CHAPTER IX.

"Besides the religious systems and deities of the three nations above enumerated (Etruscans, Latins, and Sabellians) which Rome adopted, she early, even in the regal period, began, with that facility which always distinguished her, to appropriate the Gods of Greece."-Keighley's Myth. of Greece and Rome, pp. 44, 6.

“Ex quovis ligno......fit Mercurius.”

Ir the theory I am upholding, of the original identity of the religion and superstitions of the Indo-Germanic tribes of Italy and Germany, be of any value, we must find still some, possibly faint, traces of identity in the divinities amongst the tribes which we have coupled under the general denomination of Pelasgi; for in all nations reverence for what was once divine and adored, is the latest principle to be eradicated. It is, therefore, very satisfactory to my own mind, as I hope it may prove to that of my readers, that a perfect conformity can be established betwixt the two principal and most ancient deities of Italy and Germany, betwixt Janus and Thor.

I shall here have to use, with considerable additions, a Paper which I read to the British Archæological Association, when their Foreign Secretary, "On the Head of Janus found on a British Coin,"

VOL. 11.

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BRITISH COIN OF JANUS.

and which was subsequently printed in its collections. Some of the ideas will be found forestalled in Volume I. and in the preceding pages; but as their repetition rounds off this chapter to a consistent whole, I have not deemed it necessary to expunge them. For the value of this and similar coins, as historical evidences of a period of British civilization and social culture in times pre-Romanic, I may cite the following passage by the authors of the great national work, Monumenta Historica, p. 151.

"Very little can be said with certainty concerning the coinage of the Britons antecedent to the Roman invasion though many distinguished numismatists now entertain little doubt that the Britons were acquainted with and practised the art of coining previous to that event. The existence of a large number of coins found in various parts of the island (the types and fabrics of which are unlike any which have been discovered in other countries, and have all the appearance of being some centuries older than Julius Cæsar's first expedition into Britain) appears greatly to support that opinion."

I believe, when we come to the proofs of the identity of Janus of the coin below with Thor, this view will be greatly corroborated. For other facts attesting our early civilization, I refer to an article on C. Roach Smith's "Roman London," in Universal Review, March, 1860, p. 317.

Æ

This figure of the double-headed god, Janus Bifrons occurs on at least one (the above) undoubted

JANUS' NAME FROM JANUA.

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British coin; for the legends CVNO on the obverse and CAMV on the reverse, with which it is inscribed, do not allow a question as to the country of its production. It seems of more frequent occurrence in France; for on a cursory review of the plates accompanying La Système de la Numismatique Française of Mons. Joachim Lelewel, I find on plate III. one figure (19), on plate V. two figures (15 and 16), and on plate VI. figures 7 and 8. There may be more, but that is immaterial at present, and these French ones are all without legends of any kind, or what German numismatists term stumm (dumb).

Nothing is more certain than that the Latins took the name of this god, Janus, from Janua, a gate; and even if, vice versa, Janua should be derived from Janus (which is more probable, though I shall not now go into that subject), it is sufficient for my present purpose that the verbal connexion betwixt deity and gate is evident. The Latin name of Janus seems never to have had any early attempt to expound it, except in the futile essays of Cicero, Festus, &c. In Jamiesons's Dict. (s. v.) Janus is said to be "the JON of the Scandinavians, one of the names of Jupiter, which is given to the sun, as signifying that he is the Father of the year and of heaven and earth. The sun was worshipped by the Trojans under the name of Jona, as appears from one of Grüter's inscriptions." Here, then, we have a conformity with our John; the Germ. Johann; the Russ. Iwan; the Oannes and 'Iwávvns of Babylon and Greece; and not without assonance in the Welsh Owen, and the Breton

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JANUS' ORIGINAL STANDING

Ouen, accounting for the almost universal dispersion of the name, as well as the great reverence given both to the Baptist and Evangelist.

The myths connected with the shutting the gates of Janus' Temple in time of peace, and opening them when the Consuls or Emperors had determined to try the strength of the Roman legionaries against some unfortunate barbaric enemy, proves the derivation from Janua correct; for in it the special attribute of the deity is recognized-that of opening and shutting; ideas necessarily correlative, and in this sense Janus is also taken as closing an old year and opening the new one.

Before, however, considering this and other various offices and attributes, we will first of all treat of his original character and standing amongst the earliest gods of Italy, previous to the intrusion of Homeric divinities and Grecian mythology. The original religion of Italy was pure and simple. It matters not that the surnames of their early kings, as Sylvius, Faunus, Picus, and Nympha are fabulous; the mere tradition of such denominations from the woods and their tuneful inhabitants shows the peaceful nature of the times and the innocence which could allow such abstractions to be reckoned amongst their deities, in strong contrast, with those which Greece cherished, and which, by the charms of their poetry and art, could finally render the incontinence of Jupiter, the pride of Juno, the lasciviousness of Venus, and every other vice or bad passion divided amongst the various deities of their classic Olympus, superior to and subversive of those of their Roman conquerors. It is singular that for this view of early

IN THE PRIMITIVE ETRUSCAN CREED. 77

Roman worship, I should be able to adduce the testimony of that famous Father of the Christian Church, Tertullian, who says (apud adv. Gentil, cap.25). "Nam etsi a Numa concepta est curiositas superstitiosa nondum tamen aut simulacrum aut templis res divina apud Romanos constabat. Frugi religio et pauperes ritus, &c. . . Nondum enim tunc ingenia Græcorum atque Tuscorum fingendis simulacris urbem inundaverunt." We also cite from a previous chapter of Tertullian (16): "Quid de Pallada Attica? Quid de Cerere Farrea? quæ, sine effigie, rudi palo et informe ligno præstat:" and may see from the above instances by this wellinformed writer, that reverential worship in the common mind is not measured by outward form. A belief extended through many ages sanctifies the rudest figures, as witnessed not only by the above instances for Pallas and Ceres, but also in the shapeless trunk representing Thor at Gamle Upsala, and the earliest figures of Etruscan deities, in a misshapen Juno and rugged Bacchus, figured by Gori (plates 5 and 7) in his Museum Cortonense (fol. Romæ, 1750). As the acme of ugliness and uncouth workmanship, I may instance a wooden image dug up near Alt Frisak, in the Alten Mark, and accepted by the aggregate Meeting of German Historic Archæological Investigators, at Berlin, in September, 1858, as a genuine heathen Prussian or Wendie idol. Rude, therefore, and unpolished as their first forms of divinity, must have been the earliest ritual and worship of the Pelasgi, yet as a great and omnipresent First Cause must have pervaded the youngest races of rational mankind, one power must have had