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In Roman mythology, 'Janus' was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings. His most apparent remnants in modern culture are his namesakes, the month of January and the caretaker of doors and halls: Janitor.

Contents

Ancient incarnation

Imagery

Patronage

Myths

Carna

Other myths

Origins

Janus in popular culture

See also

External links

Ancient incarnation

Imagery

Though he was usually depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions ('Janus Geminus' (twin Janus) or 'Bifrons'), in some places he was 'Janus Quadrifrons' (the four-faced).
His two faces (originally, one was always bearded, one clean-shaven; later both bearded) originally represented the sun and the moon, and he was usually shown with a key. The two-faced image of Janus was often depicted on coins of the Roman Republic. January is named after him.

Patronage

Janus was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of future to past, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, births and other beginnings. He was representative of the middle ground between barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities, and youth and adulthood.

Myths

Carna

His ability to see both forwards and backwards at the same time aided him in his pursuit of the nymph Carna whom he gave power over door hinges as a reward for her favours.

Other myths

Janus was supposed to have come from Thessaly in Greece and he shared a kingdom with Camese in Latium. They had many children, including Tiberinus. Janus and his later wife, Juturna, were the parents of Fontus. Another wife was 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 kidnapped the [Sabine] women, 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.
Because he was the god of the door and hinges he was one the guardians of the Greek gods' treasures. From his name, we derive the English word 'janitor', meaning doorman.

Origins

The Romans associated Janus with the Etruscan deity Ani. However, he was one of the few Roman gods who had no ready-made counterpart, or analogous mythology. We can find in Greece Janus-like heads of gods related to Hermes, perhaps forming a compound god: Hermathena (a herm of Athena), Hermares, Hermaphroditus, Hermanubis, Hermalcibiades, and so on. In the case of these compounds it is disputed whether they indicated a herm with the head of Athena, or with a Janus-like head of both Hermes and Athena, or a figure compounded from both deities.

Janus in popular culture

Janus has appeared in many aspects of popular culture.

★ Towards the end of the original version of The Gunslinger, the first ''Dark Tower'' novel by Stephen King, the man in black draws a card from a tarot deck picturing a woman with two faces (representing Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker) and remarks that she appears to be "a veritable Janus."

★ Rock group Chasing Victory recorded a song named Janus on their "Fiends" album, a song primarily about keeping another from succumbing to life's pressures.

★ In the 1986 DC Comics book adaption on the Super Powers Team television series, Darkseid changes his identity and becomes the superhero "Janus" and wins Wonder Woman's friendship and romantic interest. As Janus he enters the hall of Justice and plans to destroy his enemies and take revenge on Apokolips.

★ In the television show Teen Titans, in the episode Nevermore, Janus guards the doorway inside of Raven.

★ In the sci-fi television show Stargate Atlantis, Janus was an Ancient who built a time machine.

★ In fashion, Janus's head appears on the embellished version of the House of Fendi logo.

★ In Shakespeare's play Othello, the double-crossing Iago utters the words "By Janus" when lying to Othello, a play on words considering his own two faced nature.

★ In Arthur Koestler's book The Roots of Coincidence (1972), the fourth chapter, where Koestler introduces his theory of the two-sided holons, is titled "Janus". He also wrote a book, about the same subject, titled (1978).

★ Philosopher and anthropologist of science and technology Bruno Latour uses Janus in his 'bestseller' ''Science in Action'' (1987) to explain the difference between "ready made science and technology" and "science and technology in the making".

★ In 'United Artists' 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, Janus was used as the name for the villain's terrorist organisation, 'The Janus Syndicate'. Key in this organisation was a former 00-Agent who betrayed HMSS.

★ Janus Films is a U.S. film distribution company founded in 1956 that distributes classic cinema, specializing mostly in foreign films.

★ A rare monster in the final dungeon in the game ''.

★ In the manga Ansatsu, Janus is the eighth Child in a series of bioweapons created for terrorist work.

★ In Dan Brown's ''Angels and Demons'', Janus is the moniker taken by the novel's villain.

★ In the film The Da Vinci Code there is a statue of Janus in Teabing's library symbolizing that Teabing is two-faced.

★ In the film ''Judge Dredd'' the super-secret program to grow clones to be Street Judges is called "Project Janus". Joseph Dredd and his evil twin Rico, were created under Project Janus before it was sealed. Additionally in the Judge Dredd comic series there is a Judge Janus

★ In Alastair Reynolds's ''Pushing Ice'', a group of comet harvesters discover that Janus (a moon of Saturn) is a spacecraft.

★ In the second revival of ''The Twilight Zone'', the name Janus was used for the main character as she puts on her dead husband's glasses to reveal his killer who turns out to be herself all along--implying that she has lived a double life.

★ Batman villain Two-Face has used the alias Janus. Similarly, Two-Face's ex-wife is also now married to a man named Paul Janus.

★ '' contains two references, both related to Two-Face: When Maxie Zeus is captured and sent to Arkham Asylum, he refers to several known Batman villains as Greek gods, and calls Two-Face "Janus". In a later episode, Two-Face uses the abandoned Janus Theater as a hideout.

★ Two monsters in Final Fantasy XI have names relating to Janus, such as 'Bifrons' and the Demon 'Count Bifrons'.

★ Benji Schwimmer's mock band, Sreattlands, wrote a song called ''Janus''.

★ In the Incredible Hulk episode "Death Mask" when David is being interrogated his interrogater contrasts himself with Janus saying he could not be two-faced; could not be a good cop - bad cop

★ Polish town Ełk had a coat of arms with the Janus two-faced head until 1967.

★ In the HBO/BBC TV series ''Rome'', the character Titus Pullo prays to Forculus, a related god to Janus to free him from a locked cart in which he has been imprisoned.

★ In the original Japanese version of , a monster that lights the way in the Catacombs is called Bifrons, which is an alternate name for Janus. This was changed to Lossoth in the European and American release.

★ In the popular computer game "" the NPC character Jeanette/Therese/Tourette Voerman is referred to as a "Daughter of Janus", referring to her split personality. This is only a dialogue option if you are playing a Malkavian character.

★ In the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Halloween" the character Ethan Rayne prays to a bust of Janus in order to bring about a spell that turns everyone into the personification of their halloween costumes. The spell is broken by the bust being smashed.

★ In the video game Chrono Trigger, there is a boy named Janus who predicts when people will die. This same boy later turns out to be a powerful mage, a character who you can get to join your party.

★ In Frans de Waal's book ''Our Inner Ape'' the behavioral tendencies of bonobos and chimpanzees are likened to a Janus head, with humans (equally close genetically to each species) able to act in either direction.

★ In Monday Begins on Saturday, a science fiction novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, a character named Janus Poluektovich Nevstruev is known to be one man in two personas, called A-Janus and U-Janus.

★ The name of the ski resort of Vaujany in the French Alps comes from the Latin Via-Janus. The road of Janus. It is below a pass linking the ancient Duchy of Savoy from the Dauphiné province.[1]

★ Janus Talon is the name of a fictitious Star Wars character. He dealt with the duality of the Force, and had to understand both sides of it.

★ In the the D20 Modern Roleplaying game, a cult known as the Children of Chaos worship Janus.

★ In Elizabeth Winthrop's Children's Novel, The Castle in the Attic, Janus appears on the two magic tokens. Each Token has one of Janus's faces on it.

★ In the novel The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan, a project to determine if a complex computer system controlling the earth would be beneficial or devastating to mankind if it evolved intelligence, is named Janus after the God.

★ The novel Unleashing Janus by Ted David Harris tracks the struggle between a secret hacker society and a covert government agency for control of a conscious machine codenamed "Janus".

See also

Diprosopus congenital defect, a rare craniofacial duplication condition

External links

★ Janus

★ Translation of Ovid's Fasti, a section on January, and Janus