Taylor WatchingSkiesJanus 2000

Watching the Skies: Janus, Auspication, and the Shrine in the Roman Forum
Author(s): Rabun Taylor

Source: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome , 2000, Vol. 45 (2000), pp. 1-40
Published by: University of Michigan Press for the American Academy in Rome
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WATCHING THE SKIES: JANUS, AUSPICATION,
AND THE SHRINE IN THE ROMAN FORUM
Rabun Taylor, Harvard University
quem tamen esse deum te dicam, Iane biformis? (Ov. Fast. 1.89)
Janus, like so many ancient gods who lacked the grace of a story, was a mes
of scraps fallen from the table of memory.1 His incoherence was the cause of
ment in the Roman Imperial era, and so he was periodically subjected to reassessments by
master yarn-spinners like Ovid or by cosmologists and philosophers seeking to find profound
symbolism in his duality. In this study I wish to suggest that Janus, already a composite, was
marshaled to a special purpose for the early Roman state. In his manifestation as Janus Quirinus
he was attached to rituals of public and private auspication, most evidently the initiation and
prosecution of war. Like so many of the god's attributes, this function, wherein the god as-
sumed the role of a two-faced augur, was confused and even obscure by the time of the earli-
est surviving testimony of his existence.
Celebrated in literature as the god of beginnings and of transitions, Janus seems to be a
personification of transitional spaces through which one must walk in order to begin an under-
taking. The Latin word ianus, related to the more popular ianua, means "doorway" or "en-
trance." It is now commonly linked to the Sanskrit yana- or Avestic yab- referring to transi-
tional movement.2 But Janus himself, being the embodiment of a boundary rather than a transi-
tion, was not a roaming god. Popularly endowed with two faces, one in the front of his head
and one in the back, he acquired a persona as a guardian of doorways and a spirit of new begin-
nings.3 His bifrontal statue has taken permanent hold in the Western imagination as a symbol
of all that is Manichean or duplicitous ("Janus-faced"). Janus was perceived very differently in
antiquity-and no doubt by the founders of the American Academy, who sagely chose to affix
him to their emblem. Having a quadrifrontal as well as a bifrontal manifestation, the god was
probably regarded not as the index of a binary nature, but as the iteration-or augmentation-
of a single divine faculty. Precisely what that faculty was continues to stir debate.
l I wish to extend my gratitude to the History and Ar- buch, 4th ed. (Heidelberg 1965) s.v. "ianus"; G. Dumezil,
chaeology Seminar of the Harvard University Department"De Janus a Vesta," in G. Dum6zil, Tarpeia: Essais de
of the Classics for an opportunity to deliver a draft of thisphilologie comparative (Paris 1947) 33-113; F. Altheim,
paper to a knowledgeable audience. Many thanks also to History of Roman Religion (London 1938), trans. H.
two anonymous readers and to Anthony Corbeill for read-Mattingly, 194-196. For more recent scholarship see J.
ing drafts of this paper and making dozens of helpful sug- C. Richard, "Ion-Janus, ou de l'anonymat: A propos
gestions, and to the American Numismatic Society for d'OGR," in Hommages d Henri Le Bonniec: Res sacrae
permission to reproduce the coins in this article. (Brussels 1988) 387-394; J. Thomas, "Janus: Le dieu de
la genese et du passage," Euphrosyne 15 (1987) 281-296.
2Cicero notes that iani are transitiones perviae, and sug- On an earlier tradition associating Janus with Dianus,
gests that the name ab eundo . . . est ductum (Nat. D. see Frazer, 2:91-95.
2.67). See Bomer, 2:17-19 and bibliography; A. Walde
and J.B. Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worter-3 Frazer, 2:95-100.
MAAR 45, 2000

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2 RABUN TAYLOR
'p4
Fig. 1. Aes grave of the third century B.C., perhaps of C. Duilius in 260 B.C.
(photo courtesy of the American Numismatic Society).
Indeed the god's "obscure prominence," in Louise Adams Holland's apt phrase, is unique
in Roman religion.4 There were many shadowy deities in the Roman tradition, but most of
them lurked around the fringes of intellectual discourse. Janus, almost uniquely, was celebrated
for his very obscurity. Numerous ancient authors speculated about the origins of his name
and epithets, the rituals associated with his cult, the meaning of his multiplex identity, and
the nature of his origins. On two things they were mostly agreed: Janus was dual or multiple
in nature; and he was an altogether Italian god, even more the native than Saturn, whom he
was said to have welcomed to Italian shores.'
Janus' popularity among the literati and philosophers apparently did not extend to Ro-
mans at large. Sacrifices and prayers to him are known in numerous contexts,6 but no posi-
tively identified statues, or even statuettes, of the god survive,7 and his representations on
coins, medallions, and gems seem to denote either generic types or an image once present in
Rome itself (figs. 1, 2). In the vicinity of Rome, only at Tarquinia, Vulci, and Tuscania-three
neighbor towns in south Etruria-have a few representations of bifrontal figures been found,
and their identity and function are in question.8 Indeed, if the frequency of a god's physical
4Holland offers the most thorough examination of the 11:5374; and various calendar entries discussed in Hol-
evidence surrounding Janus. For a concise but thorough land, 200-223. See Wissowa, 103-104.
treatment, see Wissowa, 103-112. See also RE, suppl. 3,
1175-1191. On the iconography see E. Simon, s.v. 7 S. Seiler, Beobachtungen an Doppelhermen (diss.,
"lanus" in Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae Hamburg 1969) identifies only one herm (cat. no. 107),
(Zurich and Munich 1981-1997) and the much more out of a total of 188 studied, that could reasonably be
exhaustive treatment in Roscher, Lex., s.v. "Janus." associated with the god as he appears on Republican
coins. An inscription from Dalmatia attests to the re-
'For a variant etiology, see Ath. 15.46 (692); Plut. Quaest. furbishment of a cult statue of Ianus Augustus (CIL
Rom. 22. 3:2969).
6Plaut. Cist. 512-521; Cato, Agr. 134, 141; Varro, Ling. 8 Maggiani, 2-9. The finds from Tarquinia were all from
6.12; Cic. Nat. D. 2.67; Hor. Epist. 1.16.57-59; Ov. Fast. a single votive context of the second century B.C. and
1.171-174, 1.275-276; Juv. 6.385-395; Fest. 45 L, 204 include a female bifrontal bust and a number of single-
L; Aur. Vict. Orig. 3.7; Serv. Auct. ad. Aen. 7.610; faced busts; see G. Stefani, Terrecotte figurate (Rome
Macrob. Sat. 1.9.9, 1.9.16, 1.16.25; CIL 6:2099, 2017, 1984) 27-34.

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JANUS, AUSPICATION, AND THE SHRINE IN THE ROMAN FORUM 3
Fig. 2. As of Hadrian. Janus quadrifrons

standing facing, faces frontal and profile (photo
courtesy of the American Numismatic Society).
representation is a measure of his popularity, then by the late Republic Janus had scarcely
any purchase on the public consciousness. On the many Roman inscriptions dedicated to
tutelary gods of journeys, though Janus was reputedly a god of coming and going, his name is
conspicuously absent. While he continued to receive devotion in formulaic prayers and sac-
rifices, and a feast day was devoted to him on which the rex sacrorum made a sacrifice, no
special priesthood or flamen Ianualis is in evidence. Even temples dedicated to Janus are
missing. Outside of Rome, which is believed to have had several templa dedicated to the god
and at least one altar (to Ianus Curiatius), none is attested anywhere in the Roman world.9
Ianus Pater, Janus Pater Augustus, and a single instance of Ianus Geminus Consutis (?) crop
up in a handful of inscriptions in the provinces,'0 but no appreciable epigraphic evidence of
Janus worship has come to light in Italy." There is, however, the strange report from Pliny
that Augustus had brought home a fourth-century Greek (!) statue of Janus Pater from Egypt,
for dedication in suo templo (HN 36.28). These southern Mediterranean manifestations of
"Janus" were highly syncretic and probably influenced by the popularity of Syro-Phoenician
versions of Saturn/Kronos, who seems to have acquired a loose association with him.'2
Quite apart from the meager physical record, literary sources (even Ovid's Fasti) have
little to say about popular or private worship of Janus; instead they wrestle with the odd and
arcane nature of the god and his shrines. Like the macrophallic Priapus, the two-faced Janus
had become more of a celebrated curiosity than an object of careful devotion by the late
Republic. But even Priapus, whose representations were famously made of rudely hewn wood,
survives in more permanent forms. Direct archaeological evidence of Janus worship such as
architecture, votive and burnt offerings, statuary, inscriptions, and visual representations is
almost nonexistent. This is odd, because in his literary appearances Janus is something of a
fetish-figure. Relying on physical features to confirm his identity, like Priapus he is virtually
imprisoned within his statue, communicating through it and drawing his identity from it. In
Ovid's Fasti he speaks and gestures through his physical image. In a poem of Statius, though
he himself is a god, he is made to pray to the gods in praise of the emperor Domitian (Silv.
4. 1.13-20). The statue itself performs this function, physically assuming the position of prayer.
9 See the "Ianus" entries in L. Richardson, Jr., A New To- 10J. Toutain, Les cultes paiens dans l'Empire romain, 3
pographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and vols. (Paris 1907-1917) 1:245-247.
London 1992) and in Steinby. At Rome, besides the fa-
mous shrine, were the Ianus Quadrifrons. in the Forum 11 A single inscribed Italian dedication to Ianus Pater
Transitorium (certainly no temple in the ordinary sense), comes from Asisium (CIL 11:5374). Sacrifices at a sanc-
a templum dedicated in 260 B.C. by C. Duilius apud Fo- tuary of Dea Dia near Rome to Ianus Pater among many
rum Holitorium (Tac. Ann. 2.49), and a hypothetical aedes other gods are enumerated in CIL 6:2099, 2107.
near the Porta Carmentalis mentioned only by Festus (358
L). For a recent discussion of the evidence, see Ziolkowski, 12Pettazzoni, 91-92; A. B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in An-
61-62. The twelve altars to Janus, if in fact they existed, cient Religion, 3 vols. in 5 (London 1914-1940),
were not set up spontaneously. Macrobius cites Varro's 2.1:374; Grimal 1945, 105-107. See also Weinstock,
explanation that they stood for the months of the year, a 101-129.
highly artificial connection (Sat. 1.9.16).

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4 RABUN TAYLOR
But except for the ubiquitous bronze coins, the bifrontal god remains an archaeological ci-
pher. Just as the god seems virtually to have deserted his native land, or vice versa, at a very
early date, there is at least a possibility that his two-faced manifestation was not initially Ro-
man or even Italian at all."3 His seemingly autochthonous Roman strain, the one associated
with the epithet Janus Pater, with its redolence of fertility and originary generative power,
may have been the truly "native" component.14
"Ce dieu original, apparemment non 'indigene' a Rome, par quel chemin y est-il venu, et
a partir de quel pays?" J. Gage's question is inevitable and has been posed dozens of times in
different ways.'5 One can give a name or many names to a construct and call it a god. But
does that name, or an attributive iconography, attached to the web of contingencies consti-
tuting the god's "history" necessarily denote a coherence of identity? Can we even talk about
the history of a god, as if he were a person, or even an idea? Just as every great river has a
vast and venous watershed, Janus has many origins, each initially discrete from the others.
Can any or all of these be called by that name? Consider the bifrontal Etruscan god Culsans,
a likely component of the construct. His name bears no relation to that of Janus, which most
authorities agree is of Indo-European origin.'6 Is he thereby any less a constituent of the mix
than Ianus Pater? If there is one thing upon which all Roman analytical sources seem to agree,
it is that the god's most durable attribute is his duality or multiplicity; and yet there is noth-
ing in the name, or in the most archaic invocations of it, or in the rudimentary myth of Janus'
early kingship, to suggest anything of the sort.'7
For the sake of cogency, I refer to the construct "Janus" as Roman authors did, acknowl-
edging a recognizable (if enigmatic) agglomeration of divine and semidivine properties that
had reached relative stasis by the late Republic. My "Janus" is the notional god who would
be subject to relatively little transformation in the historical period. The Janus Geminus with
which I am primarily concerned is merely an important strand in the construct, evidently
with a unique history.
Macrobius and Lydus tabulate many opinions about the god circulating among "mytholo-
gists" and "theologians," but these emanated mostly from a neo-Pythagorean craze for reli-
gious etiologies originating in the first century B.C. These efforts did nothing to dispel the
contradictions in the god's dossier. Every study of him is necessarily selective, seeking out
congruent strands from the tangled web of his protohistory. The present investigation is no
exception. By focusing on a certain aspect of Janus, his function as an auspicant, I do not
mean to deny other formative components of his history. Janus' literary stock, it would seem,
remained artificially inflated by reason of a single famous monument, the tiny shrine of Ianus
Geminus or Ianus Quirinus, which lay in the Forum Romanum at the foot of a descending
street called the Argiletum, somewhere in the area of the Curia Julia and the northwestern
end of the Basilica Paulli.18 Literary references and coin representations indicate that it was a
3 Grimal 1945, 85-121. 17 B. R. Burchett, Janus in Roman Life and Cult (Menasha,
Wisc. 1918) 11-26, makes an interesting case that Ja-
14Capdeville, 408-412. nus' connections with all beginnings are a fairly late de-
velopment. As far as I know, her argument has been ig-
15J. Gage, "Les origines du culte de Janus," Revue de nored by subsequent scholarship.
l'histoire des religions 195 (1979) 3-33, 129-151.
18 Traditionally called the Basilica Aemilia. Steinby,
16 See n. 2 above. Contra, with bibliography, A. Ernout, s.v. "Ianus," draws a clear distinction between the
"Consus, lanus, Sancus," in Hommages a Max Nieder- two.
mann (Brussels 1956) 115-121.

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* Figs. 3-5 (left to right). Three

.. Neronian coins commemorating
:iA1. jf >universal peace: a sestertius with the
shrine of Ianus Geminus seen from
an ohlique angle; an aureus depicting
-~the shrine frontally; and an as
ID American Numismatic Society).

hearing a frontal view of Ara Pacis
Augustae (photos courtesy of the
small rectangular structure of uniform height, with double-leafed arched gateways on either
end (figs. 3, 4). Inside the shrine stood the bifrontal statue, each face directed toward a gate.
Despite valiant efforts to identify traces of this shrine, it appears to be entirely lost to the
archaeological record. We are left with numerous scattered references in literature, and with
representations on coins of both the god and his shrine."9
It is not my purpose to sort out the confused and contradictory testimony in antiquity of
various monuments, altars, and gateways dedicated to the god in Rome or to review his visual
iconography. My main concern is with the history and function of this most famous shrine of
Janus, the Ianus Geminus. It was reputedly established in Rome either by Romulus20 or, ac-
cording to Livy, by Rome's most pious king, Numa Pompilius. The epithet geminus doubtless
refers to the god's two faces or the two doorways of his shrine21 and must have been coined
to differentiate the shrine and its statue from another monument in Rome, the four-faced
image and shrine of Janus above the Forum on the slope of the Argiletum which later be-
came the Forum Transitorium. Quirinus seems to be the older epithet of the shrine and its
inmate. Servius claims that the quadrifrontal effigy, originally erected by Numa in Falerii
Veteres, was moved to Rome shortly after the capture of Falerii in 241 B.c. and enclosed in a
four-gated templum.22 Whether the new monument was made in imitation of the Ianus
Geminus just a short distance downhill, or reflects its original situation in Falerii, cannot be
known. Falerii, though Faliscan in culture and language, had long been controlled by the
Etruscan city of Veii.23
'9 Coarelli 1983, 1:89-97; Richardson, 359-369; Bauer this in her treatment of the name. Note Verg. Aen. 7.607:
1976-1977, 117-148; Bauer 1977; P. Grimal, "Le Janus "Double are the gates of war" (sunt geminae belli por-
tae). Commenting on this line, Servius rather incoher-
de l'Argilete," Melanges de l'Acole Franpaise de Rome
(Antiquite) 64 (1952) 39-58; A. von Gerkan, "Il sito del ently claims that they are geminae "because Uanus?] was
sacello di Giano," Rendiconti della Accademia di in two tiny templa: two because Janus was two-faced"
Archeologia, Lettere, e Arti Napoli 21 (1941) 261-271. (quod fuit in duobus brevissimis templis: duobus autem
For comparisons of the coin images of the shrine with propter Ianum bifrontem).
an Etruscan cinerary urn from Chiusi, see V. Muller, "The
Shrine of Janus Geminus," American Journal of Archae- 22 Serv. adAen. 7.607; see also Polyb. 1.65.2; Mart. 8.2.5.
ology 47 (1943) 437-440; R. Staccioli, "II sacello di Giano After a brief commentary on the Ianus Geminus, Servius
riprodotto in un'urna cineraria chiusina?" Colloqui del says, "we read that there was also a Ianus quadrifrons, of
sodalizio 7-8 (1980-1984) 91-97. which Martial said that he [i.e., Janus] spoke with every
tongue. For we do not say 'every' in reference to two"
20 Serv. ad Aen. 12.198. (legimus . . . Ianum etiam quadrifrontem fuisse: unde
Martialis ait et lingua pariter locutus omni: nam omnis"
21 M. Guarducci, "Janus Geminus," in Melanges de duobus non dicimus; Serv. ad Aen. 12.198).
d'archeologie et d'histoire offerts d A. Piganiol (Paris
1966) 3:1608. Curiously, Holland, 113 does not consider 23 Holland, 281.

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6 RABUN TAYLOR
1. The Scholarship
No study of Janus Geminus has satisfactorily reconciled his two most famous attributes. One
is his bifrontality, made manifest in the statue that stood inside the shrine. The other is the
matter of his shrine's gates. These, we are told, stood open whenever Rome was at war, and
closed in peace-this latter the rarest of events. According to tradition, over the course of
the Regal period and the Republic the shrine was closed only twice: once under Numa
Pompilius and again briefly by T. Manlius in 235 B.C. (Varro, Ling. 5.165). Augustus closed
the shrine three times during his principate, and later emperors occasionally followed suit.24
Interpretations of Janus since the nineteenth century have ranged far and wide.25 For the
purposes of this study, I wish only to review a few of the principal hypotheses of the role of
Ianus Geminus and his enclosure.
THE IANUS GEMINUS AS A GATEWAY
Varro-or to be more precise, his source, Calpurnius Piso-has caused untold confusion by
claiming that the famous shrine of Janus was one of three known gates of the early city, calle
the Porta Janualis (Ling. 5.165).
Tertia est Janualis, dicta ab Iano, et ideo ibi positum Jani signum et ius institutum a
Pompilio, ut scribit in Annalibus Piso, ut sit aperta semper, nisi cum bellum sit nusquam.
traditum est memoriae Pompilio rege fuisse opertam et post Tito Manlio consule bello
Carthaginiensi primo confecto, et eodem anno apertam.
The third [gate] is called Ianualis after Janus, and therefore a statue of Janus was placed
there and a law instituted by Numa Pompilius, as Piso writes in his Annals, that it should
be open forever unless there be no war. Memory records that it was closed when Numa
Pompilius was king and then after the first Punic war was concluded, while Titus Manlius
was consul, and opened again in the same year.
This testimony has been used to reconstruct an early Rome with four gates, of which one was
the Ianus Geminus.26 But Macrobius, drawing from an independent (and perhaps equally
ancient) source, places the Porta Janualis at the foot of the Viminal Hill some distance from
the Forum (Sat. 1.9.17). By his account, the gate opened spontaneously during an attack of
24 a discussion of all the evidence for closings of theabstract concept (usually of duality or transition), see M.
shrine, see R. Syme, "Problems about Janus," American Meslin, Lafete des kalendes dejanvier dans l'empire romain
Journal of Philology 100 (1979) 188-212. See also G. (Brussels 1970) 19-22; Capdeville 398-404; Altheim (as
Herbert-Brown, Ovid and the Fasti (Oxford 1994) 185- n. 2) 194-196. See also Richard (as n. 2); Thomas (as n.
196; G. B. Townend, "Tacitus, Suetonius and the Temple 2); Dumezil (as n. 2); 0. Huth, Janus: Ein Beitrag zur
of Janus," Hermes 108 (1980) 233-242. altromischen Religionsgeschichte (Bonn 1932). For possible
precursors in Anatolia or the Near East, see P. Ackerman,
25ForJanus as a celestial god, see Cook (as n. 12) 2.1:323- "The Oriental Origins of Janus and Hermes," Bulletin of
400; H. Linde, De Iano summo Romanorum deo (Lund the American Institute for Iranian Art and Archaeology 5
1891); Capdeville, 395-436; L. A. MacKay, "Janus," Uni- (1937-1938) 216-225; H. T. Bossert, Janus und der Mann
versity of California Publications in Classical Philology 15
mit der Adler- oder Greifenmaske (Istanbul 1959).
(1961) 157-181; J. S. Speyer, "Le dieu romain Janus,"
Revue de l'histoire des religions 26 (1892) 1-47; Grimal26 Grimal 1945, 55-63. For a more lucid interpretation
1945, 87-121. See also A. Audin, "Janus. Le genie de of Varro's passage and its comparanda, see G. Forsythe,
l'Argiletum," Lettres d'humanite 10 (1951) 83-91; The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi and the Roman
Pettazzoni, 164-176. For Janus as a representation of an Annalistic Tradition (Lanham, Md. 1994) 185-193.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
the Sabines under Titus Tatius, who were repulsed by a flood of water issu
Iani (the shrine on the Forum?) when they tried to enter. This, Macrobius feebly reasons, is
why the shrine (but why not the gate?) stood open in war and closed in peace. Ovid recounts
the same story in two forms (Met. 14.775-804; Fast. 1.257-276), but in neither does he say
that the Ianus Geminus shrine was directly involved, though he seems to suggest as much
when remarking that Juno had thrown open the bolts of the gate (in one case the "opposing
bolts," oppositas seras; Fast. 1.266). This conceit was made famous by Vergil's account of the
opening of the shrine to initiate the Rutulian war (Aen. 7.620-622). Then, confusingly, it is
implied that the shrine was set up after, and in honor of, the god's deed at the gate, as would be
consonant with the myth ascribing the shrine's foundation to Numa (Fast. 1.275).27 Why it was
erected in the Forum we learn from the Metamorphoses: this was the place where the sulphur-
ous waters, stirred up by the nymphs, originated; in the Fasti version the agent is Janus him-
self.28 Servius says that this place was named Lautulae "because hot water was suitable for wash-
ing wounds" after the Sabine conflict.29 I will suggest below that the god's connection with this
mysterious hot spring was a chance association founded on physical proximity.30
Some have accepted the early function of the Ianus Geminus as a city gate.31 Yet it is im-
plausible that a shrine, whatever its precise standing in the hierarchy of religious spaces, would
ever occupy a city gateway, which was secular by the very reason that it represented a break in
the town pomerium.32 Nor is there any earthly reason, even in the realm of legend, why a city
gate should have been open in wartime and closed in peace. Piso or an earlier source evidently
conflated two separate monuments, each dedicated to, or named after, Janus but each of a quite
different nature. Indeed, the very process of concrescence is evident in Macrobius' source, where
the two monuments are separate but their functions and symbolism somewhat confused.
IANUS GEMINUS AS CUSTOS PACIS
Some scholars view Janus Geminus as a guardian deity (Wdchtergott) akin to Etruscan tute-
lary spirits;33 he retained the bifrontality of ordinary sentinels of entrances and roadways, but
acquired a particularly important apotropaic role in warfare. His image was felt to have tan-
gible power, and for this reason his shrine was left open and immediate to the city's needs at
all times of even modest military activity. In the rare event of absolute peace, his shrine was
closed so that he could become, in Horace's words, custos pacis (Epist. 2.1.255). Ovid presents
27 OV. Met. 14.778-799; Ov. Fast. 263-272. Plut. Rom. 30 Holland, 27-28 makes much of Janus' ties with water,
18.4 makes no mention of the shrine of Janus in the but as often as not they can be explained as chance asso-
Sabine conflict. ciations. The warship on the reverse of Janus-faced coins,
for example, is traced back to the aes grave of the third
28 This myth appears to be the source of most of Janus' century B.C. (fig. 1). I believe the coin should be attrib-
"watery" associations. By the time of its transmission it uted to C. Duilius, who won Rome's first major naval
was already tinged with the only vaguely related attribute battle in 260 and dedicated the templum to Janus in the
of opening and closing. Thus Janus is sometimes re- Forum Holitorium in the same year (see n. 9).
garded as a god who opens and closes springs, streams,
and wells; see Roscher, Lex., 41. 3'For example, A. Boethius, "Il tempio di Giano in imo
Argileto," Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis 56 (1950)
29 Servius Auctus offers this information, apparently, as one
25-34.
of the many possible explanations for Vergil's phrase lautae
Carinae (ad Aen. 8.361) and implies that this hot spring 32Plut. Rom. 11.3; see Burchett (as n. 17) 38.
was in the area of the Carinae, some distance to the east of
the shrine. Varro, however, is unambiguous in placing it in 33 Wissowa, 103-112; Frazer, 95-100; Simon 1981-1997
the vicinity of the Ianus Geminus (Ling. 5.156). (as n. 4); Simon 1987,257-268; Simon 1989,3:1271-1281.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
8 RABUN TAYLOR
a similar image, as if peace

discedere possit (Fast. 1.28
closure, and in the gener
Augustae (fig. 5). Janus' e
featured prominently on t
is a direct imitation of th
Geminus, Simon supposes,
on the one hand that Jan
to protect the people. Acc
drawing the bolts of the
sees a parallel in the Mars
of the Regia.
There are difficulties wi
opening presents a stark c
closed; inside, reckless Blo
of bronze at his back, sha
artis / claudentur belli por
aenis / post tergum nodis
Sat. 1.4.60-61). By the poe
peace, imprisoned inside s
cided on the issue, in one
124). More troubling is th
the people simultaneously
notion that the act of saf
abstraction from the peo
people, not sequestered fro
JANUS AND THE BRIDGE
According to L. A. Hollan
ways and gates, but had s
he was given some of the a
of Janus at the bottom o
prehistoric times had bee
both a bridge and an inau
a routine auspication take
2.9).
Why, or how, would a b
reckoning, the opening w
time, and the closing its
Maxima brook was vaulted
ritual action was lost, an
muted to a pair of gates at
34 Torelli 1982, 27-38. ning water. According to Arnob. Nat. 3.29, Janus is hus-
band of Juturna and father of Fons and Tiberinus.
35 Holland, passim enumerates his connections to run-

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
It is not at all clear why a templum of this sort would be transformed int
god. Why would a cult image of Janus have been placed in the center of a str
least in the early years, was periodically destroyed? More fundamentally, wh
important Iani, which Holland believes to have been bridges over the br
stroyed during wartime? Such an action would have been appropriate o
had been driven into their Palatine stronghold by a superior force. And
struction of a bridge be commuted ritually to an opening and closing o
sumes that the linguistic residue of the ritual-the verbs patescere and cla
similar-is more durable in the collective memory than the physical ritu
we grant that this happened, it must be admitted that the change in the
making retrospective sense of the senseless, accomplished quite the opp
erybody would have been able to associate a ritual bridge destruction at
military action (specifically, a retreat), this was not the case with the openin
wartime and the closing of gates during peace.
Holland claims that five altars or templa dedicated to Janus in Rome
with streams. In fact, four of these, including the famous shrine at the foot
have not been precisely located, and the fifth-the quadrifrontal arch in t
which stands directly over the Cloaca Maxima-has no confirmed connecti
if we concede that there were three Iani near the Cloaca Maxima brook, a
this fact merely establishes the god's relationship to an important boundary
and not to water per se.
THE IANUS GEMINUS AS RITUAL PASSAGEWAY
Another general hypothesis proposes that Janus presided over military

strengthening and purification.37 Servius remarks that in times of war, "the
order to grant a view throughout the war of the very one in whose pow
and return [i.e., the god Janus]; for that is what this very statue of him
to be lord for those departing and returning-signifies."38 In a similar vein, O
"So that returns be open to the people who have gone to war, my gate,
open wide" (ut populo reditus pateant ad bella profecto, / tota patet demp
Fast. 1.279-280).
According to this hypothesis, the Janus Geminus gate ritual preserved the memory of
dual function, corresponding to two types of passage rituals: first, of augmenting the virt
of warriors, for which the whole army was required to pass through the temple in a pre
scribed direction; and second, of shedding the furor and pollution of blood guilt, for whic
the returning army (perhaps in its procession along the Sacra Via) reversed the direction
the traversal.
36F. Castagnoli, "Gli iani del Foro romano. Ianus = arco

1947); G. Dumezil, The Destiny of the Warrior, trans. A.
quadrifronte?" Bullettino della Commissione archeologica
Hiltebeitel (Chicago and London 1969) 3-28. See also
comunale di Roma 92 (1987-1988) 11-16. H. S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin,
Development, and Meaning of the Roman Triumph
37J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. 7. Balder the Beau-
(Leiden 1970) 132-163.
tiful (London 1913) 2:169-195, esp. 193-195; W. Warde
Fowler, Roman Essays and Interpretations (Oxford 1920)
38 Serv. Auct. adAen. 1.294: Ianus belli tempore patefiehat,
70-75; A. Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago
ut eiusdem conspectus per bellum pateret, in cuius potestate
1960); H. Wagenvoort, Roman Dynamism: Studiesesset
in exitus reditusque; id enim ipsa significat eius effigies
Ancient Roman Thought, Language and Custom (Oxford
praebentis se exeuntihus et redeuntibus ducem.

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10 RABUN TAYLOR
While Servius and especially Ovid imply that returning armies, at least, passed through
the shrine as if it were a gate, the dual traversal is spelled out only by a very late author, John
Lydus: "It happens, they say, that the same man, the leader of those going off to war ... led
the army in procession out through one face [of the shrine] and brought them back through
the other."39 Ritual circuits of Rome or boundary ceremonies were closely associated with
warfare. In the month of Mars, the Arval brothers called on the war god to "leap the thresh-
old"; and twice a year, at the beginning and the end of the fighting season, the Salii circled
the town with the ancilia. The triumph itself is a ritual circuit made counterclockwise around
the Palatine.40 It is therefore supposed that the triumphal procession developed out of the
Janus ritual, and after the expansion of the city's pomerium the Porta Triumphalis assumed
the function of the old Janus shrine, which was to expiate blood guilt.41
The notion of a passageway that can confer virtus or purge the taint of warfare is inter-
esting, and there can be little doubt that in some form it touched Roman writers, including
Ovid and (in my opinion) Vergil.42 But ultimately it sheds little light on the nature of Janus
himself. In fact, the god Janus-as opposed to his inanimate embodiment, the ianus-is con-
spicuously absent from this model. And so we are left to wonder how he could have two
opposing natures, one that promotes the savagery of war and another that removes it. Such
polarities do not often reside in a single god. In the literary sources, Janus has little personal-
ity and is never presented as either a belligerent or expiatory spirit.43 He, or more properly,
his shrine, is an index of war and peace. Finally, the model does not explain why the shrine
was a double-gated enclosure rather than a single arched passageway.
2. Reconciling Bifrontality and Martial Connections
At day's end, Janus still seems unsuited to his shrine: each has its own irreconcilable logic.
His bifrontal and quadrifrontal manifestations, associated in literary sources either with Numa
or with Romulus, probably predate the rise of Rome as a historical polity. The martial at-
tribute, on the other hand, is always associated with the history of Rome itself. What is there
about the admittedly hybrid nature of Janus, the god, that links him to warfare? He has no
morials of the Sabine war-that led the rituals of the Sacra

39Mens. 4.2: 4aci be TOV aVTOV KaL E"OpOV TCOV TL
Via to be connected with annual military rites.
lT6XEROV Op[16VT()V TUYXdVELV KaL 8L jlEV T13 RLcL
O)E&9 dTrToTrrlLTrEWv 8Ld & T13 ETEpa3 avaKaXEicrOaL
TO CYTpaTEVkta. 41 See Versnel (as n. 37) passim and bibliography;
Wagenvoort (as n. 37) 164-168.
40 See J. Rykwert, The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of
Urban Form in Rome, Italy, and the Ancient World (Cam-
42 Aeneas' transit of the underworld can be seen as a "rite
bridge, Mass. 1988) 126. In the days when the Roman army
of passage" through a double-gated enclosure, one that
could return to the city after a few days of battle, there
both strengthens and purifies the warrior. It can hardly
would have been little sense of occasion to define lasting be an accident that Vergil's line borrowed from Homer,
victories in the wars with their neighbors. Thus the triumph sunt geminae somni portae (Aen. 6.893), which refers to
may only have acquired a raison d'ere when armies were the gates of the underworld, and to a rite of passage for
gone for the whole season, or upon the conclusion of a last- Aeneas, finds a resonant echo in his treatment of the
ing peace. Servius, ad Aen. 12.198, says that Janus presidesshrine of Janus: sunt geminae belli portae (7.607).
over peace treaties and claims that the statue of Ianus
Geminus was made to celebrate the conclusion of peace 43 For example, Plutarch believes TV ' Icvov . .
between Romulus and the Sabines. In the opinion of 1TOXLTLKOV Kti YEWpYLKOV idXXov j 1TOXEqLK6V YEvO6EVOV
Coarelli 1983, 1:97, it is a topographical accident-the fact
(Rom. 19). The "political" attribute is probably due to
that the Sacra Via happens to traverse this and other me-his epithets Quirinus and Curiatius.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
known warlike attributes. In the Fasti, Janus' water trick against the S
sive action to avoid Juno's wrath (Ov. Fast. 1.267-272). In the other two versions of the same
story, the god himself makes no appearance at all. Vergil goes so far as to introduce an inde-
pendent martial element, Furor, into the shrine of Janus Geminus, apparently because he can
find nothing of interest to say about the full-time resident (Aen. 1.293-296). It would seem
that the shrine alone, and not its tepid and timorous god, provides the link to the martial
tradition. But this is not to say that the statue of Ianus Geminus, even if it was "retrofitted"
to the enclosure, has only a casual or accidental connection to it. I wish to suggest that the
two were merged deliberately for a single purpose.
3. Janus and the Auspicia Publica
Janus is sometimes presented as a mediating spirit (e.g., Serv. adAen. 7.610). His role as the
first-invoked in prayers to other gods is well attested and may even be preserved in the open-
ing verses of the archaic hymn of the Salii: Ianus iam es, duonus [= bonus] Cerus es, duonus
Ianus (Varro, Ling. 7.26; see also n. 6). There are those who believe, Macrobius says, that
Janus "is invoked first at ceremonies for every god so that through him access is granted to
the god receiving the sacrifice, as if he himself transports the prayers of supplicants through
his doors to the gods."44 Ovid's Janus presents a similar image (Fast. 1.171-174); and in Statius
the god actually prays to higher gods (Silv. 4.1.13-20). Thus it should not surprise us if lanus
Quirinus may have had a more active mediating office, vestiges of which are scattered through-
out the literary testimony. This was the office of the augur.
One hint of the god's priestly, divinatory strain is preserved among his many attributes.
He is sometimes acknowledged as the tutelary-and more importantly, the generative-spirit
of building projects. Macrobius' sources recount that in olden days, when the god was a king,
all houses were protected by religion and sanctity and thus divine honors were decreed
upon him and, for his merits, the entering and exiting of structures [aedium] were conse-
crated to him. In the first book of his Italicon, Xenon recounts that he was the first of the
gods to have made templa, and to have instituted rites of sacra, and thus to have merited
first mention at sacrifices in perpetuity. Some people think he is called Bifrons because he
knows the past and foresees the future. (Sat. 1.9.2-3)
As the founder of sacrifice and divination Janus would have been the world's first priest45
and-more important to our purposes-the first augur; for only an augur can create a
templum.46 Some templa are destined to become sanctuaries dedicated to gods, while othe
44Macr. Sat. 1.9.9: Ianum ... volunt ... invocariprimum, Rosenbach, eds., Beitrdge zur altitalischen Geistes-
cum alicui deo res divina celebratur, ut per eum pateat ad geschichte: Festschrift Gerhard Radke zum 18. Februar
illum cui immolatur accessus, quasi preces supplicum per 1984 (Miinster 1987) 156-163; R. Staccioli, "II bronzetto
portas suas ad deos ipse transmittat. cortonese di Culsans come il Giano dell'Argileto,"
Archeologia classica 46 (1994) 347-353.
45 The Etruscan bifrontal deity Culsans may have an ico-
nography pointing to a similarly dual nature encompass- 46This may explain whyJanus was called vocis genitor (Serv.
ing both god and priest. But beyond his name, which is Auct. adAen. 7.610). Augury involved not only visual per-
inscribed on a well-known statuette in Cortona, nothing ception, but carefully prescribed incantations as well. Thus
is known about him. See Simon 1989; I. Krauskopf, a templum was not inaugurated until it had been effatum,
"Culsans und Culsu," in R. Altheim-Stiehl and M. "announced" (Serv. Auct. adAen. 1.446, 3.463).

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
12 RABUN TAYLOR
remain undedicated, serving

(Varro, Ling. 7.6-8). But most, if not all, are created and their boundaries defined by an act
of augury, which imprints upon the phenomenal world a magical space bearing a special rela-
tionship to time in one of two ways. As auguraculum, a templum allows humans a window
into the unknown future or the clouded past and, as sanctuary, it guarantees a god's presence
forever, or for as long as the god chooses. Thus the two-faced Janus can glimpse both the
past and the future. Human augurs would not have claimed such powers (they were merely
interpretes, the announcers of signs that could determine whether an action was correct or
incorrect47), but clairvoyance is the natural superhuman extension of divinatory power. As an
arbiter of spatial transitions, Janus was more than a mere gateway. He determined human
endeavors as well as space.
Roman public divination is an extraordinarily convoluted subject.48 Of its practice in
protohistory we can say very little for certain, and any conclusions we draw about the early
Janus Geminus remain both vague and hypothetical. On a general level, divination and
augury were deeply implicated in all things liminal. Augurs were, in essence, the "carvers"
of space into realms holding distinct relationships to gods and to the sky. The five types of
terrestrial space (Romanus, Gabinus, peregrinus, hosticus, incertus) were defined by augurs.49
All inaugurated spaces (by definition), and thus most templa, were also laid out by them.50
The delimitations of space by careful ritual are acts of augury; as J. Linderski puts it, they
have a permanent augmentative effect upon the object of the ritual.5" But Janus Quirinus,
the god of the shrine, must have been involved in another aspect of divination: auspication,
the observation of signs. "Through auspicium," Linderski says, "the deity indicated whether
an action could or could not be carried out on a given day, but it expressed no opinion
about the merits or demerits of the undertaking itself. If the magistrate received a negative
response, he could already on the following day present to Jupiter the same question and
repeat it each day again and again until he received a propitious sign. ,"52 During meetings
of the assemblies, a magistrate or individual augurs could watch the sky and offer oblative
(i.e., unsolicited and unfavorable) auspices at any time.53 This kind of auspication was it-
erative, for "Jupiter could change his mind at any time." One could observe the sky or
animal behavior continuously before and during important events, looking for adverse
signs.54
Continuous auspication was essential during warfare. No military campaign or impor-
tant excursion was begun or pursued without all-important rituals of divination, whether the
examination of animal entrails or the observation of celestial anomalies and the behavior of
47 Linderski 1986, 2195-2241. " Linderski 1995, 492-494; Linderski 1986, 2290-2291.
48 The most compact and coherent recent treatment of 52Linderski 1995, 493.
the subject is Linderski 1995, 485-495, a brief synthesis
of Linderski 1986. Three earlier treatments of the sub- 53 Ibid., 488-489.
ject deserve note: Catalano 1960; G. Wissowa, "Augures,"
"Auspicium," RE 2:2.2313-2344,2580-2587; and Valeton 54 Valeton 1890, 447-448; Linderski 1995, 489-490.
1889, 1890. These seem to have come exclusively from Jupiter (and
perhaps Summanus at night), but we cannot know if the
49 Varro, Ling. 5.53. On the importance of spatial divi-
same was true in Roman protohistory; Etruscan celestial
sion in Roman thinking, see Catalano 1978, 440-553. divination seems to have saddled Jupiter with delibera-
tive councils of gods, or endowed other gods with the
50 But not all templa for auspices and augury were inau-
power of the thunderbolt (Sen. Nat. Q. 41; Plin. HN
gurated; see Linderski 1986, 2270-2274. 2.138).

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
birds." During the early and mid-Republic, it seems, these practices were attended to scru-
pulously by any magistrate with military imperium who left or returned to the city under
arms; if he shirked this duty, he ran the risk of ruinous defeat.56 But signs before the fact were
not enough; one needed to be continually in touch with the signs during important undertak-
ings. Thus Roman armies established auguratoria in their camps to take the auspices repeat-
edly during the course of a campaign.57 The need for auspication over the duration of a mili-
tary campaign may explain the mysterious symbolic role played by Janus' shrine in wartime.
Being far from the action, he could not have a bearing on the immediate events; but his vigi-
lance assisted the civil bodies of Rome and their war councils.
Livy says that after Numa's investiture, accomplished by an augur, the new king desisted
from warfare and founded the shrine of Janus Geminus "as an index of peace and war."58
Livy himself seems to misunderstand the significance of this act, adducing it as a vague ad-
junct to the king's introduction of the rule of law to soften the warlike Romans. But as a mere
index, it has no softening effect whatever. The tradition of associating Numa with Etruscan
ritual and augury, taken with the independent literary evidence that Janus once bore the ves-
tiges of augural power himself, suggests instead that the shrine of Janus Geminus had been
the god's own undedicated templum or auguraculum, in which he could carry out his desig-
nated craft continually during the months of war, communicating his auspices by some form
of priestly consultation.
Etrusco-Roman auspication could literally be a matter of lightning-quick judgment: types
of lightning, the area of the sky in which a bolt originated, and the area to which it retired
were all essential determinants in the auspiciousness of events and endeavors. Improper pros-
ecution of the ritual could result in severe divine retribution, as when Tullus Hostilius drew
lightning for making a travesty of Numa's rites (Plin. HN 2.140). On a specific level, the early
Janus Quirinus can be viewed as a divine augur standing within his templum, endowed with
the properties of vigilance that no human could match. Janus' effigy, with its perpetual gaze
toward several quarters of the horizon, was permanently effective at a task which humans
could discharge only imperfectly. Public augurs had assistants to help them observe the heav-
ens; Cicero seems to imply that all parts of the sky are to be observed, but that the augur in
charge should take the most important parts of the sky for himself, leaving the others to his
assistants.59 Bifrontal Janus would need no such assistance for observation.
Signs must be interpreted, and in the case of Janus even the interpreter demands inter-
pretation. Whether he communicated by way of oracular responses, or merely symbolized
the act of auspication in order to lend greater authority to his human co-auspicants, is impos-
sible to say. We cannot know the structure of the god's priesthood in remote antiquity; even
in the historical period it is vague. No flamen of Janus is attested, but the rex sacrorum was
55 Cicero remarks that in early times nearly every event58Liv. 1.19.2: indicem pacis bellique. Plutarch (Numa
of consequence was initiated by divination, and the pre-20.1-3) relates that Numa closed the shrine, but does
ferred sign was the behavior of birds (Div. 1.28). The not attribute its origins to him.
obscure ritual of tripudium, in which a chicken's eating
habits were charged with grave import, is implied spe- 59 Cic. Leg. 3.43: est autem boni auguris meminisse se
cifically, but the flight and song of birds must also be maximis rei publicae temporibus praesto esse debere,
understood. Iovique optimo maximo se consiliarium atque administrum
datum, ut sibi eos, quos in auspicio esse iusserit, caelique
56E.g., C. Flaminius; see Liv. 21.63, 22.1.5-8. partes sibi definitas esse traditas, e quibus saepe opem rei
publicae ferre possit. See also Cic. Rep. 2.16; Linderski
57Liv. 41.18.8; Fest. 146 L; Linderski 1986, 2276-2277. 1986, 2191-2195.

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14 RABUN TAYLOR
involved in the sacrifice of a

sacrificant was required to ask and receive permission (from Janus?) to proceed with the
slaughter, converting what is normally a straightforward act into a diagnosis similar to
auspication itself (even if a formulaic response removes any uncertainty about the god's will).61
If we can speak for protohistory in the language of the Republic, the most likely priests to
have been assigned to Janus were the college of augurs. But another priesthood may also
preserve a distant memory of involvement in the shrine ritual: the Fetiales. Because of their
special role as mediants between the domestic and the foreign, they traversed a liminal space
akin to Janus' own. As ambassador-priests, they found special affirmation in the realm of
boundaries. Their formula for declaring war included not only the famous ritual of tossing a
spear into enemy territory, but an imprecation by the pater patratus, chief of the Fetiales, to
the gods of the heaven, earth, and the underworld begun by special invocation to Jupiter and
Janus. This pairing in itself is unremarkable; the Fetiales were priests of Jupiter Feretrius,
and Janus (the emendation of the manuscripts from Iuno to Iane is widely accepted) is typi-
cally invoked in the praefatio to any god. But one notes that Janus is the second, not first,
object of address; and he is not the usual Janus Pater, but specifically Ianus Quirinus, the
god of the shrine.62 The only other mention of Ianus Quirinus in a sacrificial ritual also re-
lates to the Fetiales; it appears in a law of "Numa" directing the tertia spolia opima to be
offered to this god with a sacrifice of a male lamb (Fest. 204 L). These priests, or their
protohistorical equivalents, were closely enough connected to the early city's power base to
serve as interpreters of Janus Quirinus in matters of war.
4. The Status of the Shrine
In its earliest form the shrine may have been an enclosure for auspication-an auguraculum,
templum minus, or tabernaculum63 used by human augurs. Among the votive objects exca-
vated by Giacomo Boni in the vicinity of the shrine (as I will position it below) was an ar-
chaic bronze figurine holding an augur's staff, the lituus; a mere hint, perhaps, that some
kind of human augural activity took place in the area before the Gallic sack.64 Then by some
60Varro, Ling. 6.12; Ov. Fast. 1.317-322; see Frazer, treaties. Servius claims that Janus presided over peace trea-
2:137-140 for a discussion of the evidence on this festi-
ties (ad Aen. 12.198), but it is impossible to tell if this
val. The suggestion that the rex sacrorum served as theattribute is not simply a late spinoff from Janus' general
equivalent of a flamen Ianualis is very uncertain; see associations with war and peace. The dismissal of the au-
Holland, 265-266 and bibliography; Bomer, 2:38-39. thenticity of Livy's "lane Quirine" by R. M. Ogilvie, A
Commentary on Livy (Oxford 1965) is arbitrary. He pre-
61J. H. Drake, "Again Hoc age (Plautus Captivi 444)," fers to interpret the two names as separate invocations to
Classical Philology 30 (1935) 72-74 makes the unpersua- Janus and Quirinus, believing that Janus Quirinus should
sive case that this is the equivalent of a legal contract. be associated only with rituals of peacemaking, not the
Yet Ovid and Varro seem to suggest that the request is opposite. He completely disregards the most famous Ja-
unique to the Agonalia ceremony. nus Quirinus ritual of all, the consul's opening of the gates
in times of war (Verg. Aen. 7.612-614).
62Liv. 1.32.10: "audi, Iuppiter, et tu, Iane Quirine, dique
omnes caelestes vosque, terrestres, vosque, inferni, audite." 63 .e., a tent for an auspicant, which probably coincided
According to Livy, after the prayer there followed a con- spatially with a templum. See Valeton 1890, 242;
sultation in the Senate, where actual war was voted on; Linderski 1986, 2276.
but Plutarch allows that the Fetiales themselves made the
declaration, granting or denying legal authority to the un- 64 E. Gjerstad, Early Rome, 5 vols. (Lund 1953-1973)
dertaking (Vit. Num. 12.3-5). The Fetiales also oversaw 3:248-249, fig. 141, no. 7.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
syncretic process unknown to us, the precinct came to be occupied b

folk tradition statues sometimes were thought to be powerful vehicles
observe and report on momentous events (e.g., Cic. Div. 1.19-21). The "
Janus may have been an artificial creation of the Roman power elite, a
fully controlled to favor official military policy. The greatest danger of au
and other practitioners of late Republican Realpolitik understood, was
nipulated to support any point of view. The problem appears even in th
Rome, in which Romulus and Remus quarrel over the primacy of their
(Liv. 1.64). To avoid controversy, tight controls on the interpretation o
must have been maintained.65 Janus stood enclosed in the high-walled temp
an axial line of sight through the gateways, and perhaps through grille
3). The unbarring of the gates on either end of the shrine symbolically init
to the augur, as if to open two walls of his enclosure. Its closing "drew
fighting season, giving way to the season of peace.
Holland suggests that the shrine began as a templum that made ausp
Torelli, that it was a templum used for unspecified augural purposes. N
gests that its resident god was once an augur himself.66 When the g
auspicated on military matters, if only in simplified and symbolic form.67
his augural role was suspended. Naturally, official auspication did not
and it is fair to ask what became of Janus at that time. In the histori
hardly matters, for the actual instance of a closure in pre-Imperial Ro
literary tradition) was exceedingly rare. But in Rome's protohistory wh
the shrine would have been shut periodically for long periods. The te
accommodate the statue of Janus, from its inception may have been sp
the auspices of warfare. Other templa could accommodate other augura
of two auguracula, one on the Arx and the other on the Collis Latiaris,
Hill, and an auguratorium on the Palatine.68 On the Arx, at least, these
included routine rituals such as the inauguration of priests,69 the conve
Arx (Varro, Ling. 5.47), or the augurium salutis, an event performed only d
Ianus Geminus had no special relationship to these.
65 A hint of the power struggle over the rights

everyto auspicia
direction to and from a templum. But he says noth-
habere appears in Liv. 4.6.1. But these rights
ingare only
about for
elevation, nor does he specify that this is the
private auspicia, which were more limited only
in scope
way tothan
observe the skies. There were many places
public auspicia. The former could be carried
from out
whichany-
various kinds of signs might be sought. Mili-
where, the latter probably only in templa. See
tary Catalano
auguratoria seem to have been set up in camp, wher-
1960, 450-453. ever camp happened to be.
66Holland, 24-25; Torelli 1982, 35-37. Indeed, Torelli

68 the appropriate entries in Steinby.
might have trouble rendering his hypothesis in more
detail, since he wants to associate the shrine and the Ara
69Linderski 1986, 2257.
Pacis with the augurium salutis, a ritual that does not
conform well to the martial associations of the open70Dio 37.24-25, 51.20.4; Cic. Div. 1.105; Tac. Ann. 12.23.
shrine of Janus. The Ara Pacis could be seen as a sort
Onofthis ritual see G. Costa, "L"augurium salutis' e
anti-Janus, allowing the auspices of peace to be taken
1"auguraculum' capitolino," Bullettino della Commis-
from within its open gates. sione archeologica comunale di Roma 36 (1910) 123;
Catalano 1960, 339; Linderski 1986, 2254. Dio informs
67 Typically auguracula seem to have been on a height,
us that Augustus revived this ritual after closing the gates
for obvious reasons. Festus 34 L records the practice of
of Janus.
contemplatio, which requires an unobstructed view in

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16 RABUN TAYLOR
As a god of military omen Janus appears only once, in a variant of the story of the
disastrous defeat of the Fabii at Cremera in 479 or 478 B.C. By Festus' account, the sena-
torial decree authorizing the expedition was held at a certain aedes of Janus outside the
Porta Carmentalis. Subsequently an air of ill portent, especially in military matters, was
attached to both the temple and the gate through which the doomed army had exited
(Fest. 358 L). Livy's version of the events retains the detail about the Porta Carmentalis,
but sets the Senate meeting in the Curia. It makes no mention of Janus or his elusive
temple extra portam Carmentalem at all.7' It would seem that the variant myth cited by
Festus had come into being through the close association of several factors: a gate, the
initiation of a military campaign, and the Senate's likely consultation of the Janus Geminus
on the Forum. Though the entire story is impossible to verify, the traumatic result of
some historical military expedition in the early Republic, whether or not it took place as
recorded, may have been the beginning of the end for Janus' potency as an augural god
in the public sphere.
5. Janus and the Auspicia Privata
But within the private sphere, even centuries later traces of the augur remained in the
god's persona. The link between the liminal and the divinatory was especially evident on
the first of January, the month of Janus. At least since 153 B.C., when the first month of
the consular year was moved from March, 1 January had constituted New Year's Day.72
On this day Romans behaved as auspiciously as possible, hoping that their acts of kind-
ness to each other and propitiation of Janus would be taken as unambiguous signs of
goodwill to the gods. In Ovid's Fastz, Janus is the all-important mediator of these signs,
and augury is his model.
Then I asked, "Why, Janus, when I placate other gods, do I bring incense and wine to
you first?" "So that you may gain entry to whatsoever gods you wish," he replied,
"through me, who guard the threshold." "But why are glad words spoken on your
Kalends? And why do we give and receive best wishes?" Then the god, leaning on the
staff in his right hand, said, "Omens are wont to reside in beginnings. You train your
anxious ears on the first call, and the augur interprets the first bird he sees. The temples
and ears of gods are open, no tongue intones wasted prayers, and words have weight."
Janus had finished. I was not silent for long, but tagged his final words with words of
my own. "What do your dates and wrinkled figs mean, or the gift of honey in a snow-
white jar?" "The omen is the reason," said he-"so that the sweetness replicates events,
and so that the year should be sweet, following the course of its beginnings." (Fast.
1.17 1-188)
Implicit in this exchange is the understanding that Janus, as custodian of beginnings,

is the keeper of omens-that is, phenomena intelligible by divination. On the first of
January, honey, cakes, incense, and wine would buy not only good luck, but favorable
signs to guarantee it. Like a good translator, Janus opens up a two-way channel of
71 Liv. 2.49. See Holland, 203-210; Ziolkowski, 61.

before this time; see A. K. Michels, The Calendar of the
Roman Republic (Princeton 1967) 97-103.
72 The religious year may have begun in January long

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_ _ - Fig. 6. A terra-cotta New Year's lamp fr

(Heres cat. no. 45), second half offirst century B
~~~K ~ 'I as_
communication, directing signs to the gods by way of prayer and si

way of omens. The folkways of the new year, even if they did not
month, naturally came to be associated with the god who still retained vestiges of a
public divinatory role.
On days sacred to Janus, divination was sought in exchange for a cash donation (stips).
His first-person interlocutor continues, "Tell the reason for the donation, so that I do not
misunderstand any part of your festival" (stipis adice causam, / pars mihi defesto ne labet u/ia
tuo, 1. 189-190). After a tirade against the modern ills of easy money, the god responds, "You
inquire whether an auspice rewards the donation, and ask why old coppers gratify the palm.
Once they gave coppers, but now a better omen comes with gold; the old coin, vanquished,
gives way to the new."" This exchange reflects the familiar Roman tradition of giving small
gifts on New Year's Day;74 but it also touches upon the auspicia privata, now associated (at
least indirectly) with Janus. The traditional donation consisted of the ubiquitous bronze asses
of the Republic featuring Janus on the obverse; this is confirmed by the existence of a num-
ber of new year's lamps featuring relief images of the "Janus coin" along with representations
of other traditional gifts and charms. At least one of these lamps includes a generic emblem
of the auspicia privata, a thunderbolt (fig. 6) .7' By Ovid's day, a better donation putatively
secured a better result.
73 tu tamen auspicium si sit stipis utile, quaeris, / curque traditions is visible elsewhere, for example in the
iuvent vestras aera vetusta manus? / aera dabant olim, nuptiarum auspices (Cic. Div. 1.28).
melius nunc omen in auro est, / victaque concessit prisca
moneta novae (1.219-222). 7 See G. Heres, "Rbmische Neujahrsgeschenke,"
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Forschungen und Berichte
74On the stips votiva, see Bomer, 2:26; Frazer, 2:114. The 14 (1972) 182-193. Heres mistakenly interprets this ob-
transformation of auspicia into vaguely understood folk ject as a cluster of figs.

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18 RABUN TAYLOR
6. The Augural Tem
A templum, according to Servius, is "marked off in the air by the hand of an augur, after
which auguries are taken there."76 In its most elemental sense (ab natura, Varro, Ling. 7.6) it
is the sky itself. When transposed to the earth, it is essentially a celestial template projected
upon the ground and divided into quadrants along the points of the compass, tying earth to
air. The augur may have drawn the template in the earth, or simply against the sky, with the
lituus, a curved staff which became the symbol of the office.77
Janus is repeatedly associated with the sky and its cardinal points. His celestial ties are
evident in a fragment of Varro's Antiquitates rerum divinarum transmitted by Lydus. Accord-
ing to Varro, the Etruscans called Janus by the name of sky, and deemed him overseer of all
affairs.78 That the Roman god, so firmly bound to earth and its highways and byways, should
be equated with a celestial prototype in Etruscan rite is suggestive enough. That he is com-
monly held to govern the cardinal points of the compass lends even more credence to his
divinatory past. Drawing perhaps from Verrius Flaccus, Ovid interprets Janus as doorman of
the celestial court, looking east and west simultaneously (Fast. 1.139-140). He even holds
the right to turn the sky upon its axis, the north-south meridian (cardo, from which we derive
the "cardinal" points, 1.120). Macrobius records a belief that Janus "is the sun, and is thereby
called 'Geminus' because he is the master of both celestial portals, opening the day at dawn
and closing it at sundown."79 The sources of Servius Auctus say much the same; they add that
the epithet "Quattuor" applies also to the god, "referring to the four regions of the earth"
(secundum quattuor partes mundi; ad Aen. 7.610). Clearly Janus' celestial ties were being dis-
cussed and debated long after their original meaning had been lost.
Four-faced Janus is thereby firmly fixed upon the four regions or cardinal points of the
world. Although we have no topographical evidence that the quadrifrontal statue of Janus in
the Forum Transitorium was oriented in this way, it seems highly likely to have been the case.
What about the Janus Geminus in the Forum, of which we have better testimony? Most have
felt that this statue and its shrine followed the orientation of the surrounding space. The axis
of the Forum lies oblique with the cardinal points, running northwest-southeast. Yet the old
Comitium probably did follow the cardinal points, as F Coarelli has argued; and I will sug-
gest below that the shrine was probably aligned with it. Varro, for one, implies that the statue
faced east and west (Varro apud August. De civ. D. 7.8 p. 284, 19), and Procopius is even
more forthright: "one face has been formed in the direction of the rising sun, the other of the
setting sun. There are bronze gates opposite each face."80 The most plausible example of an
augural templum in the archaeological record, at Bantia in Apulia, is a rectangle precisely
aligned to the cardinal points.81 Another likely zone of this kind was the Saepta Iulia (for-
76 Serv. ad Aen. 1.92: templum dicitur locus manu auguris 79 Macr. Sat. 1.9.9: Ianum quidam solem demonstrari
designatus in aere, post quem factum ilico captantur volunt, et ideo geminum quasi utriusque ianuae caelestius
auguria. potentem, qui exoriens aperiat diem, occidens claudat.
77 Liv. 1.18.7-10; Serv. adAen. 7.187; Paulus (Fest.) 56 80Procop. Goth. 1.25.21: TOlV 1TpOcT6TrOLV 6dTEpOV JIev
L. See Valeton 1890; Linderski 1986, 2271 n. 488. 7TpOg aVLCQXOVTa, TO 3E ETEpOV lTpO 8UOVTa "XLOV
TETpaTrTaL. OhpaL TE XaXKaL f4' EKaTEpp 7Tpou6Trq)
78Lyd. Mens. 4.2: Bacppov . . . CTciv auTOV Trapa' E LULV.
8O0vKOLs orpavov XEyeuOai Kal LE'opov Trcai rsTrpadeus

81 M. Torelli, "Contributi al supplemento del CIL IX.
KaL TroTarvwva 8La TO^Ls Ev Ta-Ls KaXav8aLg dva4EpeaOm.
Cf. a scholium of Aristoph. Vesp. 800-804 describing Bantia," Rendiconti, Accademia nazionale dei Lincei,
Hekate. Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 24 (1969)

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
Fig. 7. The templum/auguraculum of Bantia; adap

Torelli 1969 (drawing courtesy of the Accademia
o 0 0
BIVAI IOVI SINAI
TAAR
o 0
SOLEI
0
RAE
J Q CAAP FLVSO CAEN Q
U 2 2
m~~~~~~~~r.
merly the Ovile) in the Campus Martius, which also followed the points of the compass with
the same slight counterclockwise skew as the old Comitium. The augur would have oriented
himself toward one of the four points and designated the two lateral points "left" and "right"
according to his bodily orientation. It is a mistake to suppose that augural spaces were ori-
ented according to prominent geographic landmarks, or that they took them as a datum;
though the evidence is scant, it seems that landmarks were "captured" only when they coin-
cided with important celestial lines.82
39-48; id., "Un templum augurale d'eta repubblicana a north face of uncertain function; they are too closely
Bantia," Rendiconti, Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, spaced to be column responds. The celebrated augur-
Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 21 (1966) aculum at Cosa, which as reconstructed is not oriented
293-3 15. Contra, see F. Coarelli, "La doppia tradizione according to the points of the compass, has not, in my
sulla morte di Romolo e gli auguracula dell'Arx e del opinion, been proven to exist; the evidence set forth by
Quirinale," in Gli etruschi e Roma: Incontro di studio in F. E. Brown, L. Richardson, Jr., and E. H. Richardson,
onore di Massimo Pallottino (Rome 1981) 173-188. The Cosa II: The Temples of the Arx (Rome 1960) 9-14 is
auguraculum on the Arx of Rome is less likely to be as- difficult to interpret, especially on site. At Rome, the
sociated with the often-cited structure in cappellaccio small square structure on the Severan marble plan within
on the southeast side than with an ancient wall that runs the area of the temple of Apollo Palatinus has been iden-
due east-west under the oratory of the Terz'ordine tified, probably correctly, as the Auguratorium; see
francescano on the south side of S. Maria in Aracoeli. Coarelli's entries for "Auguratorium" and "Roma
See G. Giannelli, "La leggenda dei Mirabilia e l'antica Quadrata" in Steinby. But its precise orientation is un-
topografia dell'Arce Capitolina, " Studi romani 26 (1978) certain. Its traditional identification with a small shrine
60-71, pl. iv (reproduced in Coarelli 1983, 1:105 and by the temple of Magna Mater is unfounded; see P.
Coarelli 1981, 182). The western corner was excavated, Pensabene, "'Auguratorium' e Tempio della Magna
revealing that the structure turns north on a ninety-de- Mater," Archeologia laziale 2 (1979) 67-74.
gree angle. Plate vb shows that the wall is of carefully
laid opus latericium, reportedly of Trajanic or Hadrianic 82 It is now commonly believed that the auguraculum on
date, with engaged half-cylindrical elements along its the Arx was oriented toward the Mons Albanus. The city

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20 RABUN TAYLOR
A number of scholars have investigated the procedures of Roman celestial auspication

from a templum.83 The generally accepted model is now Linderski's, which departs consider-
ably from the landmark studies of I. M. J. Valeton in the nineteenth century. According to his
hypothesis, the auspicant normally faced east, while a templum was likely to be oriented (by
means of its doorway?) toward the south.84 Linderski notes that the auspicant need not have
stood inside the templum; at Bantia the westward cant of all the inscribed top faces of the
nine cippi defining the quadrants of the rectangle, and a double structure in opus incertum
west of the templum, suggest that in some ceremonies, at least, he sat (or stood) to the west
(fig. 7). But there can be little doubt that such a templum was meant to be entered, since it
had a superstructure. On the west side (the only part to be excavated properly) are preserved
post holes which indicate that a wooden framework engirded the rectangle, isolating it from
the augur's "seat." Clearly a boundary line on the earth was not enough, otherwise the cippi
of Bantia would have sufficed; this kind of templum had to have a physical frame.
According to Linderski, the Roman augural templum is oriented southward, that is, from
the perspective of the gods, who reside in the north;85 but the auspicant faces east, his back
to the hostile west where signs are less auspicious. Following the Etruscan model, the auspi-
ciousness of each quadrant declines as one progresses clockwise from the north; the north-
east, that area which corresponds to the left hand of both the auspicant and Jupiter, is the
best. This model, like all others, has its share of problems; for example, if the auspicant seeks
an unfavorable sign (and they often did), he should be facing west, not east, as the Etruscans
did; and one would expect the southwest, not the northwest, to be the least auspicious quad-
rant, since it denotes the combined right hands of god and man and is diametrically opposed
to the most favorable zone.86
had early ties to the Latin League, whose military coun- 93-144, 361-385, 26 (1898) 1-93.
cils were held ad caput [aquae] Ferentinae quod est sub
monte Albano (Fest. 276 L). According to L. Cincius 84 Varro claims that an augural templum is traditionally
Alimentus, Festus' source, from the reign of Tullus oriented southward, thus "left from the east, right from
Hostilius until the consulship of P. Decius Mus (340 the west, front to the south, and rear to the north"
B.C.), whenever a Roman was to be nominated by the (sinistra ab oriente, dextra ab occasu, antica ad meridi-
league to command the federated Latin forces, Romans onem, postica ad septentrionem; Ling. 7.7). Pliny the El-
gathered on the Arx at dawn to watch for signs that der (HN 2.143) and Cicero (Div. 1.44-45) follow suit.
would determine which man was to be placed in com- Hyginus Gromaticus, citing Etruscan haruspication, di-
mand. However, no direct visual link between the Arx verges from either by ninety degrees. His datum faces
and the Mons Albanus is mentioned. L. Richardson, Jr., west rather than south or north, and the meanings of
"Honos et Virtus and the Sacra Via," American Journal "hither" and "yonder" are reversed; but a number of
of Archaeology 82 (1978) 240-246, is the principal ad- scholars rightly question the relevance of centuriation
vocate of the Mons Albanus hypothesis. But he offers and limitatio, the laying out of land on a regular grid, to
no good reason why the peak would serve as a datum. Roman divination. Dionysius (2.5.2-5), Servius Auctus
The much-discussed house of Ti. Claudius Centumalus (ad Aen. 2.693), and Livy (1.18.7-10) face the auspicant
on the Caelian Hill (Cic. Off 3.66), which lay roughly to the east. These and other sources are discussed in
southeast of the Arx, may have been blocking one of Valeton 1889, 275-325.
the oblique sight-lines subdividing the celestrial quad-
rants, or simply blocking the view of bird flight behind 85 The criteria for orientation are not clear. Presumably
it-not, as Richardson argues, a sight-line to the Alban Linderski means that the entrance faces south, but at
Mount. Bantia there is no entrance evident. The gods inscribed
on the central triad of cippi from north to south are no
83Linderski 1986,2256-2296; S. Weinstock, "Templum," key to orientation.
Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archdologischen Instituts,
Romische Abteilung 47 (1932) 95-12 1; I. M. J. Valeton, 86n bodily orientation in auspication see Valeton 1889;
"De templis romanis," Mnemosyne 20 (1892) 338-390, A. P. Wagener, Popular Associations of Right and Left in
21 (1893) 62-91, 397-440, 23 (1895) 15-79, 25 (1897) Roman Literature (Baltimore 1912) 47-58.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
This latter problem leads to a more pressing concern, the presumpt

of a stationary person is adequate to encompass the aerial templum. How can an augur facing
east see what is happening in the two quadrants behind him? Various solutions to this problem
have been proposed; some deny the problem by suggesting that in the case of bird observation,
at least, the entire aerial templum rests within the field of vision, divided transversely by a line
on the earth. From the Arx, that line would be the pomerium; the part of the city in front of the
augur would be the western realm, and the fields beyond it eastern.87 Yet there is no easy way
to tell whether a distant bird is flying within the pomerium or without it; thus the adjudication
of east and west from a position even further west will often be in dispute.
This is no impediment to Linderski, for whom "a templum (or part of a templ/um) lying
behind the back of the observer is an augural nonsense." This opinion is one of the few lapses
in his powerfully argued monograph; it seems to rest largely on a misinterpretation. Naevius,
Varro tells us, refers to the celestial templum as hemisphaerium septum (Varro, Ling. 7.7).
Linderski takes this to mean half of the sky, which is actually a quarter-sphere; in fact a hemi-
sphere inscribes the entire horizon.88 Relieved of the optical constraint, we can take another of
Varro's celebrated comments in its natural sense: "the parts of a templum are said to be four:
left from the east; right from the west; front toward the south; and rear toward the north."89
This would indicate to me not the earth as perceived from the seat of the gods (for nothing lies
behind the gods) but a human orientation with its datum facing south rather than east. The
opening words of the Iguvine Tables enjoin the sacrificants to "commence this ceremony by
observing the birds, those from in front, and those from behind."90 In other words, the point of
reference-the auspicant's body-stands right in the middle of the templum. Thus while some
augural rituals may have encompassed nothing more than a fixed field of vision,91 it is best to
understand the aerial zone of auspication as the entire sky, including the "rear."
What better use for an augur's assistant than to "take up the rear"? The celestial templum
is not merely a wraparound windshield for the driver, it is a bubble etched with quadrants or
azimuths extending to the horizon in every direction. These cross at the apex of the sky di-
rectly overhead (one may note the name of Sol in the center of the Bantia templum). Thus, as
Cicero implies (see above), the most obvious function of an augur's assistant would have been
to watch and report upon the quarters of the sky that the augur could not see himself. But if
a qualified assistant was not available, the augur must have switched positions periodically,
sequentially "closing off" the areas he could not see and "opening up" those to which he was
oriented.92 Only when physically or magically shielded from the augur could an oblative sign
87"P Regell, "Die Schautempla der Augurn," Jahrbuicher 91 Notably the creation of the auguraculum on the Arx;
fur classische Philologie 123 (1881); Valeton 1889, 282- see Varro, Ling. 7.8-9, which is the foundation for all
325; A. Magdelain, "L'Auguraculum de l'Arx a Rome et discussions of the conspicio, taken (perhaps wrongly) as
dans d'autres villes," Revue des etudes latines 47 (1969) a confined view. But this inaugural incantation is unique,
253-269; Linderski 1986, 2269-2279. The Bantia as Varro says, and despite its apparent visual character
templum, without a doubt, is a space divided both axi- it is an act of augury, not auspication. See also the inves-
ally and transversely. titure of Numa, Liv. 1.18.7-10.
88Linderski 1986, 2265-2267. 92 This does not imply that the datum moved with the
augur. If the datum was east, then left would be the north
89 See n. 84. no matter what the augur's position. A wooden frame-
work could serve another purpose as well: its upper
90J. W. Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium (Balti- crossbars could divide the upper sky from the lower. For
more and Oxford 1959) 158. such circumferential cosmological divisions, see
Weinstock 1946.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
22 RABUN TAYLOR
have no meaning to him.93 In

the structure originally had
The evidence that there were two panels to a side, rather than one, suggests that in some
rituals at least, the auspicant stood or sat within the enclosure facing toward any of the four
cardinal directions, with four panels removed: the two in front of him and the two adjacent
panels at the sides, opening a 180-degree field of vision.
Such an arrangement would seem to bring some sense to two problematic and often-
cited passages. Varro says, "'Extemplo' [i.e., 'immediately'] means 'without pause' because
every templum must be enclosed continuously and have no more than one entrance."94 Festus
is somewhat more straightforward:
minora templa fiunt ab auguribus cum loca aliqua tabulis aut linteis sepiuntur, ne uno
amplius ostio pateant, certis verbis definita. Itaque templum est locus ita effatus aut ita
septus, ut ex una parte pateat angulosque adfixos habeat ad terram.
Lesser templa are created by augurs when specified places are closed off with boards or
hangings so that they will not be broken by more than one entrance, and are defined by
formulaic words. A templum, then, is a place enclosed in this way with incantations, so
that it may be open in one place and have its corners affixed to the earth. (146 L)
These passages have understandably been used against the notion that Roman templa can
have more than one opening in the enclosure. Festus, at least, is talking about a certain class
of templa, those of a "lesser" kind used for taking auspices in places where suitable precincts
are not to hand. Torelli, who views the Janus Geminus shrine (and the Ara Pacis too) as a
permanent version of one of these structures, suggests that templa minora were not confined
to a single gate, but were used with only one gate open at a time. Thus signs could be sought
in several directions, but not concurrently. Torelli's translation of Festus' slightly odd Latin,
"should not be open in more than one door," captures the inhering presumption that such
enclosures might in fact have more than one entrance, or a movable gap in the enclosure.9"
Torelli's explanation is reasonable. But it seems to presume that a single, human augur
observed the skies from the early Janus Geminus. What about the god himself? Janus' great
advantage, of course, was that he could see the whole sky at once; certainly his bifrontality or
quadrifrontality would have suggested itself to such a purpose. It was the god's anatomy, and
not that of a single augur, that must have suggested to the inventors of the syncretic Ianus
Geminus that both doors should be open concurrently in wartime. Despite Varro's definition,
this practice did not eliminate the shrine's status as a templum; it is often called by that name
in Roman usage. Eventually it probably became a more conventional shrine, complete with
the small altar mentioned by Ovid.
What evidence we have of templa for auspication suggests that they share a fundamental
reliance on the four cardinal points, not on a terrestrial landmark. Landmarks served a sub-
sidiary role as boundary posts for important celestial axes. These could be oblique as well as
93 Marcus Marcellus claimed that when he had a par- valere.

ticular military expedient in mind, he traveled in an en-
closed litter in order to avoid adverse signs (Cic. Div. 9 Ling. 7.13: extemplo enim est continuo, quod omne
2.77). The captio, or official perception, of signs was templum esse debet continuo septum nec plus unum
essential. See Sen. Q. Nat. 2.32.6: auspicium observantis introitum habere.
est, and Plin. HN 28.17: appareat ostentorum vires et in
nostra potestate esse ac prout quaeque accepta sint ita 95 Torelli 1982, 3 1.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
[44 \ X@ \\l\lltD \\\\ Fig. 8. The city offour regions with appro
4 the Ianus Geminus (A), the precinct of the Dei
(B), the Capitolium (c), and the Auguratorium (D).
IVI
n ) f C W I \\111 <~~~~~~~~'18\
- I~~~~~~~~~~wI
i 1?{IIlII> '/1 44\14
cardinal: while every known Etruscan or Roman model of the sky founded on th
the compass had at least two perpendicular axes, some had additional transects di
quadrants into sixteen equal 22'/2-degree azimuths.96 But there is still no hard ev
any augural templum was oriented oblique to the points of the compass.97
The shrine of Janus Geminus was surely set along an east-west axis, oblique t
roundings but square with the sky. But what about the orientation of his statue?
perial coins and medallions a bifrontal or multifrontal Janus (probably not the Ianus G
per se) is shown with faces oriented laterally (and sometimes frontally as well) o
body (fig. 2). However, the literary sources leave no doubt that the faces of Ianus
were affixed to front and back of his head-a multiaxial anatomy that simply coul
reproduced on coins. The faces of the Ianus Geminus were toward the gates of the
one would expect (Procop. Bell. Goth. 1.25.22). It is certain that the statue had a normal
body, and thus a front and a back (see Appendix). The orientation of this body granted pri-
ority to one of the gates, almost certainly the east, which along with the south seems to have
been the favored datum of Roman augury.98
The celestial meridian dividing east from west was important by virtue of its symbolic
division of the universe. So it is interesting to note that the stone monument known as Roma
Quadrata, which lay on the Palatine ante templum Apollinis (Fest. 310 L), and which prob-
ably was one and the same as the Auguratorium, a Palatine counterpart to the auguracula on
the Arx and the Quirinal,99 lay due south of the imum Argiletum and the Ianus Geminus (A
and D on fig. 8). These two ancient augural enclosures may have been not only in visual
96 Cic. Div. 2.42; see Weinstock 1946. "father of the dawn" (Hor. Sat. 2.6.20). On the eastward
and southward datum see Linderski 1986, 2281-2287.
97 See n. 82.
99 See Steinby, s.v. "Roma Quadrata" (F. Coarelli).
98 This would explain his poetic epithet matutinus pater,

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24 RABUN TAYLOR
ARX
Archaic Comitium Republican Comitium / |
Curia
Dei Consentes s X
C a p ltollum u m,
Fig. 9. The northwes

The gray shaded areas
communication with one another at an early time, but also in alignment with a notional cardo
halving the universe. The auguraculum on the Collis Latiaris could also have been aligned
with this meridian to the north.
The eastern and western realms reflected a division of the sky which was likewise dialec-
tical. The systems of celestial augury known to the Romans seem usually to have required a
fundamental boundary between "good" and "bad" zones. The best known of these, briefly
expounded by Pliny, who ascribes it to the Etruscans (HN 2.143-144), divides the sky into
four quadrants of declining favorability as one proceeds clockwise from due north, northeast
being most auspicious and northwest the least; thus the north-south cardo was the threshold
dividing good from bad in all their gradations. This conceptual division is analogous to the
distinction between the pars familiaris and pars hostilis of animal entrails in haruspication
(Liv. 8.9.1; Luc. 1.622), and perhaps even to the two cohorts of Dei Consentes, the urban
and the rural (Varro, Rust. 1.1), whose portico lay due west of the Janus Geminus (fig. 9).
Another kind of boundary was important to some kinds of auspication: the pomeri'um.
This was not only the geographic city limit but a cognitive divide between the civil and the
military expressed in the formula domi militiaeque, and even in augural formulas dividing
templum (the town) from tescum (the hinterland).?10 The city, the realm of peace, was strictly
demilitarized. Its magistrates held imperium et auspicium domi, or authority under civil law.
Outside the pomerium lay the realm of war and conquest, where certain magistrates held mili-
tary authority (imperium et auspicium militiae).101 The centuriate assembly met outside the
pomeriunm because it was originally a military body, but the curiate assembly met inside it.102
'00Linderski 1986, 2279; Valeton 1890, 246-248. 102 Gell. 15.27.4-5; Cass. Dio 41.43.1-3. See Catalano
1960, 264-268; Catalano 1978, 481.
101 On domestic and military auspices, see Catalano 1960,
431-432 n. 147.

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Under certain circumstances a magistrate had to take the auspices befor

ary; incorrect observance of this auspicium pertermine (Marius Victori
figured in more than one incident in Roman history.103 In the most fa
B.C., Tiberius Gracchus presided as consul and augur over the consular election in the Cam-
pus Martius. Realizing later that on his way to the election he had crossed the pomerium
without taking the auspices, he declared that the consuls were improperly elected. This was
not exactly a nullification, but was sufficient to elicit the consuls' resignation.104
Janus, as a god of war and peace and of transitiones perviae (Cic. Nat. D. 2.67), had an
interest in both the peaceable and the warlike realms. And as a notional augur he could be
associated with the pomerium, since augurs were responsible for establishing and expanding
this boundary. 05 Notably it was the consul-the only magistrate who could hold either form
of imperium and with the proper auspices could attend to business both inside and outside
the city-who oversaw the opening and closing of the shrine's doors (Verg. Aen. 7.612-614).
But we must not thereby suppose that the Janus Geminus shrine once actually stood on the
physical divide between the realms. The shrine's position, I will suggest below, had nothing
to do with the Cloaca Maxima brook, as Holland argues; rather, it seems to have been associ-
ated very closely with the archaic Comitium and Curia, and thus with a zone that was prob-
ably inside the archaic or early Republican pomerium. Auspication related to the traversal of
boundaries took place before one achieved the crossing, not during the event; the travails of
Tiberius Gracchus make that abundantly clear. It is only sensible, then, that the Janus Geminus
shrine was inside the pomerium. This is especially logical if Janus as augur was implicated in
the decisions that preceded a military campaign; but even if his role was confined to iterative
auspications after the army had departed, he served the senate and people of Rome directly,
and the army only indirectly.
The Ianus Geminus was intent on relatively confined prospects to the east and west, since
his statue had no line of vision to the north and south. But his bifrontality, like his
quadrifrontality in the Forum Transitorium, may have indicated his ability to see everywhere
at once. The hierarchies of space so essential to auspication were necessarily, if only sche-
matically, represented in his enclosure. By the time of Nero, when the shrine appeared on a
series of coins celebrating the declaration of universal peace in A.D. 66, it may have only loosely
evoked its origins, having acquired window grilles on the north and south sides and a sort of
attic over the arched gateways (figs. 3, 4).
Because of the attic, it is often supposed that the shrine was roofed or vaulted. But there
is no way to confirm this; no sculpture is shown atop the shrine, as there would have been on
any freestanding Roman arch. Neronian coins representing the Ara Pacis, probably struck at
the same time as the Janus coins, depict this enclosure in the same way-from ground level-
with no indication that it too is open to the sky (fig. 5).106 Procopius has been cited as proof
that the shrine was roofed; he says that it was just tall enough to cover the statue (ToCoOTo0 . ..
O6OV TO dyaX[a TOV 'laPivov GKE1TELV, Bell. Goth. 1.25.20). But this of course is a very late
103 Gell. 13.14; Varro, Ling. 6.53. On the status of the 105Catalano 1978, 479-482 with primary sources.
pomerium see Catalano 1978, 479-491; A. Magdelain,
"Le pomerium archaique et le mundus," Revue des etudes 106 Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum
latines 54 (1976) 71-109; Linderski 1986, 2156-2157 and (London 1962-) 1:209, nos. 64-65; 215, nos. 111-112;
esp. n. 31. 229-23 1, nos. 156-167; 238-239, nos. 198-204; 243-244,
nos. 225-233; 263, nos. 319-322. D. W. MacDowall, The
104Cic. Nat. D. 2.10-11, Div. 1.33, 2.74; Plut. Marc. 5; see Western Coinages of Nero (New York 1979), esp. nos.
also Liv. 21.63, 22.1.5-8; Linderski 1986, 2204-2206. 561, 584.

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26 RABUN TAYLOR
source, describing a monument that may have changed considerably over the centuries. And
it has been suggested that Procopius' verb UKETrELv describes how the walls, not a roof, "pro-
tected" the statue of the god by rising above the level of his head.107 The shrine is frequently
called a sacellum, a term which according to Festus denotes "roofless places consecrated to
gods" (Fest. 422 L: loca dis sacrata sine tecto). As a god who may have had tutelage over
peace treaties and declarations of war, Janus was most appropriately positioned sub divo,
where oaths were traditionally sworn. In his guardian identity, he belongs to a class of deities
that traditionally preside over open-air spaces.108 And of course as an augur, he would have
required at least symbolic access to the sky above him.
7. The Site of the Shrine of Ianus Geminus
The most important evidence of the shrine's topography comes from writers of the Au-
gustan period. According to Livy, the king Numa Pompilius, "reasoning that his fierce
people ought to be softened by disuse of weapons, built the Janus at the bottom of the
Argiletum as a sign of peace and war, so that when open it would signify that the people
were in arms, and when closed, that all the people in the vicinity were at peace."'09 It is
well established that the Argiletum was the street descending southwest to the point on
the Sacra Via between the Curia Julia and the Basilica Paulli. Because it proceeded steadily
down from the Esquiline Hill, there can be little doubt that the shrine's position ad
infimum Argiletum was very near the debouchement of the street into the Forum
Romanum.
Ovid's interview with Janus in the Fasti includes the following exchange:
"Cum tot sint iani, cur stas sacratus in uno

hic ubi iuncta foris templa duobus habes?" ...
"inde, velut nunc est, per quem descenditis," inquit
"arduus in valles et fora clivus erat.
et iam contigerant portam, Saturnia cuius
dempserat oppositas invidiosa seras....
ara mihi posita est parvo coniuncta sacello:
haec adolet flammis cum strue farra suis."
107 R. Staccioli, "A proposito di una ricostruzione 'grafica'

Capitolium prohibited the removal of his shrine. This
del sacello di Giano all'Argileto," Archeologia classica was an appropriate outcome, for Numa had laid a curse
37 (1985) 285-286. on anyone who plowed up or moved a boundary stone.
A hole was cut into the eaves of the Capitolium directly
108 It was the nature of liminal gods to have access toabovethe the little shrine to assure that its celestial bond
sky, which held the immutable cosmological map was by not severed (Liv. 1.55.3-A; Fest. 505 L). Semo Sancus
which they were defined. Hence Diana Trivia and Hecate
Dius Fidius also had a hypaethral shrine (Varro, Ling.
stood at crossroads and byways. Priapus, the Greco-Ro-
5.66), as did (probably) the Camenae. The latter struc-
man apotropaic god par excellence, traditionally stood ture was, like the Janus Geminus, made of bronze and
watch in gardens. Greek liminal deities were called may have been modeled after it (Serv. ad Aen. 1.8). See
aVTrXLOL, an appellative suggesting their exposure to theGuarducci (as n. 21) 1611-1612.
sun, and perhaps their reliance upon the sun as the da-
tum for their own positions and orientations (antelii 109 1.19.2: [Numa Pompilius] mitigandum ferocem populum
daimones: Varro apudTert. Idol. 13.6; cf. Aesch. Ag. 519). armorum desuetudine ratus, Ianum ad infimum Argiletum
The god Terminus, who resided in boundary markers, indicem pacis bellique fecit, apertus ut in armis esse
retains a place in Roman mythology because the auspices civitatem, clausus pacatos circa omnes populos significaret;
consulted to move old sacella from the site of the plannedsee also Serv. ad Aen. 7.607, "circa imum Argiletum."

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"When there are so many iani, why do you [Janus] stand consecrated in
you have a templum joined to two fora?". . . "From there [the Arx], a s
which you descend even now," he said, "led to the valleys and the Forum.
Sabines] had reached the gate whose opposing bolts envious Juno had opened.... An
altar was raised for me against the small shrine: here it consumes spelt and cake in its
flames." (1.257-258, 263-266, 275-276)
Ovid's description of the shrine as "joined to two fora" has caused needless perplexity. Some
have wanted to see in the god's oblique response not the Janus Geminus, but rather another
templum of Janus between the Forum Julium and the newly completed Forum Augustum.110
But the context of Ovid's reference makes it quite clear that this templum is one and the
same as the "gate" with "opposing bolts," that is, the sacellum with doors facing each other.
The sense of the tale is that Janus had a statue dedicated to him at his gatelike templum
because of his "heroics" in turning away the Sabines from the shrine when he sent sulphur-
ous water gushing from it. This shrine can only be the Janus Geminus.
It is recognized that the two fora by the shrine must therefore be the Forum Romanum and
the Forum Iulium. This interpretation satisfactorily situates the shrine on or near the Sacra Via.
A road branching off this, the Clivus Argentarius, led to and from the Arx. The Sacra Via,
whatever its precise course, was of special importance in the practice of official augurial duties
(Varro, Ling. 5.47). Ovid's conversation with Janus is supposedly taking place as the poet is
descending the Clivus Argentarius, the very course (he imagines) that the Sabines took when
the god thwarted them. This street merged with the Sacra Via before it reached the imum
Argiletum. So it would stand to reason that Janus' shrine stood directly along their path, that is,
on the northeast edge of the Forum. This placement is also in keeping with the shrine's literary
associations with the Curia, for the latter building serves as a link between the two fora.
The Curia arises in a number of references to Janus' topography. Dio says that in A.D.
193 Didius Julianus prepared to sacrifice to Janus before the doors of the Curia (74.13.3)-
no proof in itself that the Janus Geminus was the object of his attention, but at least sugges-
tive of it. In Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, Janus is made to speak skillfully and at length, "for he
lived in the Forum" (9: quod in foro vivebat)-that is, near the cynosure of Roman oratory,
the Curia Julia. Additional evidence of the shrine's position near this building comes in late
antiquity, from Procopius:
For anyone who walks slightly past the Three Fates, [Janus] has his temple in the Forum
in front of the Curia.... The temple, entirely of bronze, stands in a rectangle, only as
much [room] as it takes to cover the image of Janus. This image is bronze, no smaller than
five cubits, in all other respects similar to a man, except that it has a double head; and one
face has been formed in the direction of the rising sun, the other of the setting sun. There
are bronze gates opposite each face.1"'
The precise location of the Three Fates is unknown. A. von Gerkan believes that the
Janus Geminus was to be found between the west corner of the Curia and the site of the arch
I OP. von Blanckenhagen, Flavische Architektur und ihre TOCFODTO! jiEVTOL, O6OV TO acyaX[1a TOD Idvov KETELV.
Dekoration (Berlin 1940), 45-47; Holland, 102. E(TL Of XaXKOVV OVX TCOV fl T1XWlV TEVTE TO ayaX41a
TOVTO, Ta [1EV aXXa 1TrVTa [LtEpEg avOp6Trw, 8LTrpOaTov
"I Goth. 1.25.19-21: EXEL 8E TOV VE(V EV Tn cyopc lTpo8& TflV KE4aAXlV EXOV, KaL TOLV TpOUWTOLV O0TEpOV REV
TOV IOVXEVTT1piov WXiyov vlrEpf3aVTL Ta Tpla &DTa ... oTpO! aVLUTXOVTa, TO 3E ETEpOV Tpog 3VOVTa 1XLOV
TE VEuS aTrasg XaXKOv EV TI1 TETpayouw(v c)X([taTL 'ETT1KE,TETpaTTaL. OvpaL TE XaXKaL E4 EKaTEpq TrpoC Tr(4 EYLV.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
28 RABUN TAYLOR
of Septimius Severus (A on fig. 9), while the nearby statues of the Three Fates are to be
sought north of the arch, where medieval records reveal a tradition of the place-name.112 This
does not altogether reconcile the sources, for it removes the shrine westward from the bot-
tom of the Argiletum, where Livy and Servius claim it is located. P. Grimal is likewise off
target, but in a different direction."3 Excavations and soundings revealed that a low arch
once extended over the Argiletum behind the rear east corner of the Curia, with evidence of
a bolted gateway standing at a right angle to it on the southeast side of the street (B on fig. 9).
These passageways, though technically iani; are not, as Grimal suggests, in any way associ-
ated with the Janus Geminus, which was on a rectangular plan both in the Julio-Claudian
period and in late antiquity.
Even less persuasive is H. Bauer's contention that the Janus Geminus was removed and
reconstituted by Domitian as a full-scale temple in the Forum Transitorium, behind the Ba-
silica Paulli (C on fig. 9).114 The principal source for this hypothesis is a cryptic epigram of
Martial: "Once you [Janus] were open to traffic, and lived in shabby quarters where teeming
Rome wore a middle way. Now your thresholds are ringed by Caesar's gifts and you number
as many fora, Janus, as faces. But you, holy father, pleased at so many gifts, shall fix your gaze
on the closed iron bolts forever.""'5 Martial suggests not that Janus' bifrontal statue was moved
to a new home, but simply that a more magnificent home was made for the neglected
quadrifrontal statue already in the vicinity. Janus Quadrifrons could "number as many fora as
faces" because the Forum Transitorium was now established as the monumental connective
space between the three other fora adjoining it on two sides, that is, the Forum Julium and
Forum Augustum along the northwest side and the Templum Pacis on the southeast, a func-
tional forum in its own right. Servius remarks that after this statue was moved to the Argiletum
in the mid-Republic, "a single templum with four gates" was built to house it."6 Domitian,
who converted the middle sector of the Argiletum into the Forum Transitorium, no doubt re-
placed this open structure with a new freestanding four-gated shrine, its doors closed in peace-
time in imitation of the Janus Geminus."7 Its older prototype remained where it was, further
downhill on the Forum Romanum, where it most certainly appeared in later centuries.
"'Von Gerkan (as n. 19). institutum. On the problematic link with the Theater of
Marcellus, see Holland, 200-223. Lydus makes the in-
113 Grimal 1952 (as n. 19). teresting claim that the four-faced statue was still there
in his own day (Mens. 4.1).
114 Bauer 1976-1977 and 1977. For a critique, see J. C.
Anderson, The Historical Topography of the Imperial 117
ForaHence Statius could claim that Domitian had encircled
(Brussels 1984) 137-138 n. 58. "the warlike gates of Janus with just laws and a forum"
(limina bellicosa Iani / iustis legibus etforo coronat; Silv.
115 Mart. 10.28.3-8: pervius exiguos habitabas ante penates
4.3.9-10). The square Doric structure in this area which
/ plurima qua medium Roma terebat iter; / nunc tua so influenced architects of the Renaissance was believed
Caesareis cinguntur limina donis / et fora tot numeras,by Lanciani to be the quadrifrons; see R. Lanciani, Forma
Iane, quot ora geris. /At tu sancte pater, tanto pro munere Urbis Romae (Rome 1893-1901) pls. 22, 29; id., Storia
gratus, /ferrea perpetua claustra tuere sera. degli scavi di Roma (new illustrated ed. Rome 1989-2000)
1:120-121, figs. 53-57. But it probably had nothing to
116 Serv. ad Aen. 7.607: sunt geminae belliportae sacrarium do with either shrine of Janus; its reconstruction with
hoc, id est belliportas Numa Pompiliusfecerat circa imum four doors was a fantasy of antiquarians working long
Argiletum iuxta theatrum Marcelli. quod fuit in duobus after the structure had been dismantled by Bramante in
brevissimis templis: duobus autem propter Ianum the 1490s. Antonio Labacco locates it "dove e al presente
bifrontem. postea captis Faleriis, civitate Tusciae, la Chiesa de Sant'Adriano [i.e., the Curia], quivi da man'
inventum est simulacrum Iani cum frontibus quattuor. sinistra verso l'tempio d'Antonino e Faustina." A draw-
unde quod Numa instituerat translatum est ad forum ing shows its western corner visible through the arch of
transitorium et quattuor portarum unum templum est Septimius Severus from a vantage point corresponding

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L. Richardson, Jr. situates the shrine at the corner of the Curia wh

the Sacra Via, at least in the late Republic and early Empire."18 Accepti
that the archaic shrine was a bridge on the Sacra Via over the ancient s
the Cloaca Maxima (D on fig. 9), he reasons that in 179 B.C., when the Cloaca Maxima was
diverted around the northwest end of the Basilica Paulli under the paving of the Argiletum, the
shrine of Janus was moved along with it, to the west corner where the Argiletum meets the
Sacra Via (D' on fig. 9). At that date, the Curia was away to the northwest; the shrine's associa-
tion with the Senate house therefore began when Julius Caesar moved the Curia to the position
it occupies today. The present-day Curia, rebuilt by Domitian and again by Diocletian, is built
directly up against the Argiletum. But representations on coins of the Julian building show a
colonnaded podium that extends across the facade and wraps around it on both flanks of the
building. The shrine and other statues attested in the vicinity may have stood on the eastern
lateral podium, which could have served as a walkway between the Forum Romanum and the
Forum Iulium. Thus Richardson would align the shrine with the Argiletum (SW-NE), not the
Forum (NW-SE). Then Domitian rebuilt the Curia up against the Argiletum,119 requiring the
shrine to be moved again. Like H. Bauer, Richardson is persuaded by Martial that the two-
faced statue was removed to the Forum Transitorium, while the shrine-with a new bifrontal
statue (this to make sense of Dio and Procopius)-was removed to an area between the Curia
and the Niger Lapis (D" on fig. 9),120 His explanation is unnecessarily complicated, but at least
the second and third sitings hang near both the Curia and the infimum Argiletum.
F. Coarelli places the Janus Geminus permanently on a site now at the left front corner
of the Basilica Paulli (E on fig. 9) 121 Here a small rectangular foundation (about 5 x 6.5 m)
was reported, built directly against the face of the basilica's portico, which supports the ruins
of a brick building from the fourth or fifth century A.D. The foundation actually interferes
with the line of steps running around the basilica and may have been there previously. On
one side Coarelli found a travertine base with a groove that may have supported a revetment
in bronze. He conjectures that this is the shrine's final manifestation, dating perhaps after
the sack of A.D. 410. If so, it is the one described by Procopius. But this building has a crude
entrance on the long southwest side. If this is original (its battered state leaves one uncer-
tain), it is a powerful argument against Coarelli's identification. This opening was definitely
present when Boni first excavated the area at the turn of the twentieth century.122
Various written sources, both literary and epigraphic, attest to a banking district called
the Ianus medius in the vicinity of the Basilica Paulli, while Horace complains that Janus
summus ab imo teaches the precepts of greed.123 The multiplicity of locales hinted by Horace
more or less to the platform of the Temple of Concordia.tion amounted to little more than a rebuilding of the
But there is absolutely no trace of the foundations of Curia according to the Domitianic plan.
this structure in front of the Curia; see P. Carafa, II
Comizio di Roma dalle origini all'etd di Augusto (Rome 120 Richardson 1978, 369.
1998), figs. 34, 46. It is now generally thought to be part
of the Basilica Paulli; see Coarelli 1983, 2:291-295; Bauer 121 Coarelli 1983, 1:89-97.
1977; H. Bauer, "Basilica Aemilia," in Kaiser Augustus
und die verlorene Republik (Berlin 1988) 200-212; and 122 See Boni's photograph in C. F. Giuliani and P.
Bauer's entry, "Basilica Paulli," in Steinby. Verducchi, II Foro romano: L'area centrale (Florence
1980) fig. 17.
118Richardson 1978. Anderson (as n. 114) follows this
model. 123 See Cic. Off 2.87, Phil. 6.5.15; Hor. Sat. 2.3.18-19;
Epist. 1.1.53-55; CIL 6:5845, 10027, 12816.
119 Richardson 1978 surmises that Diocletian's contribu-

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
30 RABUN TAYLOR
Fig. 10. A fragment of the Severan marble plan N .n2.' I

joining an area known as the Janus to the Basilica .
Paulli; from Cozza 1989 (drawing courtesy of the
Journal of Roman Archaeology). l
e4. 212 c
1 I 1 1 a
IIll 1 II \
I I I
Ji I
is confirmed by inscriptions preserving the phrases ab Iano medio and ab Iano primo, which
seem to designate the professions of the dedicatees as financiers (CIL 6:5845, 10027, 12816).
Two scholiasts of Horace, Pseudo-Acro and Porphyrio, try to make sense of the topography,
but with little success.124 Both have only secondhand knowledge of the topography of the
Forum, and some of their commentary is openly speculative. They agree firmly that the cen-
ter of usurial activity to which the citations refer was in the vicinity of the Basilica Paulli. But
they cannot decide whether there was one Ianus or two, or three; nor can they agree on the
thing to which the place-names refer. Coarelli sees three distinct iani, that is, arched struc-
tures, all attached to the basilica, and cites Livy for evidence of a similar arrangement at
Sinuessa (41.27.12-13).125 Early in this century an extension was discovered on the southern
corner of the basilica similar in proportions to the area later excavated at the other end. These
two extensions are assigned the status of ianus imus and ianus summus, while a central struc-
ture, putatively replaced by a monument to Gaius and Lucius, was the ianus medius. Coarelli
identifies the Janus Geminus as the imus.
L. Cozza has identified a fragment of the Severan marble plan as a part of the Basilica
Paulli's portico.126 Directly in front of the portico on this fragment is the inscription [I]ANVS
(fig. 10). This suggests that the financial district around the basilica was simply named the
Janus, and that the adjectives summus, medius, and imus refer to subdivisions of the dis-
trict-an interpretation relying on the partitive function of these adjectives (as well as of
primus in CIL 6:12816). They are merely three points along the Ianus, and therefore along
the basilica's porticoed facade. Following the convention commonly used in Roman dining
halls, the terms imnus, medius, and summus refer not to elevation but to sequential position:
right, center, and left.
124 See Ps.-Acro and Pomponius Porphyrio on Hor. Sat. Vindobonensis, reads "etiam nostris faciendos," which
2.3.18-19 and Epist. 1.1.52. Giarratano emends to "et ianos tresfaciendos."
125 This passage is corrupt. The single MS, Codex

126L. Cozza, "Sul frammento 212 della Pianta marmorea,"
Journal of Roman Archaeology 2 (1989) 117-119.

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Cozza has made real progress, and he is probably right to think of the Janus as a single
district. We note, for example, that Horace's Ianus summus ab imo is a single entity, indeed
the god himself. Would he have been characterized as such if three ordinary passageways
without religious significance had constituted the landmarks of the financial district? Per-
haps; but in light of the evidence from the marble plan, another scholium of Porphyrio proves
to be relevant: "A street is . . . named Janus, so-called after Janus Geminus, who has an arch
in it consecrated to himself" (Ianus . . . vicus est ab Iano Gemino sic appellatus, qui in eo
arcum habet sibi consecratum; ad Hor. Epist. 1.20.1). If this comment is to be trusted, and if
the "arch" is really the shrine, then it may refer to the segment of the Sacra Via running from
the Curia past the Basilica Paulli-the precise area labeled IANVS on the marble plan. Thus
there is no reason to assign discrete topographical features (least of all actual iani) to any of
these three locations. Ad Ianum medium, as Cicero puts it, means not "at the middle ianus
[i.e., gate]," but rather "at mid-Janus," or "halfway up Janus Street." The ab Iano primo of
CIL 6:12816 likewise means not "from the first ianus," but "from the head of Janus Street."
It is likely, then, that the welter of iani on the Forum Romanum is rooted in the toponymy of
the old Janus Geminus, which stood at the juncture of the Sacra Via and the Argiletum. Once
this is granted, the shrine's physical immediacy to the Basilica Paulli fades away.
That the Ianus Geminus was rebuilt, even reconfigured, from time to time is a virtual
certainty. The pavement level in the vicinity was periodically raised, and a number of devas-
tating fires swept through the region over the centuries.127 But the persistent claim that the
shrine was moved to accommodate new building schemes is less certain. Livy says nothing of
a displacement of the shrine after it was established there by Numa in imo Argileto. Whether
or not we accept that it was a ritual bridge, we need not postulate that it migrated westward
along with the digression of the Cloaca Maxima ca. 179 B.C., long after the brook had disap-
peared underground. Even Venus Cloacina was not so diligent as that; her shrine stayed where
it had always been, next to a branch of the conduit no longer in use (a on fig. 9). The cel-
ebrated relocation attributed to Domitian never happened.
If the shrine ever was destroyed or dismantled, it most probably was reconstructed di-
rectly upon its original footprint, or as close to it as possible. We cannot situate the footprint
precisely, but we can at least estimate its approximate size. The frontal view of the shrine on
Neronian coins presents a facade roughly half again as tall as its width (fig. 4), and Procopius
tells us that the walls were just high enough to enwrap the five-cubit statue. The facade di-
mensions, then, may have been roughly six by nine Roman feet. The three-quarters views of
the shrine indicate that the sides were at least as long as the width of the facade, perhaps
slightly longer (fig. 3). So the footprint is likely to have been 2 x 3 m or less, no larger in area
than the base of the monopteros of Venus Cloacina and considerably smaller than the Niger
Lapis or the Republican altar underneath it (b on fig. 9; G on fig. 11). Such a structure,
lightened by its lack of a roof, could easily have been made entirely of bronze, as Procopius
claims, rather than the bronze-revetted masonry preferred by Guarducci, Coarelli, and oth-
ers. Its bond with the pavement may have been achieved with little more than metal cramps.
Evidence of similar attachments of small monuments to the Augustan or late antique pave-
ment is scattered all over the central area of the Forum.
I have suggested that the shrine was oriented on an east-west axis, and so I prefer to
127 Coarelli 1983, 1:93. The fire of 283 was particularly

may well have been the work of Diocletian, who thor-
destructive in this area, destroying the Curia and prob- oughly restored the destroyed areas.
ably the Rostra as well. The shrine seen by Procopius

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32 RABUN TAYLOR
El ~~~~~~~~~~~~~F
> 2~~~H
StiW g~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-t 2~~~~~

N N~ NN
Fig. 11. Plan of the pre-Sullan remnains of the altar precinctusnder the Niger Lapis; from Gjerstad 1941.
align it neither with the Argiletum, as Richardson does, nor with the Basilica Paulli following
Coarelli. The structure must have been freestanding, like many of the small shrines, altars,
and sacred spaces in the area. Coarelli has suggested that the Republican Comitium and Cu-
ria probably constituted a templum oriented roughly along the cardinal points and defined to
the south by a line of "(votive wells,"~ or post holes for an enclosure, as he believes (j-r on fig.
9; M-S on fig. 1 1). "' These run east-west, or actually about two or three degrees off true in a
counterclockwise direction, not an unusual margin of error for the many structures in Rome
that follow a solar orientation. The shrine would probably have been aligned with these. Its
proximity, if not attachment, to the Comitium is ensured by a passage from Vlarro which enu-
merates the various parts of the Republican enclosure: the Comitium proper; the Curia; the
Rostra; a little to its right, the Graecostasis; above this, the Senaculum. Next come the Lautolae
or Lautulae: these "get their name from 'washing,' because there, at the Ianus Geminus, were
hot waters. Fed by these was a marsh in the lesser Velabrum. ))129
Once again we have the lanus Geminus associated with hot springs, but this time with-
out any mythological trappings. The connection is interesting for a number of reasons. First,
it divests the shrine of the Cloaca Maxima, wbich was already in more appro,priate hands, those
of Venus Cloacina and possibly Minerva.130 Second, it at least intimates that Janus' connection
"28Coarelli 1983, 1:138-142. in Minore Velabro.
129 Varro, Ling. 5.156: Lautolae ab lavando, quod ibi ad '30Coarelli 1983, 1:83-89.
Ianum Geminum aquae caldae fuerunt. ab his palus fuit

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to flowing water in the Sabine myth is merely one of physical proximity, and not anything
deeply embedded in the god's "identity." Third, it adds credibility to the topographical tra-
dition of a spring-perhaps even a hot spring-in this area.131
The row of rectilinear or polygonal "votive wells" (j-r on fig. 9) actually has two
companion rows spaced at equal intervals to its north (c-f, g-i on fig. 9; M-S on fig. 11), all
running parallel to the south side of Coarelli's archaic Comitium (q on fig. 9). These, which
are lined with Anio tufa, seem to be associated with E. Gjerstad's phase six of the Rostra,
now dated to the Sullan period, though Coarelli, without explanation, attributes wells Q-S
to the fourth phase, which he dates to the second half of the fourth century B.C.'32 At least
some of them may simply be refurbishments of much older shafts already in situ.133 It seems
unlikely that all of these were footing sockets for successive boundaries of the pre-Imperial
Comitium.134 The central row is partially enfiladed by a channel of the sixth and seventh
phases which ran around at least part of the perimeter of the circular, late Republican
Comitium (right of g-i on fig. 7),135 The channel headed for a circular well in front of the
altar (between h and i on fig. 9; T on fig. 11), which was more like a traditional puteal. It
visibly contained water when Gjerstad investigated the area.
Are these parallel rows of shafts, whose number and extent remain unknown, and whose
form and disposition were imitated in fora of other Romanized towns, remnants of the Lautulae?
Access to the springs-and to the nymphs associated with them-for votive libations could
have been preserved by the introduction of shallow shafts in lines that followed the orientation
of the ancient Comitium. Such access would only have been necessary if the original wellsprings
had been depleted or covered over. In 1955, three meters below the pavement supporting the
altar under the Niger Lapis, extending south for an unknown distance, was found the lip of a
basin. When partially excavated the basin was found to descend to a depth of about three and
a half meters (fig. 12). On its north side (which lay under the altar) it is regularized into a
benchlike protrusion. According to the excavator, this feature was composed of "roccia
travertinosa con ghiaie incamerate," and it was buried in a bed of "ghiaie saldate" forming the
lowest stratum in this side of the basin.136 He proposed that the basin was a natural formation,
accommodating a flow of lime-rich water which had deposited the gravel and cemented it in
place; into this deposit was cut a depression to allow human access to the water. Travertine, it
must be noted, is typically formed by hot springs. There can be little doubt, then, that this hydro-
logical evidence is to be associated with the Lautulae, whose copious thermal flow must have
subsided by the time that the entire zone was filled in to prepare for the altar platform. But the
131 See K. Rinne, Aquae Urbis Romae: The Waters of the tigated, belongs to phase seven (1941, 127-128).
City of Rome, rev. Sept. 1999, http://jefferson.village.
virginia.edu/waters, s.v. "Lautole." 135 A later extension of this feature passes above well Q,
which belongs to phase six, and so Gjerstad attributes it
132 Gjerstad 1941, 97-158; Coarelli 1983, 1:126-127, 133-
to phase seven (1941, 112).
135.
'36P. Romanelli, Ricerche intorno ai monumenti del "Niger
133 Wells 0 and P were cut through the two lowest steps Lapis" al Foro romano (1955) (Rome 1984) 16-17, 27-
of the curved Rostra of the fifth phase, and thus Gjerstad 28, pls. v, xii, xiii. No votive material was found in the
associated them exclusively with the sixth phase; see basin, only bones and potsherds. The filling of the basin
Gjerstad 1941, 127. But even these shafts, in narrower appears to correspond in date to the laying out of the
form, may have existed in earlier phases. altar precinct. Carafa (as n. 117) 70-71 allows that all
the pavement levels prior to the altar phase may have
134 While Gjerstad dates most of these wells to the sixth intentionally skirted this sacred zone.
phase, well S, the most southwesterly of those he inves-

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34 RABUN TAYLOR
44'!Z/04e M-)S
1" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
< + * ~~8.745 -. l wm.
8.74 O im.
02
Fig. 12. Section

from Romanel
memory of th
subsequent pav
Varro remarks that the Lautulae drained off toward the Lesser Velabrum, a zone whose
precise topography is unknown, but which can sensibly be associated with the western side
of the marshy watershed situated between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills, near the Vicus
Jugarius and the foot of the Capitoline (fig. 9). (The Velabrum proper is traditionally more
closely associated with the eastern side of the fens, below the Palatine, where the Cloaca
Maxima runs.) The western marshes were still a problem in the Forum in the first half of the
second century B.C., when an arcaded viaduct in opus incertum was built across them to sup-
port the Vicus Iugarius (s on fig. 9). Boni's section of the eastern side of the Niger Lapis,
which he took down virtually to the bedrock, shows a vaulted structure at the very bottom of
the habitation layers. This has been interpreted as an archaic roadbed but is more likely part
of a drainage system or even an ancient canalization of one branch of the Lautulae. 137
Coarelli has identified the southerly zone of the Comitium surrounding the archaic altar
and Niger Lapis as the Volcanal, whose name, denoting perhaps an early military cult of
Vulcan, likewise suggests some kind of thermal activity. 138 And because the Niger Lapis is
almost certainly the spot commemorating the apotheosis of Romulus, Coarelli associates this
37 F. Ammannato, "Appunti di Giacomo Boni sullo scavo of Vulcan or Hephaestus with hot springs is well attested;
del Lapis Niger," Bullettino della Commissione arche- see K. Dunbabin, "Baiarum grata voluptas: Pleasures and
ologica comunale di Roma 89 (1984) 245-248. Dangers of the Baths," Papers of the British School at
Rome 57 (1989) 6-46, at 13, 15, 30-31.
138 Coarelli 1983, 1:161-188, 196-199. The association

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zone with the cult of Quirinus. And so we are offered a hint about th
of our shrine and its denizen, Janus Quirinus. Two possibilities emerg
ity to what had once been a very important landmark in the Comitium, J
the epithet Quirinus not as a companion substantive, but as an adjective, equivalent to
Quirinalis: in other words, as a toponymic attribute, meaning "Quirinus' Janus" or "Janus of
the Quirinus monument.'139 But more likely both gods acquired the name Quirinus by asso-
ciation with the Comitium and its institutions, the assemblies of the quirites. Coarelli's pref-
erence for the popular derivation of the name and its various formations from co-vir-, desig-
nating an assembly of men, is seconded here.'40 Janus Quirinus was in his element by the
Comitium because the validity of any public assembly (except perhaps the concilium plebis)
and of Senate meetings hinged upon auspication.
One other observation. Vergil remarks that the consul opens the gates of Janus dressed
"in the Quirinal robe, hitched up in Gabine fashion" (Quirinali trabea cinctuque Gabino;
Aen. 7.612). Romulus-Quirinus is associated with this garb, which presumably is named after
him (Ov. Fast. 2.503-508; Juv. 8.259-260). Servius, citing a lost work by Suetonius, observes
that there were three kinds of trabeae, one sacred, one regal, and one augural (ad Aen. 7.612).
He suggests that the Quirinal type is regal, but that would hardly be appropriate for a con-
sul. Romulus was of course not only the first king of Rome but also its first augur; and when
Vergil describes a statue of Picus as augur, it not only is "cinctured in the short trabea" but
carries the "Quirinal lituus" (ipse Quirinali lituo parvaque sedebat succinctus trabea; Aen. 7.187-
188). It would appear, then, that Augustus had revived a faded augural tradition when re-
quiring the consul to wear the traditional Quirinal garb as he opened the gates of war.14'
Pseudo-Acro's claim that the Janus Geminus lay both prope basilicam Paulli and in rostris
may be on the mark (ad Hor. Sat. 2.3.18). The Ianus Geminus must have stood just south of
the old Rostra on its eastern side, slightly south of the axis of a platform that lay on the
opposite side of the Niger Lapis altar. This platform (L on fig. 11) would have been an ap-
propriate location for another bronze shrine, that of Concordia dedicated in 304 B.C. by Cn.
Flavius.'42 The shrine of Janus probably had its home just outside the southeastern corner of
the archaic Comitium, oriented to it and to the votive wells of the Lautulae (F on fig. 9).
Because of the excavations of Boni and Gjerstad, the original pavements in this area are dis-
turbed and no certain footprint can be seen. This would always have been slight, for the
Janus Geminus was tiny. But this little shrine, dwarfed by the monuments that crowded in
upon it over the centuries and eventually suffering the fate of ancient bronzes everywhere,
has left a lasting imprint in the collective memory of the Western tradition.
139 Note Hor. Odes 4.15.9: Ianum Quirini clausit. tion at Gabii (Plut. Rom. 6.1; Dion. Hal, Ant. Rom. 1.84.5).
140 Coarelli 1981 (as n. 81). 142 According to Livy, it was set up in area Vulcani
(9.46.6), while Pliny places it "in the Graecostasis, which
141 The Gabine rite was often associated with boundary at that time was above the Comitium" (in Graecostasi,
rituals, as in the plowing of the pomerium (Serv. ad Aen. quae tunc supra comitium erat; HN 33.19). According to
5.755); see A. Mau, "Cinctus Gabinus," in RE 3.2:2558- Coarelli's reconstruction, the Graecostasis and the
2559. Romulus is said to have gotten his "Greek" educa- Volcanal overlapped in this area.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
36 RABUN TAYLOR
APPENDIX
The Statues of Janus in Rome
Two descriptions of statues of Janus survive in Roman literature. Ovid's protagonist in book
1 of the Fasti is Janus Geminus of the Forum, as the poet is at pains to emphasize when
implicating the god's shrine in the Sabine war. He carries a staff in his right hand and a key in
the left (ille tenens baculum dextra clavemque sinistra; 1.99). Pliny the Elder, explicitly re-
marking on the same god (HN 34.33: Ianus Geminus a Numa rege dicatus, qui pacis bellique
argumento colitur), gives a puzzlingly variant description: the god stands "with fingers ar-
ranged so that, by means of the symbol for 365 days (to signify the year), they might indicate
that he is the god of time and eternity" (digitis ita figuratis ut CCCLXV dierum nota per
significationem anni, temporis et aevi esse deum indicent). The numerals, it has often been noted,
cannot precede the Julian calendar reform, and yet the statue is attributed to Numa; and the
god's association with the calendar year, and specifically its beginning, is probably a concoction
of the late Republic. An odd configuration of the fingers holding the staff and key, Simon sug-
gests, led to the misperception-which appears in more refined form in Macrobius (1.9.10)-
that the right hand spelled out CCC, while the left hand somehow formed LXV.'43
Can these two descriptions refer to the same statue? Coinage does not help us to sort out
this conflicting testimony. The god's stance, clothing, and attributes on the coins and medal-
lions of the Empire are a numismatic topos, shared by many other male deities (fig. 2).'44 His
scepter is a standard adjunct of many gods and bears no relation to the baculus in Ovid,
which in book 6 turns out to be a rude buckthorn staff (spina alba; 6.129-130, 165-166). Nor
is a key clearly visible in the god's left hand on any Roman Imperial coin.
Some scholars believe that Ovid and Pliny saw one and the same statue and that it was,
as Pliny implies, as old as the craft of Italian bronze statuary itself, dating back to the Ar-
chaic period. Even if we ignore the manifest absurdity of trying to merge Pliny's (gesturing)
and Ovid's (attribute-laden) statues into one, the hypothesis is riddled with problems. Over
the course of many centuries, the image must be made to survive the Gallic sack, many dev-
astating fires, including the conflagrations in A.D. 64 and 80, and Republican disasters such
as the great flood and fire of 240 B.C. which ravaged the Forum, perhaps inviting the intro-
duction of the quadrifrontal image from Falerii into the Argiletum the following year.'45 The
two authors must be describing two different generations of the famous bifrontal statue. Ovid's
is manifestly the older, for it makes no newfangled allusions to the Julian calendar. The key as
an attribute of liminal gods may date back to Etruscan times; as Simon has demonstrated, a
door-bolt is featured in the iconography of the Etruscan goddess Culsu, probably the con-
sort of Culsans and a passage deity in her own right.'46 Region 4, which included most of the
Forum, was partially engulfed in the great fire of A.D. 64, and this statue, whatever its age,
143 Simon 1987; Simon 1989, 1278; see also Holland, 278- 144 E.g., coins of Hadrian (Coins of the Roman Empire
279. R. Staccioli, "Il simulacro di Giano nel sacello [as n. 106] 3:254, no. 100; 3.437, no. 1335) and
dell'Argileto," Strenna deiRomanisti56 (1995) 533-540, Antoninus Pius (4:210, no. 1317; 4:220, no. 1369).
proposes that the Romans had a system of indigitatio to Pertinax, Geta, and Gallienus also featured the god on
represent various quantities with hand symbols. He even their coins.
suggests, as does Maggiani, that the statuette of Culsans
from Cortona is making a numerical gesture with the 145 Oros. 4.11; see Holland, 103.
hand on his hip. This is fanciful, especially in light of
the fact that the companion statuette of Selvans, a single- 146 Simon 1989, 1273-1274.
faced god, has a similar arrangement of fingers.

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
may have been destroyed or damaged at that time. Or perhaps Augustus, who closed the
shrine three times during his rule, himself replaced the statue during Ovid's lifetime. There is
little doubt that this emperor was responsible for a restoration of the shrine when the Forum
was repaved.147 Elsewhere Pliny records that Augustus brought a statue of "Janus" over from
Egypt to be dedicated in suo templo and subsequently gilded (HN 36.28). This was thought
to have been made either by Skopas or Praxiteles-hardly artists who would have concerned
themselves with a central Italian deity. Clearly Janus' identity was being projected upon a
non-Roman god who himself may have been a hybrid, for Ovid claims that the Greeks had
no god equivalent to Janus (Fast. 1.90: nam tibi par nullum Graecia numen habet).148 The
usual resolution of this problem of attribution is to suggest that the statue was a thoroughly
Greek bifrontal herm imported by the Ptolemies to Egypt and then adopted as Janus by
Augustus. But since there is no clear evidence that bifrontal herms had been invented by the
floruit of either Skopas or Praxiteles, I would suggest that the statue was probably a local
cult image (Egyptian biform gods certainly are attested) rendered in late Classical style by a
post-Classical sculptor in the Ptolemies' employ. There may have been yet another change
made to the statue in A.D. 19 when according to Dio the Romans were startled by the falling
of the statue of Janus (57.18.4). We do not know if it was damaged or destroyed by this
event, or whether it was replaced; but one useful thing emerges from the account. Dio's use
of the definite article (TO TOV 'Iavoi dyaXiia) suggests that this image, presumably the Ianus
Geminus, was the only prominent statue of the god in the city at the time.
Whatever the identity of the Janus Geminus statue originally, it is probably wrong to
assume that it remained simply a dicephalic herm, as Holland supposes.'49 Even the god de-
scribed in Ovid's Fasti is more fully formed than that, as a careful review of the text reveals.
It has already been shown that he has right and left arms holding key and staff and a frontal
and dorsal face. He also claims to have evolved from a shapeless primal mass into a figure
with "face and members befitting a god" (Fasti. 1.112: in faciem redii dignaque membra deo).
This would suggest a fully formed body, and a beautiful one at that. In book 6 of the Fasti
Janus is every inch the man, pursuing and raping the nymph Cranae as she tries unsuccess-
fully to elude his two-way gaze. Both of his faces are identical (1.114: ante quod est in me
postque, videtur idem), and, since he pauses to stroke his beard, which is long enough to
reach down to his chest (1.259: mulcens propexam ad pectora barbam), we may infer that both
faces were bearded in precisely the same manner. On the common Republican asses, Janus'
faces appear in mirror image, with short but full beards.
Janus' staff is an especially interesting attribute, evidently unique for a Roman god. It is
not a scepter. Macrobius takes it to be a walking-stick, symbol of Janus' role as rector viarum,
protector of journeys (Sat. 1.9.7). But Ovid's whitethorn wand has apotropaic power, which
is put to use when the nymph Cranae, given the staff by Janus as his consolation for raping
her, sets it under the window of a house to prevent the entry of harpies (Fast. 6.105-168).
Could it have evolved from the augur's wand? The lituus in Numa's time, as Livy describes it,
'47Bauer 1977, 315-316. issued coinage in the fifth or fourth century B.C. show-
ing Kronos as a running bifrontal figure with four wings
148 According to Lydus, even in his day Janus was wor-and carrying an astral disk. In Africa Proconsularis, he
shiped as Kronos in Philadelphia in his home province contends, Janus too was adapted to a related Phoenician
of Lydia (Mens. 4.2). According to Pettazzoni, 89-93, god, perhaps Ba'al-Hamman/Saturn.
Kronos may have had an independent tradition as a su-
perficially Greek manifestation of the Phoenician god 149 Holland, 279-280.
El, who had panoramic vision. Hence Mallos in Cilicia

103.36.24.42 on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:57:29 +00:00
38 RABUN TAYLOR
Fig. 13. Etruscan sarcophagus from Tuscania;

after Maggiani 1988.
was a hooked staff without a knob" (Liv. 1.18.7: baculus sine nodo aduncus). The classic type
in Republican and Imperial art ends in a tight spiral, but numerous examples in the Archaic
period, both Etruscan and Latin, show a looser curve, almost like a crook or crozier.150
The rudely hewn shepherds' crook, or pedum, is a convention of rustic mythological scenes.
It is essentially identical to the lagobolon, or rabbit-club. The two forms, pedum and lituus,
are rarely considered together, but the possibility of their kinship is at least worth entertain-
ing. It is appropriate, perhaps, that a ritual function concerned with directionality should be
associated with the shepherd's tool, for shepherds, today as in antiquity, are instinctive cog-
nitive mapmakers, constantly aware of landmarks and celestial orientations. Was the lost ob-
ject once held in the outstretched right hand of the statuette of Culsans also some manifesta-
tion of the lituus or pedum? Just such a staff appears in the hand of a startlingly Janus-like
figure on a sarcophagus from Tuscania (fig. 13). The action depicted on this sarcophagus is
obscure, but A. Maggiani may be right to suggest that the figure in question is Argos in his
two-faced mode, being stoned by Hermes.151 In Maggiani's view, two Argos-types imported
from Greece-one bearded, the other unbearded-inspired the two basic bifrontal repre-
sentations in Etrusco-Roman art, depicting the youthful "Culsans" and the mature "Janus." I
propose instead that in this case the influence worked in the other direction. That is, the
bearded Janus with his rustic staff known from the famous Roman prototype was imposed
upon the old Greek Argos-type. The crook is a dubious prop for Argos, who was a cowherd,
not a shepherd or hunter.
The provincial sculptor who carved our sarcophagus was not only following the Greek
iconographic tradition. He was also borrowing ideas from a well-established regional tradition,
partly native and partly reflected back from Rome. Tuscania is only a few miles northeast of
Tarquinia, where unbearded bifrontal terra-cotta busts (of Culsans?) were unearthed, and an
'IO The augural implement is clearly depicted in the hands was found in the heroon of Aeneas at Lavinium; see P.
of apparently divine or semidivine figures on architec- Sommella, "Heroon di Enea a Lavinium," Rendiconti
tural terra-cottas from Murlo and Velletri, and of a hu- della Pontificia accademia diarcheologia, ser. 3, 44 (197 1-
man figure in a military procession on similar plaques 1972) 59, fig. 14, 61 n. 16.
from Palestrina; see T. N. Gantz, "Divine Triads on an
Archaic Etruscan Frieze Plaque, " Studi etruschi 3 9 (197 1)151 Maggiani, 2-9. This unique scene is full of interpre-
3-24. The actual head of a lituus, so it would appear, tive problems.

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equally short distance due west of Vulci, where bearded bifrontal v

This little triangle of Etruscan towns encompasses the richest conc
sional bifrontal finds in Italy. Rome, with its most famous dou
day's journey straight down the Via Flaminia. The oldest of the Vulci votives probably date
to the early second century B.C., after the first issues of the famous Janus as at Rome. The
bearded bifrontal image was now widespread, and the few secondary attributes of Janus-
most notable his rough-hewn crook-were in circulation among the arbiters of iconography.153
152 Stefani (as n. 8); A. Carandini, La romanizzazione 153 Maggiani, 7.

dell'Etruria. II territorio di Vulci (Milan 1985) 39, fig. 17.

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40 RABUN TAYLOR
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Watching the Skies: Janus, Auspication, and the Shrine in the Roman Forum

Author(s): Rabun Taylor

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4238764

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Rabun Taylor, Harvard University

MAAR 45, 2000

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Fig. 2. As of Hadrian. Janus quadrifrons

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* Figs. 3-5 (left to right). Three

ID American Numismatic Society).

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THE IANUS GEMINUS AS A GATEWAY

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IANUS GEMINUS AS CUSTOS PACIS

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a similar image, as if peace

JANUS AND THE BRIDGE

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THE IANUS GEMINUS AS RITUAL PASSAGEWAY

Another general hypothesis proposes that Janus presided over military

36F. Castagnoli, "Gli iani del Foro romano. Ianus = arco

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2. Reconciling Bifrontality and Martial Connections

morials of the Sabine war-that led the rituals of the Sacra

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3. Janus and the Auspicia Publica

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remain undedicated, serving

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involved in the sacrifice of a

4. The Status of the Shrine

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syncretic process unknown to us, the precinct came to be occupied b

65 A hint of the power struggle over the rights

66Holland, 24-25; Torelli 1982, 35-37. Indeed, Torelli

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5. Janus and the Auspicia Privata

Implicit in this exchange is the understanding that Janus, as custodian of beginnings,

71 Liv. 2.49. See Holland, 203-210; Ziolkowski, 61.

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_ _ - Fig. 6. A terra-cotta New Year's lamp fr

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communication, directing signs to the gods by way of prayer and si

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6. The Augural Tem

8O0vKOLs orpavov XEyeuOai Kal LE'opov Trcai rsTrpadeus

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Fig. 7. The templum/auguraculum of Bantia; adap

J Q CAAP FLVSO CAEN Q

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A number of scholars have investigated the procedures of Roman celestial auspication

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This latter problem leads to a more pressing concern, the presumpt

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have no meaning to him.93 In

93 Marcus Marcellus claimed that when he had a par- valere.

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i 1?{IIlII> '/1 44\14

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Archaic Comitium Republican Comitium / |

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