<P> Almost all of these modern explanations were originally formulated by the ancients . </P> <P> His function as god of beginnings has been clearly expressed in numerous ancient sources, among them most notably Cicero, Ovid, and Varro . As a god of motion, Janus looks after passages, causes actions to start and presides over all beginnings . Since movement and change are interconnected, he has a double nature, symbolised in his two headed image . He has under his tutelage the stepping in and out of the door of homes, the ianua, which took its name from him, and not vice versa . Similarly, his tutelage extends to the covered passages named iani and foremost to the gates of the city, including the cultic gate of the Argiletum, named Ianus Geminus or Porta Ianualis from which he protects Rome against the Sabines . He is also present at the Sororium Tigillum, where he guards the terminus of the ways into Rome from Latium . He has an altar, later a temple near the Porta Carmentalis, where the road leading to Veii ended, as well as being present on the Janiculum, a gateway from Rome out to Etruria . </P> <P> The connection of the notions of beginning (principium), movement, transition (eundo), and thence time was clearly expressed by Cicero . In general, Janus is at the origin of time as the guardian of the gates of Heaven: Jupiter himself can move forth and back because of Janus's working . In one of his temples, probably that of Forum Holitorium, the hands of his statue were positioned to signify the number 355 (the number of days in a lunar year), later 365, symbolically expressing his mastership over time . He presides over the concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, such as religion and the gods themselves, he too holds the access to Heaven and to other gods: this is the reason why men must invoke him first, regardless of the god they want to pray to or placate . He is the initiator of human life, of new historical ages, and financial enterprises: according to myth he was the first to mint coins and the as, first coin of the liberal series, bears his effigy on one face . </P> <P> Janus frequently symbolized change and transitions such as the progress of past to future, from one condition to another, from one vision to another, and young people's growth to adulthood . He represented 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 at marriages, deaths and other beginnings . He represented the middle ground between barbarism and civilization, rural and urban space, youth and adulthood . Having jurisdiction over beginnings Janus had an intrinsic association with omens and auspices . </P>

What god has the same name in greek and roman