THESSALONICA Macedonia Uder Romans 88BC Janus Cetnaurs Ancient Greek Coin i34425

Greek city of Thessalonica in Macedonia
Bronze 26mm (8.19 grams) from the ancient Greek city of Thessalonica in
the Province of Macedonia 88-21 B.C. under the control of the Romans
Reference: Moushmov 6607
Laureate head of Janus
ΘEΣΣAΛONIKEΩN, Two Centaurs prancing, back to back, each holding branch.

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In Roman mythology,
Janus
is the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time. Most 
often he is depicted as having two heads, facing opposite directions; one head 
looks back at the last year while the other looks forward to the new, 
simultaneously into the future and the past.

Janus was usually depicted with two heads facing in opposite directions. 
According to a legend, he had received the gift to see both future and past from 
the god
Saturn in reward for the hospitality received. 
Janus-like heads of gods related to
Hermes have been found in Greece, perhaps 
suggesting a compound god.

The Romans associated Janus with the
Etruscan deity
Ani. Several scholars suggest that he was 
likely the most important god in the Roman archaic pantheon. He was often 
invoked together with Iuppiter (Jupiter).

According to
Macrobius and
Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) 
are a pair of divinities, worshipped as the
sun and
moon, whence they were regarded as the highest 
of the gods, and received their sacrifices before all the others.

In general, Janus was the patron of concrete and abstract beginnings of the 
world (such as the religion and the gods themselves), the human life, new 
historical ages, and economical enterprises. He was also the god of the home 
entrance (ianua), gates, bridges and covered and arcaded passages (iani) 
named after him.

He was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the 
progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to 
another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was 
also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past 
with one face and into the future with the other. Hence, Janus was worshipped at 
the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, deaths 
and other beginnings. He was representative of the middle ground between 
barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities, and youth and 
adulthood.

Numa in his regulation of the
Roman calendar called the first month
Januarius after Janus, at the time the 
highest divinity. Numa also introduced the
Ianus geminus (also Janus Bifrons,
Janus Quirinus or Portae Belli) , a passage ritually opened at 
times of war, and shut again when Roman arms rested. It formed a walled 
enclosure with gates at each end, situated in the
Roman Forum which had been consecrated by
Numa Pompilius. In the course of wars, the 
gates of the Janus were opened, and in its interior sacrifices and vaticinia 
were held to forecast the outcome of military deeds. The doors were closed only 
during peacetime, an extremely rare event.
Livy wrote in his
Ab urbe condita that the doors of the 
temple had only been closed twice since the reign of Numa: firstly in 235 BC 
after the
first Punic war and secondly in after the
battle of Actium in 31 BC. A temple of Janus is 
said to have been consecrated by the consul
Gaius Duilius in 260 BCE after the
Battle of Mylae in the Forum Holitorium. The 
four-side structure known as the
Arch of Janus in the
Forum Boarium dates to the 4th century CE.

In the Middle Ages, Janus was also taken as the symbol of
Genoa, whose Latin name was Ianua, as 
well as of other European communes.