Ab Urbe Condita

T. Livius

...mitigandum ferocem populum armorum desuetundine ratus, Ianum ad infimum Argiletum indicem pacis bellique fecit, apertus ut in armis esse civitatem, clausus pacatos circa omnes populos significaret.

He thought it needful that his warlike people should be softened by the disuse of arms, and built the temple of Janus at the bottom of the Argiletum, as an index of peace and war, that when open it might signify that the nation was in arms, when closed that all the peoples round about were pacified.

Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from T. Livius: History of Rome (Volume I: Books 1-2), Loeb Classical Library Vol. 114, translated by B.O. Foster, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, © 1919, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Loeb Classical Library ® is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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