Editing Janus (section)

===Position in the pantheon===
[[Leonhard Schmitz]] suggests that he was likely the most important god in the Roman archaic ''pantheon''. He was often invoked together with ''Iuppiter'' (Jupiter).<ref>L. Schmitz s.v. Janus in W. Smith above p. 550-551.</ref>

====Structural peculiarity theory====
{{main|Trifunctional hypothesis}}
In several of his works, [[G. Dumézil]] proposed the existence of a structural difference in level between the [[Proto-Indo-European gods]] of beginning and ending, and the other gods whom Dumézil postulated fall into [[Trifunctional hypothesis|a tripartite structure]], reflecting the most ancient organization of society. So in [[Proto-Indo-European religion|IE religions]] there is an introducer god (such as [[Vedic]] [[Vâyu]] and Roman Janus) and a god of ending, and a nurturer goddess who is often also a fire spirit (such as Roman [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]], Vedic [[Saraswati]] and [[Agni]], [[Avestic]] [[Armaiti]] and [[Anahita|Anâitâ]]) who show a sort of mutual solidarity.

The concept of 'god of ending' is defined in connection to the human point of reference, i.e. the current situation of man in the universe, and not to endings as transitions into new circumstances, which are under the jurisdiction of the gods of beginning, owing to the ambivalent nature of the concept. Thus the god of beginning is not structurally reducible to a sovereign god, nor the goddess of ending to any of the three categories on to which Dumézil distributed goddesses. There is though a greater degree of fuzziness concerning the function and role of goddesses, which may have formed a preexisting structure allowing the absorption of the local Mediterranean mother goddesses, nurturers, and protectresses .<ref name=Dumézil-1946>{{cite book |author=Dumézil, G. |author-link=Georges Dumézil |year=1946 |section=De Janus à Vesta |title=Tarpeia |place=Paris, FR |pages=33–113}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Marconi, M. |title=Riflessi mediterranei nella piú antica religione laziale |place=Milan, IT |year=1940}}</ref>

As a consequence, the position of the gods of beginning would not be the issue of a diachronic process of debasement undergone by a supreme sky god, but rather a structural feature inherent to the culture's theology. The descent of primordial sky gods into the condition of ''[[deus otiosus]]'' is a well-known phenomenon in many religions.
Dumézil himself observed and discussed in many of his works the phenomenon of the fall of archaic celestial deities in numerous societies of ethnologic interest.<ref>{{cite book |author=Eliade, M. |author-link=Mircea Eliade |year=1949 |title=Traité d' histoire des religions |place=Paris, FR |page=53}}<br/> {{cite book |author=Eliade, M. |author-link=Mircea Eliade |year=1950 |title=Le chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l'ecstase |place=Paris, FR |at=ch.&nbsp;VI 1}}</ref>

[[Mircea Eliade]] evaluated Dumezil's views (1946)<ref name=Dumézil-1946/> positively, and recommended their use in comparative research on Indo-European religions.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Eliade, M. |author-link=Mircea Eliade |year=1949 |title=Pour une histoire generale des religions Indo-europeennes |journal=Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=183–191, esp. pp. 189–190|doi=10.3406/ahess.1949.1718 |s2cid=161243722 }}</ref>

====Solar god theories====
According to [[Macrobius]] who cites [[Nigidius Figulus]] and [[Cicero]], ''Janus'' and ''Jana'' ([[Diana (mythology)|Diana]]) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as [[Apollo]] or the [[Sol (Roman mythology)|sun]] and [[Luna (mythology)|moon]], whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity.<ref>[[Macrobius]] ''Saturnalia'' I 9, 8–9</ref><ref>[[Cicero]] ''[[De Natura Deorum]]'' ii. 67.</ref>

A similar solar interpretation has been offered by A. Audin who interprets the god as the issue of a long process of development, starting with the [[Sumeric]] cultures, from the two solar pillars located on the eastern side of temples, each of them marking the direction of the rising sun at the dates of the two [[solstices]]: the southeastern corresponding to the Winter and the northeastern to the Summer solstice. These two pillars would be at the origin of the theology of the [[divine twins]], one of whom is mortal (related to the NE pillar, nearest the Northern region where the sun does not shine) and the other is immortal (related to the SE pillar and the Southern region where the sun always shines). Later these iconographic models evolved in the Middle East and Egypt into a single column representing two torsos and finally a single body with two heads looking at opposite directions.<ref>{{cite journal |first=A. |last=Audin |year=1956 |title=Dianus bifrons ou les deux stations solaires, piliers jumeaux et portiques solsticiaux |journal=Revue de géographie de Lyon |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=191–198|doi=10.3406/geoca.1956.2090 }}</ref>

[[Numa Pompilius|Numa]], in his regulation of the [[Roman calendar]], called the first month ''[[Ianuarius|Januarius]]'' after Janus, according to tradition considered the highest divinity at the time.