I always assumed that Janus was always a relatively recent deity, and that Ovid's treatment of him, was replete with hyperbole. While reading today (on my brief break at that... place) I discovered while reading Dionysius of Halicarnassus (I'm on to Loeb vol.2 now) that Janus is actually quite an ancient deity. Ovid does lay it on thick in his treatment of Janus (Fasti 1.103) claiming that Janus was more ancient than Chaos (me Chaos antiqui (nam sum res prisca) vocabant)
'the ancients call me Chaos (for I am something more ancient)' (my translation, done 12th of December, 2020).
This is complete nonsense, except perhaps that the two faces of Janus may stir up chaos, Chaos is very ancient indeed, from the earliest known records, namely Hesiod (Theogony 116) 'First of all came Chaos' (trans. Richmond Lattimore, 1991 [1959], p.130). So, I simply assumed that Janus was a relatively recent deity. Professor John North of Cambridge University in his magnificient little work Roman Religion does not even mention Janus in his otherwise extensive list of temples of Roman deities, and their founding dates, as attested by primary sources, literary and archaeological (North, 2000, p.41). After all, Janus is not as illustrious in Latin literature as Jupiter, Juno, Minerva (all 509 B.C.E.), Mercury (495 B.C.E.), Ceres (493 B.C.E.), Diana (493 B.C.E.), Apollo (431 B.C.E.) etc. Yet today, while researching δαίμονες ('spirits'), expanding on my master's degree dissertation, in order to complile a critical edition and translation of Apuleius' De deo Socratis I happened to stumble across a curious passage. In Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities 3.11.7) Janus is described as a either a certain god or δαίμων ('spirit'), to which a temple was built circa 670 B.C.E., according to the legend. The fact that Janus is given an additional appelation ('Curiatius') implies that Janus, as a local deity, was more ancient still. So it would seem that Janus is actually quite an ancient deity. Even if you were to trim off a few hundred years, for the sake of hyperbole and mythological fabrication (for the earliest Latin inscription is dated to no earlier than the fifth century (Sandys, 1925, p.731 [A Companion to Latin Studies - Cambridge University Press]) and the earliest Latin literature from around the middle of the third century B.C.E.), even so, Janus is still every bit as ancient as any other Roman deity (except Jupiter, Juno or Minerva). Janus is probably among the most ancient native Roman deities (not being a Greek import).
This is my translation of Ovid's discussion of Janus (Ovid, Fasti 1.89-127)
Yet which god might I be called by you? Janus of the twin-form?
For Greece has no equivalent deity to you.
Let one from the heavenly gods be made. Do you see the
reason why? What’s behind and in front at the same time.
Writing tablets in hand, as I’d put these visions in the mind,
the home is brighter than it had been before. Then sacred
Janus, marvelled at, suddenly showed an image in my two eyes
of two heads and two mouths. It was so terrifying
to the senses, and my hair stood on end in fear and my heart
was suddenly frozen with cold. Janus, holding a wand
in his right hand and a key in his left, produced these sounds
at us from his more ancient mouth. “Learn from the fear
put in place, laborious prophet of the days. What you ask for,
you must take in the mind: my voices, and the ancients
call me Chaos (for I am something more ancient). Behold!
I could sing of deeds done a long time ago. This lucid
air and the three bodies that remained: fire, water and earth,
were one shapeless mass. Once, when this had departed,
arguing about the things themselves, the mass went away,
and was released into new homes. The flame sought to get
higher up, taking its place in the lower air. The earth and
straits seated themselves in amidst the lowest part.
Then I, who had been a globe returned the formless mass, without an image,
into shape and worthy members with God. Already
where once was a confused figure and a small mark, what was in
me, before and afterwards, seemed to be the same.
Accept the special form, which could be from another reason,
that you might know this and my duty at the same time.
And where you see anything: the sky, sea, clouds, land,
everything of ours is open and shut by my hand.
The guardian of a vast world is one with me,
and the law, its hinge to be turned, everything is mine.
When one pleased, Peace is to be sent, having covered peace-time,
that freedom walks perpetual pathways. Yet the whole world
will have been mingled with deadly blood, established wars should not
be grasped at a rigid late time. I watch over the doors
of heaven and the gentle Seasons. Jupiter himself goes,
to do my duty and returns. Whence I am called Janus.”
Max.
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