226 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 



and a further account of him from Ovid would here 

 be fuperfluous : 



Jane pater, Jane tuens, dive biceps, biformis, 

 O cate rerum fator, O principium deorum ! 



" Father Janus, all-beholding Janus, thou divinity 

 u with two heads, and with two forms j O fagacious 

 " planter of all things, and leader of deities !" 



He was the God, we fee, of Wifdom ; whence he is 

 reprefented on coins with two, and, on the Hetrufcan 

 image found at Falifci, -with Jour, faces ; emblems of 

 prudence and circumfpeclion : thus is Ganefa, the God 

 of Wifdom in Hinduflan, painted with an Elephant's 

 head, the fyrnbol of fagacious difcernment, and attended 

 by a favourite rat, which the Indians confider as a wife 

 and provident animal. His next great character (the 

 plentiful fource of many fuperftitious ufages) was that 

 from which he is emphatically ftyled the father, and 

 which the fecond verfe before cited more fully expreffes, 

 the origin and founder of all things. Whence this notion 

 arofe, unlefs from a tradition that he firft built fhrines, 

 raifed altars, and inftituted facrifices, it is not eafy to 

 conjecture ; hence it came, however, that his name was 

 invoked before any other God; that, in the old facred 

 rites, corn, and wine, and, in later times, incenfe alfo, 

 were firft offered to Janus; that the doors or entrances 

 to private houfes were called Januaz ; and any pervious 

 paffage, or thoroughfare, in the plural number, Jani, or 

 with two beginnings; that he was reprefented holding a 

 rod, as guardian of ways, and a key, as opening not gates 

 only, but all important works and affairs of mankind; 

 that he was thought to prefide over the morning, or 

 beginning of day ; that, although the Roman year began 



regularly 



