Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

Ianus an older Iupiter 335

(d) Ianus an older Iupiter.

But the relations subsisting between Ianus and Iupiter call for
clearer statement and closer definition.

Ianus was commonly recognised as the oldest god of Italy.
Juvenal addresses Ianus Pater as 'most ancient of the gods1.'
Herodian speaks of him as the ' most ancient indigenous god of
Italy2.' Prokopios says : ' This Ianus was the first of the ancient
gods, whom the Romans in their language termed Penates3.' With
regard to his essential character there was less agreement. According
to Varro, some authorities identified him with the sky, others with
the universe4. Varro himself appears to have shared the latter
opinion5. But M. Valerius Messalla, consul in 53 B.C. and an augur
of fifty-five years' standing, began a treatise on Ianus with the fol-
lowing words6:

He who fashions all things and rules them too has linked together, on the
one hand water and earth, heavy elements slipping downwards into the abyss, on
the other hand fire and air, light elements escaping upwards into space, by
means of the sky put round about them : thus the great potency of the sky has
bound together two unlike forces.

This extract, for the preservation of which we are indebted to the
erudition of Macrobius, enables us to see how a philosophic mind
might pass from a belief in Ianus as the sky to a belief in Ianus as
the universe7. Others equated him with the air8, or with chaos9 the

1 Iuv. 6. 393 f. die mihi nunc, quaeso, die, antiquissime divum, | respondes his, lane
Pater?

2 Herodian. i. 16. I aeftovai 5e ttjv eoprrjv 'Pw/xaioi es debv apxa-ibrarov r?)s 'IraXias
ewixupiov dvacpepovres' k.t.X.

3 Prokop. de bell. Goth. I. 25 6 5e"lavos ovtos Trpuiros fiev r/v tu>v dpxciuv 6eu>v, ovs 5t?
'Ywp.a'ioL yXuiaarj ry acpertpa Ile'cares (irevares cod. K. irev-qraz cod. L. M. Kraseninnikov
cj. Uevdras) eKaXovv. k.t.X.

4 Varro ap. Aug. de civ. Dei 7. 28 ut in superioribus initium fecimus a caelo, cum
diximus de Iano, quem alii caelum, alii dixerunt esse mundum.

5 Aug. de civ. Dei^. 7 f. Cp. ib. 7. 16 et Ianus est mundus et Iuppiter.

B M. Messalla ap. Macrob. Sat. 1. 9. 14. On Messalla see further M. Schanz Geschichte
dcr rbmischen Litteratttr2 Mlinchen 1898 i. 397 f.

7 See also Arnob. adv. fiat. 3. 29 cited infra p. 336 n. 10, interp. Serv. in Verg. Aen.
7. 610 alii Ianum mundum accipiunt, etc.

s Gavius Bassus ap. Lyd. de mens. 4. 2 p. 65, 7 ff. Wiinsch 6 5e Yafiios B&aoos iv ri2
irtpl dedv Sai/xova avrbv elvtxi vo/j-ifri Teray/nevov eiri rod aepos, /cat 5i avrov ras twv
avdpbmwv ei'xas avcupepeadm rols KpeirToai' k.t.X. (cp. Gavius Bassus de dis frag. 9
Funaioli ap. Macrob. Sat. 1. 9. 13), interp. Serv. in Verg. Aen. 7. 610 alii Ianum aerem
credunt, etc.

9 Ov. fast. 1. 103 (quoted by Lyd. de mens. 4. 2 p. 66, 11 f. Wiinsch) me Chaos
antiqui—nam sum res prisca—vocabant. Cp. Paul, ex Fest. p. 52, 11 ff. Muller, p. 45,
20 ff. Lindsay Chaos... ex eo et x^aKiLV Graeci, et nos hiare dicimus. unde Ianus detracta
aspiratione nominatur id, quod fuerit omnium primum ; cui primo supplicabant velut
parenti, etc.