Several scholars suggest that he was likely the most important god in the Roman archaic pantheon: He was often invoked together with Iuppiter (
Jupiter)(Zeus)
Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month Januarius after Janus, at the time the highest divinity.
In general, Janus was the patron of concrete and abstract beginnings, such the
religion and the Gods themselves, of the world and the human
life, of new historical ages, economical enterprises.
According to Macrobius and Cicero, Janus and Jana 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.
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.
