'Four faces each
Had, _like a double Janus_;'
Upon which Southey--but, of course, Landor, ventriloquizing through
Southey--says, 'Better left this to the imagination: double Januses are
queer figures.' Not at all. On the contrary, they became so common, that
finally there were no other. Rome, in her days of childhood, contented
herself with a two-faced Janus; but, about the time of the first or second
Caesar, a very ancient statue of Janus was exhumed, which had four faces.
Ever afterwards, this sacred resurgent statue became the model for any
possible Janus that could show himself in good company. The _quadrifrons
Janus_ was now the orthodox Janus; and it would have been as much a
sacrilege to rob him of any single face as to rob a king's statue [2] of
its horse. One thing may recall this to Mr. Landor's memory. I think it
was Nero, but certainly it was one of the first six Caesars, that built,
or that finished, a magnificent temple to Janus; and each face was so
managed as to point down an avenue leading to a separate market-place.
Now, that there were _four_ market-places, I will make oath before
any Justice of the Peace. One was called the _Forum Julium_, one the
_Forum Augustum_, a third the _Forum Transitorium_: what the fourth was
called is best known to itself, for really I forget. But if anybody says
that perhaps it was called the _Forum Landorium_, I am not the man to
object; for few names have deserved such an honor more, whether from those
that then looked forward into futurity with one face, or from our
posterity that will look back into the vanishing past with another.