Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/163

THE ROMAN GODS 149 194. (2) Among the gods that were worshiped from the earliest times the following are pretty closely related to the spirits of activity discussed above : Janus, the spirit of the door arch (janus), or of the house door as a whole (jdniia) ; Vesta, the goddess of the hearth fire ; Volcanus, the exciter of conflagrations ; the war god Mars ; the gods of sowing and reaping, Saturnus and Consus ; and the series of gods and goddesses whose activity is manifested in the growth of plants. Janus, from being the tutelary spirit of the individual door, developed into the representative of entering, in general, and so became the god of beginning (indeed, both these ideas were expressed by the Romans in the single word initiuvi). Therefore the beginning of the day and of the month, i.e. morning (Janus Mdtutinus) and the Kalendae, were sacred to him. His month, Januarius, which is coincident with the beginning of increase in the length of days, was at a comparatively late period promoted to the position of being the beginning of the year proper. 1 On the 9th of January, the date of the sacrificial festival (Agonium) celebrated in his honor, the bellwether of a flock was sacrificed to him, originally by the king himself, who evidently, on the transfer of the domestic worship of Janus to the State, became the rep- resentative of the father of the family, afterwards by the rex sacrorum. Janus was invoked at the commence- ment of all actions, particularly at the beginning of 1 Diva Angerona, whose worship was celebrated on the 21st of De- cember, and who was represented with mouth bound or covered with a finger (favete linguist), was perhaps an ancient goddess of the fortu- nate commencement of the year. But Anna Peranna (or Perenna), the goddess of continuing years, whose festival was kept on the 15th of March, is to be regarded as the representative of the new year.