"Janus-faced molecule A Janus molecule (or Janus-faced molecule) is a molecule which can represent both beneficial and toxic effects. The term Janus-faced molecule is derived from the ancient Roman god, Janus. Janus is depicted as having two faces; one facing the past and one facing the future. This is synonymous to a Janus molecule having two distinct purposes: a beneficial and a toxic purpose. Examples of a Janus-faced molecule are nitric oxide and cholesterol. In the case of cholesterol, the property that makes cholesterol useful in cell membranes, namely its absolute insolubility in water, also makes it lethal. When cholesterol"
"good luck in a very solemn and lugubrious manner. 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. Portunus appears to be closely related to the god Janus, with whom he shares many characters, functions and the symbol of the key. He too was represented as a two headed being, with each head facing opposite directions, on coins and as figurehead of ships. He was considered to be ""deus portuum portarumque praeses"" (lit. God presiding over ports and gates.) The relationship between the"
"Church Fathers, Cardea is associated with two otherwise unknown deities who preside over doorways: Forculus, from ""fores"", ""door"", plural in form because double doors were common on public buildings and elite homes ""(domūs)""; and Limentinus, from ""limen, liminis"", ""threshold"" (compare English ""liminal""). St. Augustine mocks the apparent triviality of these ""little gods"" in one of his ""attacks against the multitude of Gods,"" noting that while one doorkeeper is adequate for a human household, the Roman gods require three: ""evidently Forculus can't watch the hinge and the threshold at the same time."" Modern scholarship has pointed out that this particular set"
"two gods is underlined by the fact that the date chosen for the dedication of the rebuilt temple of Janus in the Forum Holitorium by emperor Tiberius is the day of the Portunalia, August 17. Linguist Giuliano Bonfante has speculated, on the grounds of his cult and of the meaning of his name, that Portunus should be a very archaic deity and might date back to an era when Latins lived in dwellings built on pilings. He argues that in Latin the words ""porta"" (door, gate) and ""portus"" (harbour, port) share their etymology from the same IE root meaning ""ford"","
"at least as far as iconography is concerned. A god with two faces appears repeatedly in Sumerian and Babylonian art. The ancient Sumerian deity Isimud was commonly portrayed with two faces facing in opposite directions. Sumerian depictions of Isimud are often very similar to the typical portrayals of Janus in ancient Roman art. Unlike Janus, however, Isimud is not a god of doorways. Instead, he is the messenger of Enki, the ancient Sumerian god of water and civilization. Reproductions of the image of Isimud, whose Babylonian name was Usimu, on cylinders in Sumero-Accadic art can to be found in H."
"adherents, but other scholars have argued from Indo-European parallels that the personalised gods of Roman religion must have preceded the city's foundation. Georges Dumézil regarded Jupiter, Juventas and Terminus as the Roman form of a proto-Indo-European triad, comparing the Roman deities respectively to the Vedic Mitra, Aryaman, and Bhaga. In this view the sovereign god (Jupiter/Mitra) was associated with two minor deities, one concerned with the entry of men into society (Juventas/Aryaman) and the other with the fair division of their goods (Terminus/Bhaga). Terminus (god) In Roman religion, Terminus was the god who protected boundary markers; his name was the"
"the god a sort of cosmological principle, interpreting him as a uranic deity. Almost all of these modern explanations were originally formulated by the ancients. His function as 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. Since movement and change are interconnected, 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"
"Porta Carmentalis The Porta Carmentalis was a double gate in the Servian Walls of ancient Rome. It was named for a nearby shrine to the goddess or nymph Carmenta, whose importance in early Roman religion is also indicated by the assignment of one of the fifteen ""flamines"" to her cult, and by the archaic festival in her honor, the Carmentalia. The shrine was to the right as one exited the gate. The gate's two arches seem to have been set at angles, and were known by separate names. It was unlucky to leave the city through the arch called Porta"
"Portunus (mythology) Portunus was the ancient Roman god of keys, doors, livestock and ports. He may have originally protected the warehouses where grain was stored, but later became associated with ports, perhaps because of folk associations between ""porta"" ""gate, door"" and ""portus"" ""harbor"", the ""gateway"" to the sea, or because of an expansion in the meaning of ""portus"". Portunus later became conflated with the Greek Palaemon. Portunus' festival, celebrated on August 17, the sixteenth day before the Kalends of September, was the Portunalia, a minor occasion in the Roman year. On this day, keys were thrown into a fire for"
"with two heads looking at opposite directions. Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month ""Januarius"" after Janus, according to tradition considered the highest divinity at the time. Numa built the ""Ianus geminus"" (also ""Janus Bifrons"", ""Janus Quirinus"" or ""Portae Belli""), a passage ritually opened at times of war, and shut again when Roman arms rested. 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. About the exact location and aspect of the temple there has"
"""wading point"". Portunus' flamen, the flamen Portunalis, was one of the flamines minores and 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""). Portunus (mythology) Portunus was the ancient Roman god of keys, doors, livestock and ports. He may have originally protected the warehouses where grain was stored, but later became associated with ports, perhaps because of folk associations between ""porta"" ""gate, door"" and ""portus"" ""harbor"", the ""gateway"" to the sea, or because of an expansion in the meaning of"
"out that since the two figures both wear boots and a torque in common, these items are not likely special clothing, characteristic of either god in particular. The two Cortona figures are different in that Selvans only has one face and wears a different style cap which seems to be made from an animal skin of some sort, possibly from a lion or a wolf. Selvans is equated by some scholars to the Roman god Silvanus. Selvans, like Culśanś is probably a god who protected boundaries, liminal spaces, gates and doorways. Another noteworthy aspect of these two Cortona figures, is"
"expressions. The origin of this epithet might be either concrete, referring directly to the image of the god reproduced on coins and supposed to have been introduced by king Numa in the sanctuary at the lowest point of the Argiletum, or to a feature of the Ianus of the ""Porta Belli"", the double gate ritually opened at the beginning of wars, or abstract, deriving metaphorically from the liminal, intermediary functions of the god themselves: both in time and space passages connected two different spheres, realms or worlds. The ""Janus quadrifrons"" or ""quadriformis"", brought according to tradition from Falerii in 241"
"Temple of Apollo through the Carmentalis and along the Vicus Iugarius to the Forum. Porta Carmentalis The Porta Carmentalis was a double gate in the Servian Walls of ancient Rome. It was named for a nearby shrine to the goddess or nymph Carmenta, whose importance in early Roman religion is also indicated by the assignment of one of the fifteen ""flamines"" to her cult, and by the archaic festival in her honor, the Carmentalia. The shrine was to the right as one exited the gate. The gate's two arches seem to have been set at angles, and were known by"
"veritable explanation given for this double usage. This could be concluded by the presence of patron saints, (later added) to whom the other gates of the Imperial Palace had been dedicated: St. Theodore (The Western Gate), St Apollinaris (The Eastern Gate) and St. Julian (The Southern Gate). St. Martin (patron saint of soldiers), like St. Theodore was worshipped in the later Roman period, particularly in the West, during the rule of the Emperor Justinian (527-565). Church central area divided into two parts altar screen, made of marble and covered in vines, grape vines and griffon; on the space with an"
"western and eastern walls are both pierced by entryways to the altar, although the interior would only have been accessed by a stairway on the western side. The entryways were flanked by panels depicting allegorical or mythological scenes evocative of peace, piety and tradition. On the eastern wall, panels depicted the seated figures of Roma and Pax, while the western side depicts the discovery of the twins and she-wolf and the sacrifice of a figure traditionally identified as Aeneas, but increasingly believed to be Rome's second king, Numa Pompilius. The identity of these various figures has been a point of"
"be found in Classic Liji 禮記 ""Book of Rites"". The story of Zhong Kui, the ghost fighter, which emerged during the Tang Dynasty was believed to help guard the gates as well. During the Qing Dynasty, there was doubt of two door gods. Chinese scholar Yu Zhengxie believed there was only one god name Yulei (郁垒) or Tulei (荼垒). Shentu (deity) Shentu () or Shenshu is one of the two door gods in Chinese mythology known as Menshen. It can found in an early text from ""Shanghaijing"". The gods were later incorporated into Taoism. The earliest mention of Shentu is"
"""dawn"", a stem that also gave rise to Proto-Germanic ""*Austrō"", Old Germanic ""*Ōstara"" and Old English ""Ēostre / Ēastre"". This agreement leads to the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess. There are no known temples, shrines or altars to Eos. However, Ovid seems to allude to the existence of at least two shrines of Eos, as he describes them in plural, albeit few, in the lines: Ovid may therefore have known of at least two such shrines. The dawn goddess Eos was almost always described with rosy fingers (ῥοδοδάκτυλος, ""rhododáktylos"") or rosy forearms (ῥοδόπηχυς, ""rhodópēkhys"") as she opened the gates"
"main entrance, at 103rd Street, uses a series columns with Romanesque caps, topped with statues of lions. The doors are ornate bronze with floral designs and small figures of Asclepius, god of medicine and physicians, and Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius and goddess of health. The two gods are also carved into the entranceway's tympanum, attended by dogs, symbolizing vigilance and keeping death and illness away. The exterior also features many Latin inscriptions from notable authors, including Cicero, Hippocrates, Juvenal, Seneca the Younger, and Virgil. The first floor windows have exterior ornamental bronze grills, decorated in a Romanesque design. Those windows'"
"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"
"mosaic, in two parts, contains images of Roman gods, goddesses, Medusa, and scenes depicting farming and the sea. The cockerel-headed man is a unique feature of the mosaics. The mosaic shows the cockerel-headed man beside a building approached by steps, with two griffins beyond. One older opinion is that he represents the gnostic deity known as Abraxas; however Abraxas is usually depicted with a serpent's tail as well as a cockerel's head, which makes this interpretation seem unlikely. An alternative view is that the figure lampoons a gladiator (or ""venator"") called ""Gallus"" since the name means ""cockerel"" in Latin. It"
"Hecate Hecate or Hekate (; , ""Hekátē"") is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches or a key and in later periods depicted in triple form. She was variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, light, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery. She appears in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in Hesiod's ""Theogony"", where she is promoted strongly as a great goddess. The place of origin of her following is uncertain, but it is thought that she had popular followings in Thrace. Hecate was one of"
"Honos Honos or Honor was the Roman god personifying honor. He was closely associated with Virtus, the goddess of manliness, or bravery, and the two are frequently depicted together. Honos is typically shown wearing a chaplet of bay leaves, while Virtus is identified by her helmet. In 234 BC, Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus dedicated a temple to Honos just outside the Porta Capena, one of Rome's principal gates, following his victory over the Ligures. Twelve years later, after Marcus Claudius Marcellus defeated and slew the Gallic king, Viridomarus, at the Battle of Clastidium, to win the ""spolia opima"", he vowed"
"Shentu (deity) Shentu () or Shenshu is one of the two door gods in Chinese mythology known as Menshen. It can found in an early text from ""Shanghaijing"". The gods were later incorporated into Taoism. The earliest mention of Shentu is from the Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC–256 BC). The other deity is Yulü. The two gods are responsible for supervising all spirits and stayed above the gate. Evil and harmful spirits were tied up and fed to tigers. The gods were believed to protect people from disasters, protect ""fortunes and dispell evil influences"". The oldest reference to the gods can"
"Etruria. The connection of the notions of beginning (""principium""), movement, transition (""eundo""), and thence time was 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 lunar year), later 365, symbolically expressing his mastership over time. He presides over the concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, such as religion"
"at the beginning of undertakings, a ""liminal"" god who was the guardian of gates. Moor made various other speculations on the connection between Janus and Ganesha. These fanciful connections proposed by early Indologists no longer appear in modern academic reviews of Ganesha's history. Ganesha is represented as having anywhere from one to five heads, so depictions with two heads are not reliable evidence of a connection with Janus. Representations of Ganesha with two heads are uncommon, and according to Nagar, textual references to the adoration of Ganesha with two heads are difficult to trace. There are no other examples of"
"goddess, c) and its guardian deities. The solar boats' travel through such gates can be described as follows.1st gate: Sia, deification of perception, standing on the prow of the sun boat, invites a snake called ""Desert-Protector"" to unlock the gate to the arrival of Ra who, in the form of the god Atum (deification of the sunset sun), observes his enemies being massacred. 2nd gate: the guardian god is called ""Swallower Of Sinners"" and his gate precedes a lake of fire. 3rd gate: its guardian snake is ""Stinger"" while the portal itself is the goddess ""Mistress Of Food""; some jackals"
"by the fact that upon entering the gate of the same name, the road split, with one direction leading to the famous Emporium, the great market of Rome. The gatehouse is flanked by two cylindrical towers, and has two entrances, which had been covered by a second, single-opening gate, built in front of the first by the Byzantine general Belisarius (530s–540s). The structure is due to Maxentius, in the 4th century, but the two towers were heightened by Honorius. Its original — Latin — name was ', since it opened on the way to Ostia. Later, it was renamed to"
"Cardea Cardea or Carda was the ancient Roman goddess of the hinge (Latin ""cardo, cardinis""), Roman doors being hung on pivot hinges. The Augustan poet Ovid conflates her with another archaic goddess named Carna, whose festival was celebrated on the Kalends of June and for whom he gives the alternative name Cranê or Cranea, a nymph. Ovid's conflation of the goddesses is likely to have been his poetic invention, but it has also been conjectured that ""Carna"" was a contracted form of ""Cardina"", and at minimum Ovid was observing that their traditions were congruent. In the Christian polemic of the"
"are recorded as early as the ""Book of Rites"". By the Han, this spirit had become the two gods Shenshu and Yulü, whose names or images were painted into peachwood and attached to doors. The Great Ancestor of the Tang (""Emperor Taizong"") ordered portraits of his generals Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong to be affixed to gates. They eventually came to be considered divine protectors, replacing Shentu and Yulü and remaining the most common door gods to the present day. Qin and Yuchi, along with various other deified military leaders, make up a class of intended to ward off evil"
"four ""clipei"" (shields) placed next to the capitals each depict Roman divinities: Jupiter and Apollo on the Roman side, Neptune and Roma facing the city of Rimini. The gate's principal function, aside from functioning as a city gate, was to support the lavish bronze statue of Augustus, depicted driving a quadriga. The main peculiarity of this arch is that the archway is especially large for a gate of the time. The explanation must be the fact that the peaceful policy of Augustus the so-called ""Pax Romana"", made a civic gate that could be closed seem unnecessary, since there was no"
"and vice versa. Ancient Roman observances during this month include Cervula, and Juvenalia; celebrated January 1, as well as one of three Agonalia, celebrated January 9, and Carmentalia, celebrated January 11. These dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar. January (in Latin, ""Ianuarius"") is named after the Latin word for door (""ianua""), since January is the door to the year and an opening to new beginnings. The month is conventionally thought of as being named after Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions in Roman mythology, but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity"
"house with the open door representing the entrance to paradise, where are already a nobles, a king, a queen, a monk with hood and a Franciscan monk, the blessed. This motif of psicostasis is an iconographic heritage of the Romanesque art. At the top of the tympanum appears another motif common to the Romanesque, the Deesis, with Christ enthroned as universal judge, with arms raised, showing the wounded of the side and flanked by the Virgin and St. John imploring mercy for souls of the poor. At the apex of the tympanum, on a clouds, an angels bearing the insignia"