une from Juno. Some say that these names
signify old age and youth, for old men are called by the Latins majores,
and young men juniores. The remaining months they named, from the order
in which they came, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth:
Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December. Then
Quintilis was called Julius after Julius Caesar, who conquered Pompeius;
and Sextilis was called Augustus, after the second of the Roman
Emperors. The next two months Domitian altered to his own titles, but
not for any long time, as after his death they resumed their old names
of September and October. The last two alone have preserved their
original names without change. Of the months, added or altered by Numa,
Februarius means the month of purification, for that is as nearly as
possible the meaning of the word, and during it they sacrifice to the
dead, and hold the festival of the Lupercalia, which resembles a
ceremony of purification. The first month, Januarius, is named after
Janus. My opinion is, that Numa moved the month named after Mars from
its precedence, wishing the art of good government to be honoured before
that of war. For Janus in very ancient times was either a deity or a
king, who established a social polity, and made men cease from a savage
life like that of wild beasts. And for this reason his statues are made
with a double face, because he turned men's way of life from one form to
another.

XX. There is a temple to him in Rome, which has two doors, and which
they call the gate of war. It is the custom to open the temple in time
of war, and to close it during peace. This scarcely ever took place, as
the empire was almost always at war with some state, being by its very
greatness continually brought into collision with the neighbouring
tribes. Only in the time of Caesar Augustus, after he had conquered
Antonius, it was closed; and before that, during the consulship of
Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius, for a short time, and then was almost
immediately reopened, as a new war broke out. But during Numa's reign no
one saw it open for a single day, and it remained closed for forty-three
years continuously, so utterly had he made wars to cease on all sides.
Not only was the spirit of the Romans subdued and pacified by the gentle
and just character of their king, but even the neighbouring cities, as
if some soothing healthful air was breathed over them from Rome, altered
their habits and longed