Association With Non-Roman Gods
Romans and Greek authors maintained Janus was an exclusively Roman god. This Roman pretence looks to be excessive according to R. Schilling, at least as far as iconography is concerned. The god with two faces appeared repeatedly in Babylonian art. Reproductions of the image of such a god, named Usmu, on cylinders in Sumero-Accadic art is to be found in H. Frankfort's work Cylinder seals (London 1939) especially in plates at p. 106, 123, 132, 133, 137, 165, 245, 247, 254. On plate XXI, c, Usmu is seen while introducing worshippers to a seated god. Janus-like heads of gods related to Hermes have been found in Greece, perhaps suggesting a compound god.
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 Berrosus.
P. Grimal considers Janus as a conflation of a Roman god of doorways and an ancient Syro-Hittite uranic cosmogonic god.
The Roman statue of the Janus of the Argiletum, traditionally ascribed to Numa, was possibly very ancient, perhaps a sort of xoanon, as the Greek ones of the VIII century.
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 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 Iranic 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.
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