The gate of the year

Preparatory design for a stained glass window by Hans Holbein the Younger (1498–1543), in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland.
The image shows the Roman god Terminus, protector of boundaries both of private and public properties, whose cult, according to tradition, had been established by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. To this sovereign was attributed also the foundation of the main religious institutions and thus the establishment of a social order guaranteed by the authority of the gods, of which also the apportionment of the land and properties was a part. The Romans celebrated, on February 23, a feast in honour of Terminus, which included public and private ceremonies, with sacrifices of lambs and piglets which took place beside the boundary stones. A public boundary stone was kept on the Capitol, near the temple of Jupiter, while another one marked the boundary of the Roman state at the sixth mile along the Laurentine way. Still in the Middle Ages one can find witnesses of deep-seated beliefs about the apparitions of the dead in boundary zones or at crossroads, often in moments at the border of time, in particular at midnight, at midday or in the New Year’s eve. One could hypothesize that the Roman feast was already present at the time in which was in force an archaic calendar of ten lunar months, when the year began in March and the period dedicated to Terminus corresponded to the last days of the year.

[Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28god%29]




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Preparatory design for a stained glass window by Hans Holbein the Younger (1498–1543), in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland. The image shows the Roman god Terminus, protector of boundaries both of private and public properties, whose cult, according to tradition, had been established by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. To this sovereign was attributed also the foundation of the main religious institutions and thus the establishment of a social order guaranteed by the authority of the gods, of which also the apportionment of the land and properties was a part. The Romans celebrated, on February 23, a feast in honour of Terminus, which included public and private ceremonies, with sacrifices of lambs and piglets which took place beside the boundary stones. A public boundary stone was kept on the Capitol, near the temple of Jupiter, while another one marked the boundary of the Roman state at the sixth mile along the Laurentine way. Still in the Middle Ages one can find witnesses of deep-seated beliefs about the apparitions of the dead in boundary zones or at crossroads, often in moments at the border of time, in particular at midnight, at midday or in the New Year’s eve. One could hypothesize that the Roman feast was already present at the time in which was in force an archaic calendar of ten lunar months, when the year began in March and the period dedicated to Terminus corresponded to the last days of the year. [Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28god%29]