Januar (Hel) – the beginning or the end?

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Janus

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (Latin: Ianus) is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, passages, endings and time. He frequently symbolized change and transitions such as the progress of future to past, from one condition to another, from one vision to another, and young people’s growth to adulthood. The Romans named the month of January (Ianuarius) in his honor.

Janus is usually depicted as having two faces; one facing forward and the other behind, since he looks to the future and to the past. Also note that the left face is bearded while the right face is clean shaven, as some say representing the sun and moon.

Leonhard Schmitz suggests that he was likely the most important god in the Roman archaic pantheon. In the oldest Roman calendar, which the Romans believed to have been instituted by their legendary founder Romulus, the first month was Martius (“Mars’ month”, March), and the calendar year had only ten months.

Ianuarius and Februarius were supposed to have been added by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, originally at the end of the year. Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month Januarius in honor of Janus, according to tradition considered the highest divinity at the time.

Ianuarius is conventionally thought to have taken its name from Janus, the dual-faced god of beginnings, openings, passages, gates and doorways, but according to ancient Roman farmers’ almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month.

While the fundamental nature of Janus is debated, in most modern scholars’ view the god’s functions may be seen as being organized around a single principle: presiding over all beginnings and transitions, whether abstract or concrete, sacred or profane.

Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The doors of his temple named Janus Geminus (also Janus Bifrons, Janus Quirinus or Portae Belli) were open in time of war, and in its interior sacrifices and vaticinia were held, to forecast the outcome of military deeds, and closed to mark the peace, an extremely rare event. It formed a walled enclosure with gates at each end, situated between the old Roman Forum and that of Julius Caesar, which had been consecrated by Numa Pompilius himself.

The function of the Ianus Geminus was supposed to be a sort of good omen: in time of peace it was said to close the wars within or to keep peace inside; in times of war it was said to be open to allow the return of the people on duty.

It was said to have been built by king Numa Pompilius, who kept it always shut during his reign as there were no wars. After him it was closed very few times, one after the end of the first Punic War, three times under Augustus and once by Nero. It is recorded that emperor Gordianus III opened the Janus Geminus.

It is a noteworthy curiosity that the opening of the Janus was perhaps the last act connected to the ancient religion in Rome: Procopius writes that in 536 CE, during the Gothic War, while general Belisarius was under siege in Rome, at night somebody opened the Janus Geminus stealthily, which had long stayed closed since 390, year on which Theodosius I’s edict banned the ancient cults. Janus was faithful to his liminal role also in the marking of this last act.

The uniqueness of Janus in Latium has suggested to L. Adams Holland and J. Gagé the hypothesis of a cult brought from far away by sailors and strictly linked to the amphibious life of the primitive communities living on the banks of the Tiber. In the myth of Janus the ship of Saturn, as well as the myth of Carmenta and Evander, are remininscent of an ancient Preroman sailing life.

Interpretations concerning the god’s fundamental nature either limit it to this general function or emphasize a concrete or particular aspect of it (identifying him with light the sun, the moon, time, movement, the year, doorways, bridges etc.) or else see in the god a sort of cosmological principle, interpreting him as a uranic deity.

The function 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, and since movement and change are bivalent, 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 viceversa.

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.

The connection of the notions of beginning (principium), movement, transition (eundo), and thence time has been 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 year), later 365, symbolically expressed his mastership over time.

He presided over the concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, such as religion and the gods. He 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 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.

Janus 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.

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.

Paul the Deacon (c. 720s – 13 April probably 799) derive the etymology of Janus from hiantem, hiare, to be open, from which word Ianus would derive by loss of the initial aspirate. In this etymology the notion of Chaos would define the primordial nature of the god.

The interpretation of Janus as the god of beginnings and transitions is based on a etymology indicated by Cicero, Ovid and Macrobius, which explains the name as Latin, deriving it from the verb ire (“to go”).

Modern scholars have conjectured that it derives from the Indo-European root meaning transitional movement (cf. Sanskrit “yana-” or Avestan “yah-”, likewise with Latin “i-” and Greek “ei-”.). Iānus would then be an action name expressing the idea of going, passing, formed on the root *yā- < *y-eð2- theme II of the root *ey- go from which eō, ειμι. From Ianus derived ianua (“door”), and hence the English word “janitor” (Latin, ianitor).

Rites

The Winter solstice was thought to occur on December 25. January 1 was New Year day: the day was consecrated to Janus since it was the first of the New Year and of the month (kalends) of Janus: the feria had an augural character as Romans believed the beginning of anything was an omen for the whole. Thus on that day it was customary to exchange cheerful words of good wishes.

For the same reason everybody devoted a short time to his usual business, exchanged dates, figs and honey as a token of well wishing and made gifts of coins called strenae. Cakes made of spelt (far) and salt were offered to the god and burnt on the altar.

Ovid states that in most ancient times there were no animal sacrifices and gods were propitiated with offerings of spelt and pure salt. This libum was named ianual and it was probably correspondent to the summanal offered the day before the Summer solstice to god Summanus, which however was sweet being made with flour, honey and milk.

Shortly afterwards, on January 9, on the feria of the Agonium of January the rex sacrorum offered the sacrifice of a ram to Janus. At the kalends of each month the rex sacrorum and the pontifex minor offered a sacrifice to Janus in the curia Calabra, while the regina offered a sow or a she lamb to Juno.

Morning belonged to Janus: men started their daily activities and business. Horace calls him Matutine Pater, morning father. G. Dumézil thinks this custom is at the origin of the learned interpretations of Janus as a solar deity.

Janus was also involved in spatial transitions, presiding over home doors, city gates and boundaries. Numerous toponyms of places located at the boundary between the territory of two communities, especially Etrurians and Latins or Umbrians, are named after the god.

The rites concerning Janus were numerous. Owing to the versatile and far reaching character of his basic function marking all beginnings and transitions, his presence was ubiquitous and fragmented.

Apart from the rites solemnizing the beginning of the New Year and of every month, there were the special times of the year which marked the beginning and closing of the military season, in March and October respectively. These included the rite of the arma movēre on March 1 and that of the arma condĕre at the end of the month performed by the Salii, and the Tigillum Sororium on October 1.

Janus Quirinus was closely associated with the anniversaries of the dedications of the temples of Mars on June 1 (a date that corresponded with the festival of Carna, a deity associated with Janus) and of that of Quirinus on June 29 (which was the last day of the month in the pre-Julian calendar).

The rite of the bride’s oiling the posts of the door of her new home with wolf fat at her arrival, though not mentioning Janus explicitly, is a rite of passage related to the ianua.

Janus had no flamen, in ancient Roman religion a specialized priest (sacerdos) assigned to one of fifteen deities with official cults during the Roman Republic, assigned to him, but the King of the Sacred Rites (rex sacrorum) himself, who held the first place in the ordo sacerdotum, hierarchy of priests, carried out his ceremonies, performed his sacrifices and took part in most of his rites.

Janus had a ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year, and was ritually invoked at the beginning of each one, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion. Any rite or religious act whatever required the invocation of Janus first, with a corresponding invocation to Vesta at the end (Janus primus and Vesta extrema).

Myths

In discussing his myths about Janus one should be careful in distinguishing those which are ancient and originally Latin and others which were later attributed to him by Greek mythographers.

In the Fasti Ovid relates only the myths that associate Janus to Saturn, whom he welcomed as a guest and with whom eventually shared his kingdom in reward of his teaching the art of agriculture, and to the nymph Crane Grane or Carna, whom Janus raped and made the goddess of hinges as Cardea, while in the Metamorphoses he records his fathering with Venilia the nymph Canens, loved by Picus, first legendary king of the Aborigines, in Roman mythology are the oldest inhabitants of central Italy, connected in legendary history with Aeneas, Latinus and Evander.

In accord with his fundamental character of being the Beginner Janus was considered by Romans the first king of Latium, sometimes along with Camese. He would have received hospitably god Saturn, who, expelled from Heaven by Jupiter, arrived on a ship to the Janiculum.

It was customary for the Romans to represent divine figures as kings of Latium at the time of their legendary origins. Macrobius states explicitly that the Roman legend of Janus and Saturn is an affabulation, as the true meaning of religious beliefs cannot be openly expressed.

In the myth Saturn was the original and autochthonous ruler of the Capitolium, which had thus been called the Mons Saturnius in older times and on which once stood the town of Saturnia. He was sometimes regarded as the first king of Latium or even the whole of Italy. At the same time, there was a tradition that Saturn had been an immigrant god, received by Janus after he was usurped by his son Jupiter and expelled from Greece.

In Versnel’s view his contradictions – a foreigner with one of Rome’s oldest sanctuaries, and a god of liberation who is kept in fetters most of the year – indicate Saturn’s capacity for obliterating social distinctions.

The Golden Age of Saturn’s reign in Roman mythology differed from the Greek tradition. He arrived in Italy “dethroned and fugitive,” but brought agriculture and civilization for which things was rewarded by Janus with a share of the kingdom, becoming he himself king.

As the Augustan poet Vergil described it, “He gathered together the unruly race” of fauns and nymphs “scattered over mountain heights, and gave them laws… Under his reign were the golden ages men tell of: in such perfect peace he ruled the nations.”

He was considered the ancestor of the Latin nation as he fathered Picus, the first king of Latium, who married Janus’ daughter Canenes and in his turn fathered Faunus. Saturn was also said to have founded the five Saturnian towns of Latium: Aletrium (today Alatri), Anagnia (Anagni), Arpinum (Arpino), Atina and Ferentinum (Ferentino, also known as Antinum) all located in present day Ciociaria, province of Frosinone. All these towns are surrounded by cyclopical walls; their foundation is traditionally ascribed to the Pelasgians.

But Saturn also had a less benevolent aspect, as indicated by the blood shed in his honor during gladiatorial munera. His consort in archaic Roman tradition was Lua, sometimes called Lua Saturni (“Saturn’s Lua”) and identified with Lua Mater, “Mother Destruction,” a goddess in whose honor the weapons of enemies killed in war were burned, perhaps as expiation. H.S. Versnel, however, proposed that Lua Saturni should not be identified with Lua Mater, but rather refers to “loosening”; she thus represents the liberating function of Saturn.

Jupiter

Janus was often invoked together with Iuppiter (Jupiter), or Jove is the king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder in ancient Roman religion and myth.

The relation of Jupiter to Janus is problematic. Varro defines Jupiter as the god who has potestas (power) over the forces by which anything happens in the world. Janus, however, has the privilege of being invoked first in rites, since in his power are the beginnings of things (prima), the appearance of Jupiter included. 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.^[

Varro's definition of Jupiter as the god who has under his jurisdiction the full expression of every being (penes Iovem sunt summa) reflects the sovereign nature of the god, as opposed to the jurisdiction of Janus (god of passages and change) on their beginning (penes Ianum sunt prima).

Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as sacrifice.

Jupiter is usually thought to have been originated as a sky god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt, and his primary sacred animal is the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army. The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins.

As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline ("Capitol Hill"), where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.

The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld.

The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually but not always identified with Jupiter. Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart.

The Latins considered Saturn the predecessor of Jupiter. Saturn reigned in Latium during a mythical Golden Age reenacted every year at the festival of Saturnalia. Saturn also retained primacy in matters of agriculture and money.

Unlike the Greek tradition of Cronus and Zeus, the usurpation of Saturn as king of the gods by Jupiter was not viewed by the Latins as violent or hostile; Saturn continued to be revered in his temple at the foot of the Capitol Hill, which maintained the alternative name Saturnius into the time of Varro.

Portunus

Portunus appears to be closely related to the god Janus, with whom he shares many characters, functions and the symbol of the key. In fact Portunus may be defined as a sort of duplication inside the scope of the powers and attributes of Janus.

As a god of transitions, Janus had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and in his association with Portunus (alternatively spelled Portumnes or Portunus), in ancient Roman religion a similar harbor and gateway god and the god of keys, doors and livestock, he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping.

Portunus too was represented as a two headed being, with each head facing opposite directions, on coins and as figurehead of ships. His attribute was a key and his main temple in the city of Rome, the Temple of Portunus, was to be found in the Forum Boarium.

The relationship between the two gods is underlined by the fact that his festival day, named Portunalia, fell on August 17, the seventeenth day before the Kalends of September and the date chosen for the dedication of the rebuilt temple of Janus in the Forum Holitorium by Emperor Tiberius, and he was venerated on that day in a temple ad pontem Aemilium and ad pontem Sublicium that had been dedicated on that date. On this day, keys were thrown into a fire for good luck in a very solemn and lugubrious manner.

The original definition of Portunus shows he was the god of gates and doors and of harbours. In fact it is debated whether his original function was only that of god of gates and the function of god of harbours was a later addition. Paul the Deacon writes: "... he is depicted holding a key in his hand and was thought to be the god of gates". Varro would have stated that he was the god of harbours and patron of gates.

Probably because of folk associations between porta "gate, door" and portus "harbor", the "gateway" to the sea, Portunus later became conflated with Palaemon and evolved into a god primarily of ports and harbors.

In the Latin adjective importunus his name was applied to untimely waves and weather and contrary winds, and the Latin echoes in English opportune and its old-fashioned antonym importune, meaning "well timed' and "badly timed". Hence Portunus is behind both an opportunity and importunate or badly timed solicitations.

Portunus, unlike Janus, had his own flamen, named Portunalis. One of the flamines minores performed the ritual of oiling the spear (hasta) on the statue of god Quirinus, with an ointment especially prepared for this purpose and stored in a small vase (persillum).

Diana

Another etymology proposed by Nigidius Figulus is related by Macrobius: Ianus would be Apollo and Diana Iana (lt. "heavenly" or "divine"), by the addition of a D for the sake of euphony. It supposes a former *Dianus, formed on *dia- < *dy-eð2 from Indo-European root *dey- shine represented in Latin by dies day, Diovis and Iuppiter. However the form Dianus postulated by Nigidius is not attested. This explanation has been accepted by A. B. Cook and J. G. Frazer. It supports all the assimilations of Janus to the bright sky, the sun and the moon.

According to Macrobius who cites Nigidius Figulus and Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as Apollo or the sun and moon, whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity.

A similar solar interpretation has been offered by A. Audin who interprets the god as the issue of a long process of development, starting with the Sumeric cultures, from the two solar pillars located on the eastern side of temples, each of them marking the direction of the rising sun at the dates of the two solstices: the southeastern corresponding to the Winter and the northeastern to the Summer solstice.

These two pillars would be at the origin of the theology of the divine twins, one of whom is mortal (related to the Northeast pillar, as confining with the region where the sun does not shine) and the other is immortal (related to the Southeast pillar and the region where the sun always shines).

Later these iconographic models evolved in the Middle East and Egypt into a single column representing two torsos and finally a single body with two heads looking at opposite directions.

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, the moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to, and control, animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy.

Diana was initially just the hunting goddess, associated with wild animals and woodlands. She also later became a moon goddess, supplanting Titan goddess Luna. She also became the goddess of childbirth and ruled over the countryside. Catullus wrote a poem to Diana in which she has more than one alias: Latonia, Lucina, Iuno, Trivia, Luna.

As a goddess of hunting, Diana often wears a short tunic and hunting boots. She is often portrayed holding a bow, and carrying a quiver on her shoulder, accompanied by a deer or hunting dogs. Like Venus, she was portrayed as beautiful and youthful. The crescent moon, sometimes worn as a diadem, is a major attribute of the goddess.

Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Dianic Wicca, a largely feminist form of the practice, is named for her. Diana was known to be the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, Diana, Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.

Oak groves were especially sacred to her. According to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.

The persona of Diana is complex and contains a number of archaic features. According to Georges Dumézil it falls into a particular subset of celestial gods, referred to in histories of religion as frame gods. Such gods, while keeping the original features of celestial divinities, i.e. transcendent heavenly power and abstention from direct rule in worldly matters, did not share the fate of other celestial gods in Indoeuropean religions - that of becoming dei otiosi or gods without practical purpose, since they did retain a particular sort of influence over the world and mankind.

The celestial character of Diana is reflected in her connection with light, inaccessibility, virginity, and her preference for dwelling on high mountains and in sacred woods. Diana therefore reflects the heavenly world (diuum means sky or open air) in its sovereignty, supremacy, impassibility, and indifference towards such secular matters as the fates of mortals and states. At the same time, however, she is seen as active in ensuring the succession of kings and in the preservation of humankind through the protection of childbirth.

According to Dumezil the forerunner of all frame gods is an Indian epic hero who was the image (avatar) of the Vedic god Dyaus. Having renounced the world, in his roles of father and king, he attained the status of an immortal being while retaining the duty of ensuring that his dynasty is preserved and that there is always a new king for each generation.

The Scandinavian god Heimdallr performs an analogous function: he is born first and will die last. He too gives origin to kingship and the first king, bestowing on him regal prerogatives. Diana, although a female deity, has exactly the same functions, preserving mankind through childbirth and royal succession.

Dumezil's interpretation appears deliberately to ignore that of James G. Frazer, who links Diana with the male god Janus as a divine couple. This looks odd as Dumézil's definition of the concept of frame god would fit well the figure of Janus.

Juno

The relationship between Janus and Juno is defined by the closeness of the notions of beginning and transition and the functions of conception and delivery, result of youth and vital force.

The relationship of the female sovereign deity with the god of beginnings and passages is reflected mainly in their association with the kalendae of every month, which belong to both, and in the festival of the Tigillum Sororium of October 1. The rex sacrorum and the pontifex minor offered a sacrifice to Janus in the curia Calabra, while the regina offered a sow or a she lamb to Juno.

Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister (but also the wife) of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent was Hera. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni.

As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina ("Queen") and, together with Jupiter and Minerva, was worshipped as a triad on the Capitol (Juno Capitolina) in Rome.

Juno's own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire. She often appeared sitting pictured with a peacock armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this warlike aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Hera, whose goatskin was called the 'aegis'.

The name Juno was also once thought to be connected to Iove (Jove), originally as Diuno and Diove from *Diovona. At the beginning of the 20th century, a derivation was proposed from iuven- (as in Latin iuvenis, "youth"), through a syncopated form iūn- (as in iūnix, "heifer", and iūnior, "younger"). This etymology became widely accepted after it was endorsed by Georg Wissowa.

While her connection with the idea of vital force, fulness of vital energy, eternal youthfulness is now generally acknowledged, the multiplicity and complexity of her personality have given rise to various and sometimes irreconcilable interpretations among modern scholars.

M. Renard advanced the view that Janus and not Juppiter was the original paredra or consort of Juno, on the grounds of their many common features, functions and appearance in myth or rites as is shown by their cross coupled epithets Janus Curiatius and Juno Sororia: Janus shares the epithet of Juno Curitis and Juno the epithet Janus Geminus, as sororius means paired, double.

Renard's theory has been rejected by G. Capdeville as not being in accord with the level of sovereign gods in Dumezil's trifunctional structure. The theology of Janus would show features typically belonging to the order of the gods of the beginning.

In Capdeville's view it is only natural that a god of beginnings and a sovereign mother deity have common features, as all births can be seen as beginnings, Juno is invoked by deliverers, who by custom hold a key, symbol of Janus.

Janus owes the epithet Iunonius to his function as patron of all kalends, which are also associated with Juno. In Macrobius's explanation: "Iunonium, as it were, not only does he hold the entry to January, but to all the months: indeed all the kalends are under the jurisdiction of Juno".

At the time when the rising of the new moon was observed by the pontifex minor the rex sacrorum assisted by him offered a sacrifice to Janus in the Curia Calabra while the regina sacrorum sacrificed to Juno in the regia.

Some scholars have maintained that Juno was the primitive paredra of the god. This point bears on the nature of Janus and Juno and is at the core of an important dispute: was Janus a debased ancient uranic supreme god, or were Janus and Jupiter co-existent, their distinct identities structurally inherent to their original theology?

Among Francophone scholars Grimal and (implicitly and partially) Renard and Basanoff have supported the view of a uranic supreme god against Dumézil and Schilling. Among Anglophone scholars Frazer and Cook have suggested an interpretation of Janus as uranic supreme god. Whatever the case, it is certain that Janus and Juno show a peculiar reciprocal affinity: while Janus is Iunonius, Juno is Ianualis, as she presides over childbirth and the menstrual cycle, and opens doors.

Moreover, besides the kalends Janus and Juno are also associated at the rite of the Tigillum Sororium of October 1, in which they bear the epithets Ianus Curiatius and Iuno Sororia. These epithets, which swap the functional qualities of the gods, are the most remarkable apparent proof of their proximity.

Quirinus

In Roman mythology and religion, Quirinus is an early god of the Roman state. In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus. His name may be derived from the Sabine word quiris "spear." His festival was the Quirinalia, held on February 17.

Quirinus was originally most likely a Sabine god of war. The Sabines had a settlement near the eventual site of Rome, and erected an altar to Quirinus on the Collis Quirinalis Quirinal Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome. When the Romans settled there, they absorbed the cult of Quirinus into their early belief system — previous to direct Greek influence — and by the end of the first century BC Quirinus was considered to be the deified Romulus.

Religious historian A. Brelich has argued that Quirinus and Romulus were originally the same divine entity which was split into a founder hero and a god when Roman religion became demythicised.

The identity of Quirinus and Romulus would find a further point of support in the parallel with Vofionos, the third god in the triad of the Grabovian gods of Iguvium. Vofionos would be the equivalent of Liber or Teutates, in Latium and among the Celts respectively.

He soon became an important god of the Roman state, being included in the earliest precursor of the Capitoline Triad, along with Mars (then an agriculture god) and Jupiter.

Varro notes the Capitolium Vetus an earlier cult sited on the Quirinal, devoted to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, among whom Martial makes a distinction between the "old Jupiter" and the "new". In later times, however, Quirinus became far less important, losing his place to the later, more widely known Capitoline Triad (Juno and Minerva took his and Mars' place).

Quirinus is a god that incarnates the quirites, i.e. the Romans in their civil capacity of producers and fathers. He is surnamed Mars tranquillus peaceful Mars, Mars qui praeest paci Mars who presides on peace. His function of custos guardian is highlighted by the location of his temple inside the pomerium but not far from the gate of Porta Collina or Quirinalis, near the shrines of Sancus and Salus.

As a protector of peace he is nevertheless armed, in the same way as the quirites are, as they are potentially milites soldiers: his staue represents him is holding a spear. For this reason Janus, god of gates, is concerned with his function of protector of the civil community.

For the same reason the flamen Portunalis oiled the arms of Quirinus, implying that they were to be kept in good order and ready even though they were not to be used immediately. Dumézil and Schilling remark that as a god of the third function Quirinus is peaceful and represents the ideal of the pax romana i. e. a peace resting on victory.

Even centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Quirinal hill in Rome, originally named from the deified Romulus, was still associated with power – it was chosen as the seat of the royal house after the taking of Rome by the Savoia and later it became the residence of the Presidents of the Italian Republic.

Vesta

The relationship between Janus and Vesta, the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion, symbolized by the sacred fire that burned at her hearth and temples, touches on the question of the nature and function of the gods of beginning and ending in Indo-European religion. While Janus has the first place Vesta has the last, both in theology and in ritual (Ianus primus, Vesta extrema).

The last place implies a direct connection with the situation of the worshipper, in space and in time. Vesta is thence the goddess of the hearth of homes as well as of the city. Her inextinguishable fire is a means for men (as individuals and as a community) to keep in touch with the realm of gods.

Thus there is a reciprocal link between the god of beginnings and unending motion, who bestows life to the beings of this world (Cerus Manus) as well as presiding over its end, and the goddess of the hearth of man, which symbolises through fire the presence of life.

Vesta is a virgin goddess but at the same time she is considered the mother of Rome: she is thought to be indispensable to the existence and survival of the community. The importance of Vesta to Roman religion is indicated by the prominence of the priesthood devoted to her, the Vestal Virgins, Rome's only college of full-time priests.

Georges Dumézil (1898–1986), a French comparative philologist, surmised that the name of the goddess derives from Indoeuropean root *h₁eu-, via the derivative form *h₁eu-s- which alternates with *h₁w-es-. The former is found in Greek heuei, Latin urit, ustio and Vedic osathi all conveying burning and the second is found in Vesta, Greek Hestia.

Her closest Greek equivalent is Hestia, meaning "hearth" or "fireside". Hestia is a virgin goddess of the hearth, ancient Greek architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family, and the state. In Greek mythology she is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea.

The correspondence of Vesta with Vedic god Agni was noted long ago. Dumézil recalls that in the Indian epic poem Mahabharata the episodes of Karttikeya, god of war and son of Agni and of Agni and the daughters of Nila bear the same theme of the flames as the sex organ of the god.

Sororium Tigillum

The Sororium Tigillum, which translates as the "sister's beam", was a wooden beam said to have been erected on the slope of the Oppian Hill in Ancient Rome by the father of Publius Horatius, one of the three triplets Horatii. Publius Horatius was required to pass under the beam, as if under a yoke, following the decision of the people's assembly not to punish him for the murder of his sister.

This rite was supposed to commemorate the expiation of the murder of his sister by Marcus Horatius. The young hero with his head veiled had to pass under a beam spanning an alley. The rite was repeated every year on October 1, the month marking the end of the yearly military activity in ancient Rome. The tigillum consisted of a beam on two posts. It was kept in good condition at public expenses to the time of Livy.

Behind the tigillum, on opposite sides of the alley, stood the two altars of Janus Curiatius and Juno Sororia. Its location was on the vicus leading to the Carinae, perhaps at the point of the crossing of the pomerium.

The rite and myth have been interpreted as a purification and desacralization of the soldiers from the religious pollution contracted in war, and a freeing of the warrior from furor, wrath, as dangerous in the city as it is necessary on campaign.

Scholars have offered different interpretations of the meaning of Janus Curiatius and Juno Sororia. The association of the two gods with this rite is not immediately clear. It is however apparent that they exchanged their epithets, as Curiatius is connected to (Juno) Curitis and Sororia to (Janus) Geminus.

Renard thinks that while Janus is the god of motion and transitions he is not concerned directly with purification, while the arch is more associated with Juno. This fact would be testified by the epithet Sororium, shared by the tigillum and the goddess. Juno Curitis is also the protectress of the iuvenes, the young soldiers. Paul the Deacon states that the sororium tigillum was a sacer (sacred) place in honour of Juno.

Another element linking Juno with Janus is her identification with Carna, suggested by the festival of this deity on the kalends (day of Juno) of June, the month of Juno. Carna was a nymmph of the sacred lucus of Helernus, made goddess of hinges by Janus with the name of Cardea, and had the power of protecting and purifying thresholds and the doorposts.

This would be a further element in explaining the role of Juno in the Tigillum. It was also customary for new brides to oil the posts of the door of their new homes with wolf fat.

In the myth of Janus and Carna, Carna had the habit when pursued by a young man of asking him out of shyness for a hidden recess and thereupon fleeing: but two headed Janus saw her hiding in a crag under some rocks.

Thence the analogy with the rite of the Tigillum Sororium would be apparent: both in the myth and in the rite Janus, the god of motion, goes through a low passage to attain Carna as Horatius passes under the tigillum to obtain his purification and the restitution to the condition of citizen eligible for civil activities, including family life. The purification is then the prerequisite for fertility. The custom of attaining lustration and fertility by passing under a gap in rocks, a hole in the soil or a hollow in a tree is widespread.

The veiled head of Horatius could also be explained as an apotropaic device if one considers the tigillum the iugum of Juno, the feminine principle of fecundity. Renard concludes that the rite is under the tutelage of both Janus and Juno, being a rite of transition under the patronage of Janus and of desacralisation and fertility under that of Juno: through it the iuvenes coming back from campaign were restituted to their fertile condition of husbands and peasants.

Janus is often associated with fecundity in myths, representing the masculine principle of motion, while Juno represents the complementary feminine principle of fertility: the action of the first would allow the manifestation of the other.

Structural peculiarity theory

G. Dumézil has postulated the existence of a structural difference in level between the Indo-European gods of beginning and ending and the other gods who fall into a tripartite structure, reflecting the most ancient organization of society. So in Indo-European religions there is an introducer god (as Vedic Vâyu and Roman Janus) and a god of ending, a nurturer goddess and a genie of fire (as Vedic Saraswati and Agni, Avestic Armaiti, Anâitâ and Roman Vesta) who show a sort of mutual solidarity.

The concept of 'god of ending' is defined in connection to the human referential, i.e. the current situation of man in the universe, and not to endings as transitions, which are under the jurisdiction of the gods of beginning owing to the ambivalent nature of the concept. Thus the god of beginning is not structurally reducible to a sovereign god, nor the goddess of ending to any of the three categories on to which the goddesses are distributed.

There is though a greater degree of fuzziness concerning the function and role of goddesses, which may have formed a preexisting structure allowing the absorption of the local Mediterrenean mother goddesses, nurturers and protectresses.

As a consequence the position of the gods of beginning would not be the issue of a diachronic process of debasement undergone by a supreme uranic god, but rather a structural feature inherent to their theology.

The fall of uranic primordial gods into the condition of deus otiosus is a well-known phenomenon in the history of religions. Mircea Eliade gave a positive evaluation of Dumezil's views and of the results in comparative research on Indo-European religions achieved in Tarpeia even though he himself in many of his works observed and discussed the phenomenon of the fall of uranic deities in numerous societies of ethnologic interest.

The figure of the Indo-European initial god (Vâyu, Vayu, Mainyu, Janus) may open the sacrifice (Vâyu and Janus), preside over the start of the voyage of the soul after death (Iranian Vayu), "stand at the opening of the drama of the moral history of the world" (the Zoroastrian Mainyus). They may have a double moral connotation, perhaps due to the cosmic alternation of light and darkness, as is apparent in the case of Zoroastrianism.

The Triad

The Archaic Triad, also known as the Capitoline Triad, was a group of three supreme deities who were worshipped in an elaborate temple on Rome's Capitoline Hill, the Capitolium. It is a theological structure (or system) consisting of the gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. It was first described by Wissowa, and the concept was developed further by Dumézil.

Two distinct Capitoline Triads were worshipped at various times in Rome's history, both originating in ancient traditions predating the Roman Republic. The early triad, sometimes referred to in modern scholarship as the Archaic Triad, consisted of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus and was Indo-European in origin, while the one most commonly referred to as the "Capitoline Triad" is the more recent of the two, consisting of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva and drawing on Etruscan mythology.

Unlike the earlier Archaic Triad, which was fairly typical of a trio of supreme divine beings, this grouping of a male god and two goddesses was highly unusual in ancient Indo-European religions. It is almost certainly derived from the Etruscan trio of Tinia, the supreme deity, Uni, his wife, and Menrva, their daughter and the goddess of wisdom.

The three-function hypothesis of Indo-European society advanced by Dumézil holds that in prehistory, society was divided into three classes (priests, warriors and craftsmen) which had as their religious counterparts the divine figures of the sovereign god, the warrior god and the civil god.

The three functions are interrelated with one another, overlapping to some extent; the sovereign function, although essentially religious in nature, is involved in many ways in areas pertaining to the other two. Therefore, Jupiter is the "magic player" in the founding of the Roman state and the fields of war, agricultural plenty, human fertility and welth.

Jupiter was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.

The sovereign function (embodied by Jupiter) entailed omnipotence; thence, a domain extended over every aspect of nature and life. Sovereignty is expressed through the two aspects of absolute, magic power (epitomised and represented by the Vedic god Varuna) and lawful right (by the Vedic god Mitra). However, sovereignty permits action in every field; otherwise, it would lose its essential quality. The colour relating to the sovereign function is white.

The Aventine Triad (also referred to as the plebeian Triad or the agricultural Triad) is a modern term for the joint cult of the Roman deities Ceres, Liber and Libera. The cult was established ca. 493 BC within a sacred district (templum) on or near the Aventine Hill, traditionally associated with the Roman plebs. Later accounts describe the temple building and rites as "Greek" in style.

Some modern historians describe the Aventine Triad as a plebeian parallel and self-conscious antithesis to the archaic Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus and the later Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Minerva and Juno. The Aventine Triad, temple and associated ludi (games and theatrical performances) served as a focus of plebeian identity, sometimes in opposition to Rome's original ruling elite, the patricians.

The Aventine relationship between Ceres, Liber and Libera was probably based first on their functions as agricultural and fertility deities of the plebs as a distinct social group.

Etruscan religion

The Bronze liver of Piacenza; visceral side

The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be manifestations of divine power, and that power was embodied in deities who acted continually on the world but could be dissuaded or persuaded by mortal men.

The Etruscans believed their religion had been revealed to them by seers, the two main ones being Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and was immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure.

The Etruscans believed in intimate contact with divinity. They did nothing without proper consultation with the gods and signs from them. These practices were taken over in total by the Romans.

The Etruscan scriptures were a corpus of texts termed the Etrusca Disciplina. This name appears in Valerius Maximus, and Marcus Tullius Cicero refers to a disciplina in his writings on the subject.

The Etruscans appear to have had no systematic ethics or religion and no great visions. The Etruscans accepted the inscrutability of their gods' wills. They did not attempt to rationalize or explain divine actions or formulate any doctrines of the gods' intentions.

As answer to the problem of ascertaining the divine will, they developed an elaborate system of divination; that is, they believed the gods offer a perpetual stream of signs in the phenomena of daily life, which if read rightly can direct man's affairs. These revelations may not be otherwise understandable and may not be pleasant or easy, but are perilous to doubt.

In the time of the Etruscans there are many gods, each god had a different meaning. The Romans believed in those gods and worshipped them. A god was called an ais (later eis), which in the plural is aisar. The abode of a god was a fanu or luth, a sacred place, such as a favi, a grave or temple. There, one would need to make a fler (plural flerchva), or "offering".

The Greek Adōnis was a borrowing from the Semitic word adon, “lord”, which is related to Adonai, one of the names used to refer to the God in the Hebrew Bible and still used in Judaism to the present day. Syrian Adonis is Gauas or Aos, to Egyptian Osiris, to the Semitic Tammuz and Baal Hadad, to the Etruscan Atunis and the Phrygian Attis, all of whom are deities of rebirth and vegetation.

Around the mun or muni, or tombs, was the man or mani (Latin Manes), which was the souls of the ancestors. In iconography after the 5th century BC, the deceased are shown traveling to the underworld. In several instances of Etruscan art, such as in the François Tomb in Vulci, a spirit of the dead is identified by the term hinthial, literally "(one who is) underneath".

Mantus was the god of the underworld and husband of Mania, the goddess of the dead, in both Etruscan and Roman mythology. They liked the city of Mantua, which may have got its name from Mantus. Mania ruled with Mantus and was the mother of the Lares, Manes, ghosts, and other spirits of the night.

Aita, also Eita, was the god of the underworld and ruler of the dead, like the Greek Hades and Greco-Roman Pluto, while Charun, also Karun, was a demon who tortured dead souls in the underworld, as well as the guardian of the entrance to the underworld.

Charun, or Karun, was often painted as a blue monster with a vulture's nose, pointed ears, red hair, and feathered wings, and killed people with a hammer, or sometimes an axe. He was also sometimes painted as a man with red hair and a beard. He tortured dead souls in the underworld, as well as the guardian of the entrance to the underworld.

He was the same as the Greek God Charon, the ferryman of Hades. Charon was the son of Erebos and Nyx. He took the newly dead people across the river Acheron to the Greek underworld, if they paid him three obolus (a Greek silver coin). Because of this, people in Ancient Greece were always buried with a coin under their tongue and one on each eye to pay Charon. Those who could not pay him had to wander the banks of the Acheron for one hundred years.

Three layers of deities are portrayed in Etruscan art. One appears to be lesser divinities of an indigenous origin: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris, Thalna, Turms and the god Fufluns, whose name is related in some unknown way to the city of Populonia and the Populus Romanus.

Ruling over them were higher deities that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. Tinia, shortened to Tins, was the main Etruscan god, the ruler of the skies, husband of Uni, and father of Hercle. He is similar to the Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter.

Uni, the main goddess of the Etruscan pantheon, was wife of Tinia, mother of Hercle, and protector of Perugia. Uni was the same as the Roman Juno, whose name Uni may be derived from, and the Greek Hera. The Etruscans venerated the twins as Kastur and Pultuce, collectively the Tinas Cliniiaras, “Sons of Tinia,” the Etruscan counterpart of Zeus.

As a third layer, the Greek gods were adopted by the Etruscan system during the Etruscan Orientalizing Period of 750/700-600 BC. Examples are Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva; Latin equivalent of Athena), and Pacha (Bacchus; Latin equivalent of Dionysus), and over time the primary trinity became Tinia, Uni and Menrva.

The Senate adopted key elements of their religion, which were perpetuated by haruspices and noble Roman families who claimed Etruscan descent, long after the general population had forgotten the language.

In the last years of the Roman Republic the religion began to fall out of favor and was satirized by such notable public figures as Marcus Tullius Cicero. The Julio-Claudians, especially Claudius, who claimed a remote Etruscan descent, maintained knowledge of the language and religion for a short time longer, but this practice soon ceased.

Long after the assimilation of the Etruscans, Seneca the Younger said that the difference between the Romans and the Etruscans was that whereas we believe lightning to be released as a result of the collision of clouds, they believe that the clouds collide so as to release lightning: for as they attribute all to deity, they are led to believe not that things have a meaning insofar as they occur, but rather that they occur because they must have a meaning.

A number of canonical works in the Etruscan language survived until the middle of the first millennium AD, but were destroyed by the ravages of time and by Christian elements in Roman society.

Cel

Caelus is depicted near the top of this ivory-carved cuirass,

counterposed to Earth at the bottom

Ani was the god of the sky who lived in the highest level of the heavens, and the god of passage. His female counterpart (similar person) was Ana. Ani was like the Etruscan version of the Latin god Janus, because he was similarly a two-faced god. His name may be linked to the Roman god Janus.

It has long been believed that Janus was present among the theonyms on the outer rim of the Piacenza Liver in case 3 under the name of Ani. This fact created a problem as the god of beginnings looked to be located in a situation other than the initial, i.e. the first case.

After the new readings proposed by A. Maggiani, in case 3 one should read TINS: the difficulty has thus dissolved. Ani has thence been eliminated from Etruscan theology as this was his only attestation. Maggiani remarks that this earlier identification was in contradiction with the testimony ascribed to Varro by Johannes Lydus that Janus was named caelum among the Etruscans.

The Piacenza liver is a striking conceptual parallel to clay models of sheep's livers known from the Ancient Near East, reinforcing the evidence of a connection between the Etruscans and the Anatolian cultural sphere. A Babylonian clay model of a sheep's liver dated to the Middle Bronze Age is preserved in the British Museum.

Culsans was a two-headed Etruscan god of doorways, doors, and death, same as the two-faced Roman god Janus and Portunes of Roman Mythology, and in fact the Romans appropriated him via Interpretatio Romana. But there are, however, a few distinct differences, that would likely matter to an ancient Etruscan.

Culsans is, like many Etruscan deities, a god of the underworld, and thus may have other death-themed powers and responsibilities, Culsans' two heads are always both presented as youthful, whereas the two heads of Janus are depicted as one youthful and one aged, and Culsans is often accompanied by his scissors-toting, bare-breasted companion Culsu.

Culsu, also Cul, is a Etruscan goddess associated with gateways and death. She appears as a topless winged woman carrying a torch and scissors. Her name means "She Who Coils". As with many Etruscan deities, she has wings, presides over death or the underworld, and has an unexplained association with snakes ("she who coils").

Most of the Etruscan religion and mythology was lost long ago, along with their language and culture, so we don't really know a lot about Culsu, but she is often referred to as a demon by scholars, and in haruspicy (augury), she presides over certain ill omens.

She stood at the gates of the underworld, with her partner Culsans, and she was often painted next to Culsans, whom the Romans decided was also the figure they knew as Janus. The nature of their relationship is poorly understood, but they seem to possibly guard the gates of the underworld together.

Cel, also Cilens or Celens, named either Ati Cel ("Father Earth") or Apa Cel ("Mother Earth"), was an Etruscan Earth god. On the Etruscan calendar, the month of Celi (September) is likely named for her. Her Greek counterpart is Gaia and her Roman is Tellus. Cel appears on the Liver of Piacenza, a bronze model of a liver marked for the Etruscan practice of haruspicy. She is placed in House 13.

In Etruscan mythology, Cel was the mother of the Giants. In Greek, "giant" comes from a word meaning "born from Gaia." A bronze mirror from the 5th century BC depicts a theomachy in which Celsclan, "son of Cel," is a Giant attacked by Laran, the god of war. Another mirror depicts anguiped Giants in the company of a goddess, possibly Cel, whose lower body is formed of vegetation.

In a sanctuary near Lake Trasimeno were found five votive bronze statuettes, some male and some female, dedicated to her as Cel Ati, "Mother Cel." The inscription on each reads mi celś atial celthi, "I [belong to, have been given] to Cel the mother, here [in this sanctuary].”

In Norse mythology, Hel (Old Norse Hel, “Hidden”, from the word hel, “to conceal”), also known as Hella, Holle or Hulda, is a giantess and goddess in Norse mythology who rules over Helheim, the underworld where the dead dwell, which was known as Niflheim, or Helheim, the Kingdom of the Dead. The name Hel, quite literally means “one that hides” or “one who covers up.”

Hel was the daughter of Loki and a giantess. Her siblings are the wolf Fenrir and the snake Jormungand. She was half alive, half dead. Half of her face is beautiful, reminiscent of her father, while the other half is ugly and difficult to look at like her mother. She is described as half white/half blue, or half living/half rotten.

The old Old Norse word Hel derives from Proto-Germanic *khalija, which means “one who covers up or hides something”, which itself derives from Proto-Indo-European *kel-, meaning “conceal”. The ethnonym Celts probably stems from the Indo-European root *kel- or *(s)kel-, but there are several such roots of various meanings: *kel- “to be prominent”, *kel- “to drive or set in motion”, *kel- “to strike or cut”, etc.

The cognate in English is the word Hell which is from the Old English forms hel and helle. Related terms are Old Frisian, helle, German Hölle and Gothic halja. Other words more distantly related include hole, hollow, hall, helmet and cell, all from the aforementioned Indo-European root *kel-.

The word Hel is found in Norse words and phrases related to death such as Helför (“Hel-journey,” a funeral) and Helsótt (“Hel-sickness,” a fatal illness). The Norwegian word “heilag/hellig” which means “sacred” is directly related etymologically to the name “Hel”, and the same goes for the English word “holy”.

Both Hel and Heimdallr are strongly connected to the rune Haglaz or Hagalaz (Hag-all-az) – literally: “Hail” or “Hailstone” – Esoteric: Crisis or Radical Change. Interesting enough to notice that “heil” is also a name of this rune when it has a protection aspect, as heil/heilag comes from Hel, and the word “heil” was also found in the “Heil og Sæl” (an old norse way to greet which means “to good health and happiness”).

The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the h-rune ᚺ, meaning “Hag-all-az” – Literally: “Hail” or “Hailstone”. In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, it is continued as hægl and in the Younger Futhark as ᚼ hagall. The corresponding Gothic letter is h, named hagl.

Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from sleet, though the two are often confused for one another It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Sleet falls generally in cold weather while hail growth is greatly inhibited at cold temperatures.

Hail shocks you with stinging hardness (confrontation) then it melts into water which creates germination of seeds (transformation). The ancients describe hail as a grain rather than as ice, thus creating a metaphor for a deeper truth of life. It contains the seed of all the other runic energies and this can be seen in its other form, a six-fold snowflake. Spiritual awakening often comes from times of deep crisis.

Caelus

Caelus or Coelus was a primal god of the sky in Roman myth and theology, iconography, and literature (compare caelum, the Latin word for “sky” or “the heavens”, hence English “celestial”). The deity’s name usually appears in masculine grammatical form when he is conceived of as a male generative force, but the neuter form Caelum is also found as a divine personification.

The name of Caelus indicates that he was the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Uranus, meaning “sky” or “heaven”), who was the primal Greek god personifying the sky and of major importance in the theogonies of the Greeks. Varro couples him with Terra (Earth) as pater and mater (father and mother), and says that they are “great deities” (dei magni) in the theology of the mysteries at Samothrace.

In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father.

Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods, but no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky and Styx might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic.

Although Caelus is not known to have had a cult at Rome, not all scholars consider him a Greek import given a Latin name; he has been associated with Summanus, the god of nocturnal thunder, as “purely Roman.”

Caelus begins to appear regularly in Augustan art and in connection with the cult of Mithras during the Imperial era. Vitruvius includes him among celestial gods whose temple-buildings (aedes) should be built open to the sky. As a sky god, he became identified with Jupiter, as indicated by an inscription that reads Optimus Maximus Caelus Aeternus Iup<pi>ter.

According to Cicero and Hyginus, Caelus was the son of Aether and Dies (“Day” or “Daylight”). Caelus and Dies were in this tradition the parents of Mercury. Caelus, with Trivia (equated with the Greek Hecate) was the father of the distinctively Roman god Janus, as well as of Saturn and Ops.

Caelus was also the father of one of the three forms of Jupiter, the other two fathers being Aether and Saturn. In one tradition, Caelus was the father with Tellus of the Muses, though was this probably a mere translation of Ouranos from a Greek source.

Caelus substituted for Uranus in Latin versions of the myth of Saturn (Cronus) castrating his heavenly father, from whose severed genitals, cast upon the sea, the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) was born.

In his work On the Nature of the Gods, Cicero presents a Stoic allegory of the myth in which the castration signifies “that the highest heavenly aether, that seed-fire which generates all things, did not require the equivalent of human genitals to proceed in its generative work.”

For Macrobius, the severing marks off Chaos from fixed and measured Time (Saturn) as determined by the revolving Heavens (Caelum). The semina rerum (“seeds” of things that exist physically) come from Caelum and are the elements which create the world.

The divine spatial abstraction Caelum is a synonym for Olympus as a metaphorical heavenly abode of the divine, both identified with and distinguished from the mountain in ancient Greece named as the home of the gods. Varro says that the Greeks call Caelum (or Caelus) “Olympus.”

As a representation of space, Caelum is one of the components of the mundus, the “world” or cosmos, along with terra (earth), mare (sea), and aer (air). In his work on the cosmological systems of antiquity, the Dutch Renaissance humanist Gerardus Vossius deals extensively with Caelus and his duality as both a god and a place that the other gods inhabit.

The ante-Nicene Christian writer Lactantius routinely uses the Latin theonyms Caelus, Saturn, and Jupiter to refer to the three divine hypostases of the Neoplatonic school of Plotinus: the First God (Caelus), Intellect (Saturn), and Soul, son of the Intelligible (Jupiter).

It is generally though not universally agreed that Caelus is depicted on the cuirass of the Augustus of Prima Porta, at the very top above the four horses of the Sun god’s quadriga. He is a mature, bearded man who holds a cloak over his head so that it billows in the form of an arch, a conventional sign of deity (velificatio) that “recalls the vault of the firmament.”

He is balanced and paired with the personification of Earth at the bottom of the cuirass. (These two figures have also been identified as Saturn and the Magna Mater, to represent the new Saturnian “Golden Age” of Augustan ideology.) On an altar of the Lares now held by the Vatican, Caelus in his chariot appears along with Apollo-Sol above the figure of Augustus.

Cybele, perhaps “Mountain Mother”, was an originally Anatolian mother goddess; she has a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatal höyük (in the Konya region) where the statue of a pregnant goddess seated on a lion throne was found in a granary.

She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its state deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread from there to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies from around the 6th century BCE.

As Caelus Nocturnus, he was the god of the night-time, starry sky. In a passage from Plautus, Nocturnus is regarded as the opposite of Sol, the Sun god. Nocturnus appears in several inscriptions found in Dalmatia and Italy, in the company of other deities who are found also in the cosmological schema of Martianus Capella, based on the Etruscan tradition.

In the Etruscan discipline of divination, Caelus Nocturnus was placed in the sunless north opposite Sol to represent the polar extremities of the axis. This alignment was fundamental to the drawing of a templum (sacred space) for the practice of augury.

The name Caelus occurs in dedicatory inscriptions in connection to the cult of Mithras. The Mithraic deity Caelus is sometimes depicted allegorically as an eagle bending over the sphere of heaven marked with symbols of the planets or the zodiac.

In a Mithraic context he is associated with Cautes, torch-bearers depicted attending the god Mithras in the icons of ancient Roman cult of Mithraism, known as Tauroctony, and can appear as Caelus Aeternus (“Eternal Sky”).

A form of Ahura-Mazda is invoked in Latin as Caelus Aeternus Iupiter. The walls of some mithrea feature allegorical depictions of the cosmos with Oceanus, s a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the divine personification of the World Ocean, an enormous river encircling the world, and Caelus.

The mithraeum, a place of worship for the followers of the mystery religion of Mithraism, of Dieburg represents the tripartite world with Caelus, Oceanus, and Tellus below Phaeton-Heliodromus.

Some Roman writers used Caelus or Caelum as a way to express the monotheistic god of Judaism. Juvenal identifies the Jewish god with Caelus as the highest heaven (summum caelum), saying that Jews worship the numen of Caelus; Petronius uses similar language.

Florus has a rather odd passage describing the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem as housing a “sky” (caelum) under a golden vine, which has been taken as an uncomprehending attempt to grasp the presence of the Jewish god.

A golden vine, perhaps the one mentioned, was sent by the Hasmonean king Aristobulus to Pompeius Magnus after his defeat of Jerusalem, and was later displayed in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

Apollo

Aplu was a Hurrian deity of the plague — bringing it, or, if propitiated, protecting from it — was widely invoked during the “plague years” during the reign of the Hittite king Suppiluliuma, when this disease spread from Egypt.

Aplu, it is suggested, comes from the Akkadian Aplu Enlil (Apal being the construct state of Aplu), meaning “the son of Enlil”, a title that was given to the god Nergal, a deity worshipped throughout Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia) with the main seat of his cult at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim.

Cautha, also Cath or Catha, was a Etruscan sun goddess, and the daughter of the sun. She was also a goddess of beginnings and the dawn, and was also shown rising from the ocean.

Nergal, amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal known as Aplu, was linked to Shamash, Babylonian god of the sun, and with the plague. Nergal actually seems to be in part a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only a representative of a certain phase of the sun.

Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle.

Nergal was also the deity who presides over the netherworld, and who stands at the head of the special pantheon assigned to the government of the dead (supposed to be gathered in a large subterranean cave known as Aralu or Irkalla).

In this capacity he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person. In some texts the god Ninazu is the son of Nergal and Allatu/Ereshkigal.

Ordinarily Nergal pairs with his consort Laz. Standard iconography pictured Nergal as a lion, and boundary-stone monuments symbolise him with a mace surmounted by the head of a lion.

In the late Babylonian astral-theological system Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks either to the combative demigod Heracles (Latin Hercules) or to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars) — hence the current name of the planet.

In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta (Nin Ur: God of War).

Ninurta in Sumerian and the Akkadian mythology of Assyria and Babylonia, was the god of Lagash, identified with Ningirsu with whom he may always have been identified. In older transliteration the name is rendered Ninib and Ninip, and in early commentary he was sometimes portrayed as a solar deity.

The cult of Ninurta can be traced back to the oldest period of Sumerian history. In the inscriptions found at Lagash he appears under his name Ningirsu, “the lord of Girsu”, Girsu being the name of a city where he was considered the patron deity.

Ninurta appears in a double capacity in the epithets bestowed on him, and in the hymns and incantations addressed to him. On the one hand he is a farmer and a healing god who releases humans from sickness and the power of demons; on the other he is the god of the South Wind as the son of Enlil, displacing his mother Ninlil who was earlier held to be the goddess of the South Wind. Enlil’s brother, Enki, was portrayed as Ninurta’s mentor from whom Ninurta was entrusted several powerful Mes, including the Deluge.

He remained popular under the Assyrians: two kings of Assyria bore the name Tukulti-Ninurta. Ashurnasirpal II (883—859 BCE) built him a temple in the then capital city of Kalhu (the Biblical Calah, now Nimrud). In Assyria, Ninurta was worshipped alongside the gods Aššur and Mulissu.

In the astral-theological system Ninurta was associated with the planet Saturn, or perhaps as offspring or an aspect of Saturn. In his capacity as a farmer-god, there are similarities between Ninurta and the Greek Titan Kronos, whom the Romans in turn identified with their Titan Saturn.

A number of scholars have suggested that either the god Ninurta or the Assyrian king bearing his name (Tukulti-Ninurta I) was the inspiration for the Biblical character Nimrod.

Nergal’s chief temple at Cuthah bore the name Meslam, from which the god receives the designation of Meslamtaeda or Meslamtaea, “the one that rises up from Meslam”. The name Meslamtaeda/Meslamtaea indeed is found as early as the list of gods from Fara while the name Nergal only begins to appear in the Akkadian period.

The cult of Nergal does not appear to have spread as widely as that of Ninurta, but in the late Babylonian and early Persian period, syncretism seems to have fused the two divinities, which were invoked together as if they were identical.

In the late neo-Babylonian and early Persian period, syncretism seems to have fused Ninurta’s character with that of Nergal. The two gods were often invoked together, and spoken of as if they were one divinity.

Hymns and votive and other inscriptions of Babylonian and Assyrian rulers frequently invoke him, but we do not learn of many temples to him outside of Cuthah.

The Assyrian king Sennacherib speaks of one at Tarbisu to the north of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, but significantly, although Nebuchadnezzar II (606 BC – 586 BC), the great temple-builder of the neo-Babylonian monarchy, alludes to his operations at Meslam in Cuthah, he makes no mention of a sanctuary to Nergal in Babylon.

Local associations with his original seat—Kutha—and the conception formed of him as a god of the dead acted in making him feared rather than actively worshipped.

Being a deity of the desert, god of fire, which is one of negative aspects of the sun, god of the underworld, and also being a god of one of the religions which rivaled Christianity and Judaism, Nergal was sometimes called a demon and even identified with Satan. According to Collin de Plancy and Johann Weyer, Nergal was depicted as the chief of Hell’s “secret police”, and worked as an “an honorary spy in the service of Beelzebub”.

Aplu resembles Apollo Smintheus, “mouse-Apollo” worshiped at Troy and Tenedos, who brought plague upon the Achaeans in answer to a Trojan prayer at the opening of Iliad.

All foundation myths about Hamaxitus in Classical Antiquity were related to the foundation of the nearby temple of Apollo Smintheus. The subject attracted much interest in Antiquity because in the opening of Homer’s Iliad the Trojan priest of Apollo, Chryses, addresses the god in the vocative as Σμινθεῦ (Smintheu, ‘O, Sminthian’) when imploring him to send a plague against the Greeks because Agamemnon had seized his daughter Chryseis and refused to ransom her.

The epithet Sminthos caused some confusion to Greek speakers since they did not recognize it as being Greek in origin, and attributed it to the Pelasgian or Mysian languages. The consonantal string -nth- (also found in place names such as Corinth) is considered by philologists to be non-Greek, and possibly Luwian, in origin. The passage of Homer gives no indication as to its meaning, and so myths about Apollo Smintheus primarily arose from attempts to aetiologize the epithet.

He may be related with Apaliunas who is considered to be the Hittite reflex of *Apeljōn, an early form of the name Apollo, which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot with Doric.

The form Apaliunas (dx-ap-pa-li-u-na-aš) is a theonym, attested in a Hittite language treaty as a tutelary of Wilusa, which is the city of Troy, in a treaty between Alaksandu of Wilusa and the Hittite great king Muwatalli II c. 1280 BCE. Alaksandu could be Paris-Alexander of Ilion, or Troya, whose name is Greek.

Apulu in Etruscan mythology is known as Apollo. In Homer, Apollo is the builder of the walls of Ilium, Troya, and a god on the Trojan side. Apaliunas is among the gods who guarantee the treaty, and one of the three deities named on the side of the city.

A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo “The One of Entrapment”, perhaps in the sense of “Hunter”. The Hittite testimony reflects an early form *Apeljōn, which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot Ἀπείλων with Doric Ἀπέλλων.

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.

As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god – the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague.

Amongst the god’s custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musegetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the 3rd century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, Titan god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, Titan goddess of the moon.

In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the 1st century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 3rd century CE.

Xoanon (kouros and kore)

The Roman statue of the Janus of the Argiletum, traditionally ascribed to Numa, was possibly very ancient, perhaps a sort of xoanon, like the Greek ones of the 8th century BC.

A xoanon (from the verb to carve or scrape [wood]) was an Archaic wooden cult image of Ancient Greece. Some types of archaic xoana may be reflected in archaic marble versions, such as the pillar-like “Hera of Samos”, the flat “Hera of Delos” or some archaic kouros-type figures that may have been used to represent Apollo.

A kouros is the modern term given to those representations of male youths which first appear in the Archaic period in Greece. The term kouros, meaning (male) youth, was first proposed for what were previously thought to be depictions of Apollo by V. I. Leonardos in 1895 in relation to the youth from Keratea, and adopted by Lechat as a generic term for the standing male figure in 1904. The female sculptural counterpart of the ‘kouros is the kore.

A kouros (plural kouroi), a beardless, athletic youth, is the modern term given to those representations of male youths which first appear in the Archaic period in Greece. The term kouros, meaning (male) youth, was first proposed for what were previously thought to be depictions of Apollo by V. I. Leonardos in 1895 in relation to the youth from Keratea, and adopted by Lechat as a generic term for the standing male figure in 1904.

Such statues are found across the Greek-speaking world, the preponderance of these were found in sanctuaries of Apollo with more than one hundred from the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios, Boeotia, alone. They are typically life-sized, though early colossal examples are up to 3 meters tall. The female sculptural counterpart of the ‘kouros is the kore.

Equivalents

The ancient Greeks, who called him Ιανός (Ianós), had no equivalent to Janus, whom the Romans claimed as distinctively their own. Modern scholars, however, have identified analogous figures in the pantheons of the Near East. Isimud is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki in Sumerian mythology. He is readily identifiable by the fact that he possesses two faces looking in opposite directions.

Janus-like heads of gods related to Hermes, an Olympian god in Greek religion and mythology, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia and the second youngest of the Olympian gods, have been found in Greece, perhaps suggesting a compound god.

Hermes is a god of transitions and boundaries. He is quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of the gods, intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife.

He is protector and patron of travelers, herdsmen, thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, invention and trade. In some myths he is a trickster, and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or the sake of humankind.

His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster and the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and his main symbol is the herald’s staff, the Greek Kerykeion or Latin Caduceus, which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff.

In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon Hermes is identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.

In Hinduism the image of double or four faced gods is quite common, as it is a symbolic depiction of the divine power of seeing through space and time. Other analogous or comparable deities of the prima in Indoeuropean religions have been analysed by G. Dumézil. They include the Indian goddess Aditi who is called two faced as she is the one who starts and concludes ceremonies, and Scandinavian god Heimdallr.

The theological features of Heimdallr look similar to Janus’s: both in space and time he stands at the limits. His abode is at the limits of Earth, at the extremity of the Heaven, he is the protector of the gods; his birth is at the beginning of time, he is the forefather of mankind, the generator of classes and the founder of the social order.

Nonetheless he is inferior to sovereign god Oðinn: the Minor Völuspá defines his relationship to Oðinn almost with the same terms as which Varro defines that of Janus, god of the prima to Jupiter, god of the summa: Heimdallr is born as the firstborn (primigenius, var einn borinn í árdaga), Oðinn is born as the greatest (maximus, var einn borinn öllum meiri).

Analogous Iranian formulae are to be found in an Avestic gāthā (Gathas). In other towns of ancient Latium the function of presiding on beginnings was probably performed by other deities of feminine sex, notably the Fortuna Primigenia of Praeneste.

Oannes

William Betham argued that the cult arrived from the Middle East and that Janus corresponds to the Baal-ianus or Belinus of the Chaldeans sharing a common origin with the Oannes of Berosus, the name given by the Babylonian writer Berossus in the 3rd century BCE to a mythical being who taught mankind wisdom.

Berossus describes Oannes as having the body of a fish but underneath the figure of a man. He is described as dwelling in the Persian Gulf, and rising out of the waters in the daytime and furnishing mankind instruction in writing, the arts and the various sciences. Oannes and the Semitic god Dagon were considered identical.

The name “Oannes” was once conjectured to be derived from that of the ancient Babylonian god Ea, but it is now known that the name is the Greek form of the Babylonian Uanna (or Uan) a name used for Adapa, the first of the Mesopotamian seven sages, in texts from the Library of Ashurbanipal.

Adapa, the first of the Mesopotamian seven sages, was a mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality. The story is first attested in the Kassite period (14th century BCE), in fragmentary tablets from Tell el-Amarna, and from Assur, of the late second millennium BCE. Mesopotamian myth tells of seven antediluvian sages, who were sent by Ea, the wise god of Eridu, to bring the arts of civilisation to humankind.

The first of these, Adapa, also known as Uan, the name given as Oannes by Berossus, introduced the practice of the correct rites of religious observance as priest of the E’Apsu temple, at Eridu.

The sages are described in Mesopotamian literature as ‘pure parādu-fish, probably carp, whose bones are found associated with the earliest shrine, and still kept as a holy duty in the precincts of Near Eastern mosques and monasteries.

Adapa as a fisherman was iconographically portrayed as a fish-man composite. The word Abgallu, sage (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = man, Sumerian) survived into Nabatean times, around the 1st century, as apkallum, used to describe the profession of a certain kind of priest.

Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians.

Enki were apparently depicted, sometimes, as a man covered with the skin of a fish, and this representation, as likewise the name of his temple E-apsu, “house of the watery deep”, points decidedly to his original character as a god of the waters. Around the excavation of the 18 shrines found on the spot, thousands of carp bones were found, consumed possibly in feasts to the god.

The pool of the Abzu at the front of his temple was adopted also at the temple to Nanna (Akkadian Sin) the Moon, at Ur, and spread from there throughout the Middle East. It is believed to remain today as the sacred pool at Mosques, or as the holy water font in Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches.

The main temple to Enki is called E-abzu, meaning “abzu temple” (also E-en-gur-a, meaning “house of the subterranean waters”), a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu. He was the keeper of the divine powers called Me, the gifts of civilization. His image is a double-helix snake, or the Caduceus, very similar to the Rod of Asclepius used to symbolize medicine. He is often shown with the horned crown of divinity dressed in the skin of a carp.

In the story Enki and the Making of Man Enki advises that the gods create a servant of the Gods, humankind, out of clay and blood. Against Enki’s wish the Gods decide to slay Kingu, and Enki finally consents to use Kingu’s blood to make the first human, with whom Enki always later has a close relationship, the first of the seven sages, seven wise men or “Abgallu” (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = Man), also known as Adapa.

Adapa, the first man fashioned, later goes and acts as the advisor to the King of Eridu, when in the Sumerian Kinglist, the “Me” of “kingship descends on Eridu”.

Khaldi

Ḫaldi (Ḫaldi, also known as Khaldi or Hayk) of Ardini, meaning “sun rising” or to “awake”, also known as Muṣaṣir, which means Exit of the Serpent/Snake in Akkadian, was a warrior god whom the kings of Ararat (Urartu) would pray to for victories in battle. Scholars such as Carl Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt (1910) believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after their god Khaldi.

Khaldi formed part of a triad along with the Urartian weather-god, Theispas (also known as Teisheba or Teišeba) of Kumenu, notably the god of storms and thunder, and the solar god Shivini or Artinis of Tushpa, later becoming known as Van which is derived from Biaina the native name of Urartu, who is depicted as a man on his knees, holding up a solar disc.

Khaldi is portrayed as a man with or without a beard, standing on a lion, while Theispas, the counterpart to the Assyrian god Adad and the Hurrian god Teshub, often was depicted as a man standing on a bull, holding a handful of thunderbolts. His wife was the goddess Arubani, the Urartian’s goddess of fertility and art, while the wife of Teshub was the goddess Huba, who was the counterpart of the Hurrian goddess Hebat. The ancient Araratian cities of Teyseba and Teishebaini were named after Theispas.

While the temples dedicated to Khaldi were adorned with weapons, such as swords, spears, bow and arrows, and shields hung off the walls and were sometimes known as ‘the house of weapons’, Shivini is generally considered a good god, like that of the Egyptian solar god, Aten, and unlike the solar god of the Assyrians, Ashur to whom sometimes human sacrifices were made.

The Hurrian myth of Teshub’s origin – he was conceived when the god Kumarbi bit off and swallowed his father Anu’s genitals, as such it most likely shares a Proto-Indo-European cognate with the Greek story of Uranus (Caelus), Cronus (Saturn), and Zeus (Jupiter), which is recounted in Hesiod’s Theogony.

Kali

Kālī, also known as Kālikā, is the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, shakti. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death: Shiva. Since Shiva is called Kāla – the eternal time — the name of Kālī, his consort, also means “Time” or “Death” (as in “time has come”). Hence, Kāli is the Goddess of Time and Change.

Other names include Kāla rātri (“black night”), as described above, and Kālikā (“relating to time”). Coburn notes that the name Kālī can be used as a proper name, or as a description of color.

Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation of evil forces still has some influence. Various Shakta Hindu cosmologies, as well as Shākta Tantric beliefs, worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman.

She is also revered as Bhavatārini (literally “redeemer of the universe”). Comparatively recent devotional movements largely conceive Kāli as a benevolent mother goddess. Kālī is represented as the consort of Lord Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing. Shiva lies in the path of Kali, whose foot on Shiva subdues her anger.

Kali is the fierce aspect of the Great Goddess, also known as Maha Devi or Durga, a term used to denote the Goddess or Devi that is the sum of all other Devis – an all encompassing Female Deity as the consort or complement to an all encompassing Male Deity (Deva) or the Ultimate Reality (Brahman) in Shaktism.

Kālī is the feminine form of kālam (“black, dark coloured”). Kāla primarily means “time” but also means “black” in honor of being the first creation before light itself. Kālī means “the black one” and refers to her being the entity of “time” or “beyond time.”

Kāli is strongly associated with Shiva, and Shaivas derive the masculine Kāla (an epithet of Shiva) to come from her feminine name. A nineteenth-century Sanskrit dictionary, the Shabdakalpadrum, states: “Shiva is Kāla, thus, his consort is Kāli” referring to Devi Parvathi being a manifestation of Devi Maha Kali.

Kāli’s association with darkness stands in contrast to her consort, Shiva, who manifested after her in creation, and who symbolises the rest of creation after Time is created. In his supreme awareness of Maya, his body is covered by the white ashes of the cremation ground (Sanskrit: śmaśāna) where he meditates, and with which Kāli is also associated, as śmaśāna-kālī.

It is said that aspirants who wish to offer Bhakthi should approach under the proper guidance of a Siddha or equivalent. Chanting her mantras from anywhere would cause unknown effects.

Maha Devi is often identified with a specific Goddess, the most common being Durga or Adi Parashakti, Parvati, Kali or Mahakali. Adi Parashakti or Mahadevi, the Supreme power, is called Durga Shakti as per Devi-Mahatmya.

Parvati, known as the motherly form of Mother Goddess Gauri Jagadamba, is another form of Shakti, and the gentle aspect of Maha Devi or Durga, the Great Goddess. She is considered to be a complete incarnation of Adi Parashakti or Goddess Durga, with all other Goddesses being her incarnations or manifestations.

Parvati is nominally the second consort of Shiva, the Hindu God of destruction and rejuvenation. However, she is not different from Sati, being the reincarnation of Shiva’s first wife.

Shakti (from Sanskrit shak, “to be able”), meaning “Power” or “empowerment,” is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. In Shaktism and Shaivism, Shakti is worshipped as the Supreme Being. Shakti embodies the active feminine energy of Shiva and is identified as Mahadevi or Parvati.

Shakti is the concept, or personification, of divine feminine creative power, sometimes referred to as The Great Divine Mother in Hinduism. On the earthly plane, shakti most actively manifests through female embodiment and creativity/fertility, though it is also present in males in its potential, unmanifest form.

Not only is Shakti responsible for creation, it is also the agent of all change. Shakti is cosmic existence as well as liberation, its most significant form being the Kundalini Shakti, a mysterious psychospiritual force. Shakti exists in a state of svātantrya, dependence on no one, being interdependent with the entire universe.

Shiva, meaning “The Auspicious One”, also known as Parameshwara, or “Supreme God”, and Mahadeva, or “Great God”, is a popular Hindu deity. Shiva is regarded as one of the primary forms of God. He is the Supreme God within Shaivism, one of the three most influential denominations in Hinduism.

He is one of the five primary forms of God in the Smarta tradition, and “the Destroyer” or “the Transformer” among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.

At the highest level Shiva is limitless, transcendent, unchanging and formless. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash, as well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya, or as the Cosmic Dancer. In fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also regarded as the patron god of yoga and arts.

The main iconographical attributes of Shiva are the third eye on his forehead, a snake around his neck, the crescent moon adorning, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the trishula as his weapon and the damaru as his instrument.