Janiculum

“ But in spite of all the Romans could do, Lars Porsenna reached the Janiculum, and storming the heights, drove the Roman soldiers down the hill toward the river. His men pursued the fugitives, who seemed to think of nothing save their own safety. ”

“ Only one who, like the poet, has looked down from the Janiculum on the "pictured form" of the Eternal City, who has felt the wonder of her grandeur and the immortal loveliness of her decay, can fully realize how exquisitely, how subtly her charm pervades each word of the poet's Ave. The essential spirit of Rome is there—of that Rome who is as truly Mistress of the World to-day, in her empire over men's hearts, as when of old she ruled their lives. ”

“ Is it Janus, the founder of the Janiculum, and Saturn, the author of the Saturnian state? Is it Fauna Fatua, [1] the wife of Faunus, who is called the Good Goddess, but who is better and more deserving of praise in the drinking of wine? ”

“ A mist must have hidden the stars in the firmament; the vault above seemed opaque and heavy like lead; and yonder in front the houses of the Trastevere had long since been asleep. Not one of all their windows glittered; there was but a single gaslight shining, all alone and far away, like a lost spark. In vain did Pierre seek the Janiculum. In the depths of that ocean of nihility all sunk and vanished, Rome’s four and twenty centuries, the ancient Palatine and the modern Quirinal, even the giant dome of St. Peter’s, blotted out from the sky by the flood of gloom. ”

“ The obvious advantages of dwelling above the crammed and stifling valleys naturally brought the hills, in time, from the princely and fashionable Palatine, almost wholly in the hands of the powerful and wealthy classes. The Janiculum, as a suburban mount, was greatly lacking in the noble buildings and ancient traditions which clothed the urban seven. ”

“ According to the general tradition, the Etruscans are suddenly seen on the Janiculum, and the Romans flee across the river. The poem does not even speak of the conquest of the Janiculum; but the Etruscan army appears at once on the banks of the Tiber, ready to pass the pons Sublicius. Here three Roman heroes stand against them; Horatius Cocles, Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius,—in all likelihood a personification of the three tribes. These resist whilst the Romans are breaking down the bridge ”

“ His fame among Romanists outside Rome was unbounded; every distinguished visitor rushed from the station to get an introduction to the recluse of Janiculum; the Pope himself was a little tried by the zeal of visitors who imagined that His Holiness enjoyed nothing better than discussing the labors, the illness, and the modesty of the Cathedral Builder of China. English Catholics and American Catholics and Belgian Catholics who did not understand the exquisite subtlety of these matters and should let them alone, kept crying: Why isn't something being done for him? ”

“ The condition of restoring their territory to the Veientians was obtained by him, and the necessity of giving hostages in case they wished the garrison to be withdrawn from the Janiculum was extorted from the Romans. Peace being concluded on these terms, Porsena drew his troops out of the Janiculum, and marched out of the Roman territories. The fathers gave Mucius, as a reward of his valour, lands on the other side of the Tiber, which were afterwards called the Mucian meadows. By this honour paid to valour the women were excited to merit public distinctions. ”

“ They saw the gladiators forming themselves into a sepa [pg 19] rate band, on the slopes of the Janiculum, with a senator's robe distinct among the dark gray tunics.
Catiline and his clients were not a hundred paces distant from Cicero, and the assembled nobles. They had halted! Their hands were busy in the bosom of their gowns, griping the hilts of their assassin's tools! ”

“ Jānus, the most ancient king who reigned in Italy. He was a native of Thessaly, and son of Apollo, according to some. He came to Italy, where he planted a colony and built a small town on the river Tiber, which he called Janiculum. Some authors make him son of Cœlus and Hecate; and others make him a native of Athens. During his reign, Saturn, driven from heaven by his son Jupiter, came to Italy, where Janus received him with much hospitality, and made him his colleague on the throne. ”

“ In the latter, although the Romans gained only a slight advantage, the soldiers recovered something of their old courage and were better prepared for future campaigns. The next consuls were A. Verginius and Sp. Servilius. After their defeat in the last battle, the Veientines declined an engagement. There were forays. From the Janiculum as from a citadel they made raids in all directions on the Roman territory; nowhere were the cattle or the country-folk safe. They were ultimately caught by the same stratagem by which they had caught the Fabii. ”

“ Three several armies, to meet which there is not one legion on this side of Cisalpine Gaul! What, then, even if all were peace in Rome, what then could stand against us? But there shall be that done here, here in the very seat and heart, as I may say, of Empire, that shall dismay and paralyse all who would else oppose us. Cethegus, when the centuries are all assembled in the field of Mars, with fifteen hundred gladiators well armed and exercised even now, sets on the guard in the Janiculum, and beats their standard down. ”

“ So Claudius was led out, and the first to be asked his opinion was Father Janus: he had been made consul elect for the afternoon of the next first of July, [9] being as shrewd a man as you could find on a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and behind [10] . He made an eloquent harangue, because his life was passed in the forum, but too fast for the notary to take down. That is why I give no full report of it, for I don't want to change the words he used. He said a great deal of the majesty of the gods, and how the honour ought not to be given away to every Tom, Dick, or Harry. ”

“ The little building, half arch, half shrine, which you observe standing free where the roads converge upon the Forum, is the famous sanctuary of Janus, of which the doors are never shut unless there is complete peace throughout the Roman world. So long as Rome is anywhere engaged in a great or little war, the open doors of Janus tell the fact to a people which might otherwise be unconscious of so slight or remote a circumstance. ”

“ Januarius,” who always comes in for a large share of their veneration; and this morning having heard that the Neapolitans still present each other with a cake upon New-year’s day, I began to hug my favourite hypothesis closer, recollecting the old ceremony of the wheaten cake seasoned with salt, and called Janualis in the Heathen days. All this however must still end in mere conjecture; for though the weather here favours one’s idea of Janus, who loosened the furrow and liquefied the frost, to which the melting our martyr’s blood might, without much straining of the matter, be made to allude ”

“ Gate of Sto. Spirito—Church, Convent, and Garden of S. Onofrio—The Lungara—Palazzo Salviati and the Botanic-Garden—S. Giovanni alla Lungara—Palazzo Corsini—The Farnesina—Porta Settimiana—S. Pietro in Montorio—Fontana Paolina—Villa Lante—Porta and Church of S. Pancrazio—Villa Doria-Pamfili—Chapel of St. Andrew's Head.
THE Janiculan is a steep crest of hill which rises abruptly on the west bank of the Tiber, and breaks imperceptibly away on the other side into the Campagna towards Civita Vecchia. ”

“ The Jansenists indignantly denied that such propositions were to be found in the Augustinus, and that they expressed the sense attributed to them; but Alexander VII., who was now the reigning Pope, declared, by a bull, that the propositions were really to be found in Jansenius’ book. Of all the extravagant pretensions of the Roman See, this was assuredly the greatest. The Jansenists, in their defence, while they declared themselves good and devout Catholics, asserted, nevertheless, that the Pope’s infallibility did not extend to matters of fact. “Why make such a noise?” ”

“ What, then, is the result the writers of Janus arrive at as to their own position? "Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its chief pastor—that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are "identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from these premises that Janus excludes himself from this "centre of unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage? ”

“ Every man ought thus to say to himself I am nominating a consul who is to cope with the general Hannibal. In the present year, at Capua, when Jubellius Taurea, the most expert horseman of the Campanians, gave a challenge, Claudius Asellus, the most expert among the Roman horsemen, was pitted against him. Against the Gaul who at a former period gave a challenge on the bridge of the Amo, our ancestors sent Titus Manlius, a man of resolute courage and great strength. ”

“ And so these two lived many years in prosperity and unbroken concord. The daughter was married to a Lord, of the greatest worth in all Italy; and poor Janicola was furnished with an asylum at Court, where he lived near his daughter in peace and honour, till his spirit gently crept from his body, and returned to Him who gave it. The son succeeded to a peaceful government after his father had left his place. He was fortunate in his marriage, although he did not prove his wife in imitation of his father. The people of this world are not so strong as they were in days of yore ”

“ If there is any truth in this conjecture, it may explain very simply the origin of the double head of Janus, which has so long exercised the ingenuity of mythologists. When it had become customary to guard the entrance of houses and towns by an image of Janus, it might well be deemed necessary to make the sentinel god look both ways, before and behind, at the same time, in order that nothing should escape his vigilant eye. For if the divine watchman always faced in one direction, it is easy to imagine what mischief might have been wrought with impunity behind his back. ”

“ At least this appears to be a more probable theory than the opinion, which has found favour with some modern scholars, that Janus was originally nothing but the god of doors. That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the Romans revered as a god of gods and the father of his people, should have started in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable, doorkeeper appears very unlikely. So lofty an end hardly consorts with so lowly a beginning. ”

“ His two chief works are the Chronicon januense and the Golden Legend or Lombardica hystoria. The former is partly printed in Muratori (Scriptores Rer. Ital. ix. 6) . It is divided into twelve parts. The first four deal with the mythical history of Genoa from the time of its founder, Janus, the first king of Italy, and its enlarger, a second Janus “citizen of Troy”, till its conversion to Christianity “about twenty-five years after the passion of Christ.” Part v. professes to treat of the beginning, the growth and the perfection of the city ”

“ Janus, Jupiter, Father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, ye Novensiles and Indigetes, deities to whom belongs the power over us and over our foes, and ye, too, Divine Manes, I pray to you, I do you reverence, I crave your grace and favour that you will bless the Roman People, the Quirites, with power and victory, and visit the enemies of the Roman People, the Quirites, with fear and dread and death. ”

“ The attempts which have been made for three hundred years, and more, to create a fictitious foundation for the present constitution of the Catholic Church, and to brand it with the specious appellation of forgery—these inglorious attempts, we say, have in our days been renewed by Janus and his deluded admirers. If Janus hoped to strengthen his position by a novel method, we dare assert his signal failure—indeed, our enemies have secured a poor and feeble leader. ”

“ They are men of one mind and both creatures of that treacherous King of Naples. If Janus had had more wit, he would have left Gioan Peres Fabrici to this day, bargaining for his cargoes of grain, instead of naming him to the Council of the Realm and lavishing the honors of the kingdom upon this faithless favorite. ”

“ The Jansenists endured all sorts of persecution rather than submit to so unjust a decree; and it is a striking instance of human inconsistency, that men so noble and upright, who had approached so near the Protestant doctrine, at least in its most essential part, should continue within the pale of the Roman Church. The fact, we believe, may be partly explained by that pertinacity which men of all parties display in maintaining a position they have once taken up in any controversy, that they may not incur the ignominy of defeat. ”

“ Repente.—A play on the meaning of the English and the form of the Latin word repente is clearly intended.
Line 70. "Denarii dicti, quod denos æris valebant; quinarii, quod quinos" (Varro) .
Line 93. Janus is frequently, though not invariably, represented in mythology as guardian of the entrance to heaven; in which capacity he holds in his right hand a staff, and in his left a key, symbolical of his office (Ovid, Fast. i. 125) . The names of Jupiter and Janus were usually coupled in prayer, as the divinities whose aid it was necessary to invoke at the beginning of any undertaking. ”

“ We had another Giovanni who had done worse things even than these, and who never became a penitent at all. Don Giovanni he was called. Everybody in Rome knew him by the name of Don Giovanni.
Among the other bad things he did, he killed a great man who was called the Commendatore; and though he had the crime of murder on his conscience he took no account of it, but swaggered about with an air of bravado as if he cared for no one.
One day when he was walking out in the Campagna he saw a great white skeleton coming to meet him. It was the skeleton of the commendatore whom he had killed. ”