Janus. New World. Old Order

Janus was identified with the "World", primeval chaos. According to the religious ideas of the ancient Romans, it was from chaos that the ordered cosmos arose, and Janus turned from a shapeless ball into a god and became the guardian of order, the world, rotating its axis. At its core, this was an echo of the myth that in the beginning fire, water, earth and air were one substance. Subsequently, they separated, and what remained became Janus. Janus was depicted as a man with two faces, one of which is directed to the future, and the other to the past. This emphasized his knowledge of past and future events. During the reign of the semi-legendary king Numa Pompilius (715-673/672 BC), a te...View all