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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (; (ラテン語:Ianus), ) is the god of beginnings and transitions,〔Varro apud Augustine ''De Civitate Dei'' VII 9 and 3; Servius ''Aen.'' I 449; Paulus ex Festus s. v. Chaos p. 45 L〕 and thereby of gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius),〔Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 14.〕 but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month.〔H.H. Scullard, ''Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic'' (Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 51.〕 Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The doors of his temple were open in time of war, and closed to mark the peace. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and in his association with Portunus, a similar harbor and gateway god, he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping. Janus had no flamen or specialized priest ''(sacerdos)'' assigned to him, but the King of the Sacred Rites ''(rex sacrorum)'' himself carried out his ceremonies. Janus had a ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year, and was ritually invoked at the beginning of each one, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion. The ancient Greeks had no equivalent to Janus, whom the Romans claimed as distinctively their own. == Etymology == Three etymologies were proposed by ancient erudites, each of them bearing implications about the nature of the god.〔G. Capdeville "Les épithètes cultuelles de Janus" in ''MEFRA'' 85 2 1973 p . 399.〕 The first one is based on the definition of Chaos given by Paul the Deacon: ''hiantem'', ''hiare'', be open, from which word Ianus would derive by loss of the initial aspirate. In this etymology the notion of Chaos would define the primordial nature of the god.〔Paulus above : "Chaos appellabat Hesiodus confusam quondam ab initio unitatem, hiantem patentemque in profundum. Ex eo et χάσκειν Graeci, et nos ''hiare'' dicimus. Unde Ianus detracta aspiratione nominatur id, quod fuerit omnium primum; cui primo supplicabant velut parenti, et a quo rerum omnium factum putabant initium". Hesiod only reads (''Theogonia'' 116): "Ή τοι μεν πρώτιστα Χάος γένετο..."; cfr. also Ovid ''Fasti'' I 103 ff.〕〔An association of the god to the Greek concept of Chaos is considered contrived by G. Capdeville, as the ''initial'' function of Janus would suffice to explain his place at the origin of time. See: G. Capdeville "Les épithètes cultuels de Janus" in ''Mélanges de l'école française de Rome (Antiquité)'' 85 2 1973 p. 399-400; Capdeville mentions also Varro apud Augustine, ''De Civitate Dei'' VII 8, who uses the word ''hiatus'' to explain the assimilation of Janus to the world : "Duas eum facies ante et retro habere dicunt, quod hiatus noster, cum os aperimus, mundus similis videatur; unde et palatum Graeci ουρανόν appellant, et nonnulli, inquit, poetae Latini caelum vocaverunt ''palatum'', a quo hiatu oris et fores esse aditum ad dentes versus introrsus ad fauces". Ianus would be the gap (hiatus) through which the sky, represented as the dome of the palate, is manifest: the first meaning of ''palatum'' was sky. Capdeville finds a reminiscence of the same etymololgy also in Valerius Messala augur's definition, apud Macrobius ''Saturnalia'' I 9, 14, that sounds as somehow related to Paulus's: "He who makes and rules everything, keeping together with the force of the allcovering heaven the heavy nature of earth and water collapsing into the deep with the light nature of fire and wind escaping into the boundless high."〕 Another etymology proposed by Nigidius Figulus is related by Macrobius:〔Macrobius above I 9,8.〕 ''Ianus'' would be Apollo and Diana ''Iana'', by the addition of a ''D'' for the sake of euphony. This explanation has been accepted by A. B. Cook and J. G. Frazer. It supports all the assimilations of Janus to the bright sky, the sun and the moon. It supposes a former *Dianus, formed on *dia- < *dy-eð2 from Indo-European root *dey- shine represented in Latin by ''dies'' day, Diovis and Iuppiter.〔A. B. Cook ''Zeus. A Study in Ancient Religion'' Cambridge 1925 II p. 338-9 supposes two parallel series *Divianus, *Dianus, Ianus and Diviana (Varro ''Lingua Latina'' V 68), Diana, Iana (Varro ''De Re Rustica'' I 37, 3). This interpretation encounters the difficulty of the long ''i'' in Dīāna. G. Radke ''Die Götter Altitaliens'' Münster 1965 p. 147.〕 However the form Dianus postulated by Nigidius is not attested. The interpretation of Janus as the god of beginnings and transitions is based on a third etymology indicated by Cicero, Ovid and Macrobius, which explains the name as Latin, deriving it from the verb ''ire'' ("to go").〔Ovid ''Fasti'' I 126-7; Macrobius, ''Saturnalia'', I, 9, 11: "Alii mundum, id est caelum, esse voluerunt: Ianumque ab eundo dictum, quod mundum semper eat, dum in orbem volvitur et ex se initium faciens in se refertur: unde et Cornificius Etymorum libro tertio: Cicero, inquit, non Ianum sed Eanum nominat, ab eundo." It should be observed that Cornificius's quotation from Cicero contains a mistake, as Cicero did not name a ''Eanum''; Cicero ''De Natura Deorum'' II 67: "Cumque in omnibus rebus vim habent maxumam prima et extrema, principem in sacrificando Ianum esse voluerunt, quod ab eundo nomen est ductum, ex quo transitiones perviae iani foresque in liminibus profanarum aedium ianuae nominantur"." "As in everything the first and the last things have the greatest force, they wanted that Janus be the first in sacrificial actions, because his name is derived from going, from which fact previous passages are named ''iani'' and the hollows in the boundary of secular houses ''ianuae''."〕 Modern scholars have conjectured that it derives from the Indo-European root meaning transitional movement (cf. Sanskrit "yana-" or Avestan "yah-", likewise with Latin "i-" and Greek "ei-".).〔Taylor, Rabun, "Watching the Skies: Janus, Auspication, and the Shrine in the Roman Forum," ''Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome'' vol. 45 (2000): p. 1.〕 Iānus would then be an action name expressing the idea of going, passing, formed on the root *yā- < *y-eð2- theme II of the root *ey- go from which eō, ειμι.〔Objections by A. Meillet and A. Ernout to this etymology have been rejected by most French scholars: É. Benveniste, R. Schilling, G. Dumezil, G. Capdeville. The enlargement of root *ey- into *ya- is well represented in Western Indo-European, as e. g. in Irish āth , *yā-tu-s ford: cf. J Pokorny ''Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' I Berne-Munich 1959 p. 296 s. v. i̯ā and ''Thesaurus Linguae Latinae'' s. v. ianus.〕 Other modern scholars object to an Indo-European etymology either from Dianus or from root *yā-.〔A. Meillet DELL s.v. Ianus; A. Ernout "Consus, Ianus, Sancus" in ''Philologica II'' 1957 p. 175: Ernout takes into consideration the legends of the Thessalic origin of Janus too.〕 From ''Ianus'' derived ''ianua'' ("door"),〔F. Altheim History of Roman Religion London 1938 p. 194; V. Basanoff Les dieux des Romains Paris 1942 p. 18.〕 and hence the English word "janitor" (Latin, ''ianitor''). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Janus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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