina and Via della Madonna dei Monti.
On its eastern s ...
. It was a small temple with a statue of
Janus, the two-faced god of boundaries and beginnings inside. Its doors were known as the "Gates of Janus", which were closed in times of peace and opened in times of war. There are many theories about its original purpose; some say that it was a bridge over the
Velabrum The Velabrum () is the low valley in the city of Rome that connects the Forum with the Forum Boarium, and the Capitoline Hill with the western slope of the Palatine Hill. The name Velabrum may translate to "place of mud." It was believed that befor ...
, and some say it functioned as a gate to the
Capitoline
The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill ( ; it, Campidoglio ; la, Mons Capitolinus ), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.
The hill was earlier known as ''Mons Saturnius'', dedicated to the god Saturn. T ...
.
Origins
According to
Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...
1.19 the second
king of Rome,
Numa Pompilius, decided to distract the early, warlike Romans from their violent ways by instilling in them awe and reverence. His projects included promoting
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, certain priesthoods, and the building of temples as a distraction with the beneficial effect of imbuing
spirituality. The Janus in the
Roman Forum, although not a temple was claimed to be Numa's most famous architectural project.
![Janus1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Janus1.JPG)
In the early stages of the city of Rome, the inhabitants lived in separate walled villas. The Janus was the gate from the Forum to the rest of the Rome as originally the Forum was the courtyard of the king's villa.
Ancient descriptions
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...
, in ''Life of King Numa'', wrote:
anusalso has a temple at Rome with double doors, which they call the gates of war; for it always stands open in time of war, but is closed when peace has come. The latter was a difficult matter, and it rarely happened, since the realm was always engaged in some war, as its increasing size brought it into collision with the barbarous nations which encompassed it round about. But in the time of Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
it was closed, after he had overthrown Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the au ...
; and before that, when Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius were consuls, it was closed for a short time; then war broke out again at once, and it was opened.
Appearance and construction
The Temple of Janus was a small temple just large enough to house a bronze statue of the god. A small portion of the temple's brick structure can be found beside the ruins of the Basilica Aemilia, along the path of the Argiletum in the Roman Forum, so much of what we know about the temple visually comes from Roman scholars and artifacts. The various styles of architecture seen on Roman coins suggest rough dates for the reconstructions; both in the third and fourth centuries BC.
As described by the Byzantine scholar Procopius who says "the temple is entirely of bronze and was erected in the form of a square, but it is only large enough to cover the statue of Janus ... of bronze and not less than five cubits high".
There are also descriptions that can be taken from items from the Roman world most notably coins minted for Emperor Nero. These coins depict the Temple of Janus as a small rectangular building with two doors accompanied by two columns having
Ashlar masonry on the outside and only bronze plating on the inside. This shows a discrepancy in the sources as Procopius says the Temple of Janus was made entirely of bronze whereas the coins minted by Nero show
Ashlar masonry on the outside leaving the assumption to be bronze only on the inside of the Temple. The temple of Athena Chalcioecus in Sparta and Apollo at Delphi are also built this way
.. The art style of the Temple was inspired by Etruscan and from the Near East.
Purpose of the gates
The Gates themselves were the main purpose for the Temple of Janus. The opening and closing of the gates were to symbolize either wartime or peace. The Temple of Janus tied in warfare and religious tradition. It is unanimously held by ancient and modern scholars that the gates were closed in peace and opened in times of war.
While its purpose is agreed upon the reasons behind the openings and closings of the gates are much murkier. Both Virgil and Ennius state that the gates held in Discord and Fury inside the temple during times of peace. Ennius's Annales state "After foul Discord has broken open the iron-clad posts and gates of war".
Virgil supports this view with "There are twin gates of War ... Janus the guard does not withdraw from his threshold".
Horace does not use prison imagery but can be interpreted as saying peace, or is Janus himself is kept in the temple locked into the temple.
This lack of clarity by the Romans themselves demonstrates the fluctuating nature of their mythos-history. However, a Roman viewed the Temple of Janus's gates as having them shut was a time of celebration and of pride for the rulers of Rome. As demonstrated by Caesar Augustus's accounts of shutting the doors three times.
The gates in use
During Numa's reign, the Gates of Janus were closed as Rome was at peace. The next king,
Tullus Hostilius
Tullus Hostilius (r. 672–640 BC) was the legendary third king of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius. Unlike his predecessor, Tullus was known as a warlike king who according to the Roman Historian Livy, bel ...
, opened the Gates of Janus when he went to war with
Alba Longa. The Gates of Janus remained open for the next 400 years until after the
First Punic War when A. Manlius Torquatus closed the Gates of Janus in 241 BC. War with the Gauls in
Northern Italy forced the Gates of Janus to reopen. They did not close again until 29 BC, following the deaths of
Antony and
Cleopatra.
The
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
''Res Gestae Divi Augusti'' (Eng. ''The Deeds of the Divine Augustus'') is a monumental inscription composed by the first Roman emperor, Augustus, giving a first-person record of his life and accomplishments. The ''Res Gestae'' is especially sig ...
, a first-person account of the life of
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
, claims:
The Janus Quirinus, which our ancestors wished to be closed whenever peace had been secured by victories throughout the Roman empire by land and sea, was recorded to have been closed, before I was born, twice altogether since the foundation of the city, but the senate decreed that it should be closed on three occasions while I was ''princeps
''Princeps'' (plural: ''principes'') is a Latin word meaning "first in time or order; the first, foremost, chief, the most eminent, distinguished, or noble; the first man, first person". As a title, ''princeps'' originated in the Roman Republic w ...
''.
From
Cassius Dio
Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...
51.20 and 53.27 we are able to date the first two closures in Augustus's reign to 29 and 25 BC respectively. The exact date of the third closure remains a matter of scholarly debate. The only ancient author to date it was
Orosius, who associates the event with the
birth of Christ
The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea, his mother Mary was engaged to a man n ...
, traditionally (but probably incorrectly) assigned to December 1 BC. However, modern scholars almost universally reject Orosius because
Roman armies were campaigning in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and/or the Far East at this time.
Inez Scott Ryberg and Gaius Stern date the third closure more plausibly to 13 BC based on the joint return of Augustus and
Agrippa Agrippa may refer to:
People Antiquity
* Agrippa (mythology), semi-mythological king of Alba Longa
* Agrippa (astronomer), Greek astronomer from the late 1st century
* Agrippa the Skeptic, Skeptic philosopher at the end of the 1st century
* Agri ...
to Rome after pacifying the provinces. Sir
Ronald Syme
Sir Ronald Syme, (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roman ...
dated the closure to 7 BC, to coincide with the triumph of
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
and his second
consulship
A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...
, the events of which year are lost in a gap in the surviving manuscripts of Cassius Dio.
Mario Torelli followed Orosius' date.
![As-Nero-Ara_pacis-RIC_0562](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/As-Nero-Ara_pacis-RIC_0562.jpg)
Later emperors also closed the Gates of the Janus to great fanfare. The most famous closures occurred under
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 unti ...
and
Vespasian
Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empi ...
. Nero minted a large series of coins with the
Ara Pacis
The Ara Pacis Augustae (Latin, "Altar of Augustan Peace"; commonly shortened to Ara Pacis) is an altar in Rome dedicated to Pax, the Roman goddess of Peace. The monument was commissioned by the Roman Senate on July 4, 13 BC to honour the return o ...
(and the Janus itself with closed gates) on the reverse to commemorate this event. Other emperors certainly closed and reopened the Gates of the Janus, but references in later and less thorough historians are fairly rare.
The Roman poet
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
included in the ''
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...
'' the opening of the Gates of the Janus to start war between the
Trojans
Trojan or Trojans may refer to:
* Of or from the ancient city of Troy
* Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans
Arts and entertainment Music
* '' Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 189 ...
and the
Latins.
Later historical contexts
The legends of Janus have been used for many purposes throughout history. 16th century Roman priests used them to justify the seat of Christianity being moved from Rome to Jerusalem and described the Vatican as the "Throne of Janus". This was done to gain traction in Italy through the perceived support of the "god of beginnings".
The story of the Gates of Janus was also used by British political and military leaders during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They portrayed the opening of the Gates as a part of the glory of war and used the legend to add honour to the wars over control of their empire.
[Nabulsi, Karma. “High Priests of the Temple of Janus: The Martial Traditions of War.” In Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance, and the Law, 102–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.]
See also
*
List of Ancient Roman temples
This is a list of ancient Roman temples, built during antiquity by the people of ancient Rome or peoples belonging to the Roman Empire. Roman temples were dedicated to divinities from the Roman pantheon.
Substantial remains
Most of the b ...
*
Pax Romana
The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stabilit ...
*
Temple of Janus (Forum Holitorium)
The Temple of Janus at the Forum Holitorium is the second known temple dedicated to Janus, besides the temple of the same name located in the Roman Forum.
It is known that it stood "close to the Theatre of Marcellus" (''ad theatrum Marcelli'' o ...
*
Numa Pompilius
References
Further reading
*Castagnoli, Ferdinando. 1988. "Gli iani del Foro Romano. Ianus arco quadrifonte?." ''Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma'' XCII: 11-16.
*Claridge, Amanda. 2010. ''Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide.'' 2nd ed., revised and expanded. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Coarelli, Filippo. 2007. ''Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide.'' Berkeley: University of California Press.
*DeBrohun, Jeri Blair. 2007. "The Gates of War (and Peace): Roman Literary Perspectives." In ''War and Peace in the Ancient World'', Edited by Raaflaub, Kurt A. The Ancient World. Comparative Histories, 256-278. Oxford: Blackwell.
*Staccioli, Romolo Augusto. 1985. "A proposito di una ricostruzione « grafica » del sacello di Giano all'Argileto." ''Archeologia Classica'' 37: 283-289.
*Townend, Gavin. 1980. "Tacitus, Suetonius and the temple of Ianus." ''Hermes'' CVIII: 233-242
External links
Temple of Janus
{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple Of Janus (Roman Forum)
Janus
Roman temples by deity