Janus Janus In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (; ("Iānus"), ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius), but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The gates of a building in Rome named after him (not a temple, as it
Peace and Truce of God places, but by the eleventh century they became synonymous as the "Peace and Truce of God". "Germans looked with mingled horror and contempt at the French 'anarchy'. To Maintain the king's peace was the first duty of a German sovereign." The movement, though seemingly redundant to the duties of the crown, had a religious momentum that would not be denied. Holy Roman Emperor Henry III issued the earliest form of this in his empire while at Constance in 1043. In the Holy Roman Empire it subsequently developed into the similar concept of "Landfriede". The Peace of God or "Pax Dei"