The Poets' Janus

Joshua L. Langseth (University of Iowa)

The beginning of each of the six books of Ovid’s Fasti is devoted to causae ("etiologies") explaining the derivation of a paricular month's name, and there is much to indicate that Ovid’s use of causae is informed by the three "theologies" (theologiae) of M. Varro, who argued that human understandings of the gods could be divided into three categories: the theology of the poets, the theology of the (natural) philosophers, and the theology of the state and the priests (Carodauns 6). Ovid's use of the three theologies has been missed in one particular instance – the role of the god Janus in Book One, and his role in Book Six. It is my contention that missing it has obscured much of the significance and humor in Ovid's use of ring composition in these passages.

In the beginning of Book One, Ovid expresses an inability to explain Janus and his two-headedness, since Ovid (a poet) has no myths and no poetic tradition of Janus upon which to draw, and so asks Janus himself. Janus' first explanation (Fast. 1.103-14) is that he was Chaos before the elements settled and became ordered. Janus then took the form of a god, but as a mark of his former confused state he has two heads. This is the theology of the philosophers.

Janus then states that his two heads are also a representation of Janus as the god of gates and doors, from which come Janus' cult names Patulcius and Clusius (from pateo and claudo, ll. 129-30), a function which is also manifested in the tradition of opening and closing the gates to Janus’ temple in war and peace time respectively (ll. 115-30). Since this explanation makes reference to temple, priest, cult name, and sacrifice, it conforms to Varro's theology of the priests.

Although Varro’s third theology, the theology of the poets, is not represented by a causa given by Janus at this point, it will appear much later, significantly enough on the first day of June, the month to which the last book of the Fasti is dedicated. He is cast in a love story with a nymph (6.101-82); here, after long delay, the poet has finally given Janus a story, cast in at least a Greek-ish context. In other words, Janus is finally given his third theology, that of the poets. The theology of the poets gives Ovid (a poet) the opportunity and the authority to point out Janus' lack of a mythical tradition, and to construct a poetic Janus, something which had up to that time not existed.