ABSTRACT
In ancient times, the walls of cities were fearfully sacred. The elaborate ceremony of inauguration involved the ploughing of a furrow to mark the line of the wall. At the position of the entrances, the plough was carried over the ground. This provides a convincing etymology for the Latin porta, as being derived from the verb portare, 'to carry'. Thus, to pass through a gate was to pass over the sacred axis of the wall, and was, in itself, a religious act. All the components of the gate were entrusted to the charge of separate deities, but the principal god of the gate was Janus, the deity who could face two ways at once. He was the personification of the gate, which was appropriate since he was the god of all beginnings and openings. His name was Latin, but his lineage stretched far back into earlier civilizations.
