Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/270

238 3. According to the Romans themselves, Janus was one of the few gods who had no counterpart in the Greek pantheon.

4. His epithets were Clusivius and Patulcius, the opener and the closer, i.e. of the womb.

5. His name, and his name only, was invoked by the Salian dancing priests, when they ran naked through the streets in the great fertility festival of the Lupercalia.

6. As the first of all gods, as the god of beginnings [hence, of course, of birth] his name was invoked before that of Jupiter himself in all prayers and invocations.

7. His priest was the Rex Sacrorum, who took precedence even of the great Flamen Dialis.

8. As Janus Quadrifrons he presided over cross-roads. It must surely be more than a coincidence that the Italian two-faced god of fertility should be the patron of cross-roads, and that the two-faced god of the witches should preside over fertility rites which were celebrated at cross-roads.

Another proof of the antiquity of the witch cult is shown by the indications that at some early period, the god of the witches was sacrificed at one of the great Sabbaths. It is not clear whether the sacrifice took place annually or only once in seven years.

In the organisation of the society, there came below the autocratic ruler one or more officers, according to the size of the community. These officers were either men