Lupercalia | |
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![]() Lupercalia, oil painting, circa 1635 | |
Observed by | Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire |
Type | Classical Roman religion |
Celebrations | feasting |
Observances | sacrifices of goats and a dog by the Luperci; offering of cakes by the Vestals; fertility rite in which the goatskin-clad Luperci strike women who wish to conceive |
Date | February 15 |
Lupercalia, also known as Lupercal, was a pastoral festival of Ancient Rome observed annually on February 15 to purify the city, promoting health and fertility. [1] Lupercalia was also known as dies Februatus, after the purification instruments called februa, the basis for the month named Februarius .
The festival was originally known as Februa ("Purifications" or "Purgings") after the februum which was used on the day. [2] It was also known as Februatus and gave its name variously, as epithet to Juno Februalis, Februlis, or Februata in her role as patron deity of that month; to a supposed purification deity called Februus; [lower-alpha 1] and to February (mensis Februarius), the month during which the festival occurred. [2] Ovid connects februare to an Etruscan word for "purging". [4]
The name Lupercalia was believed in antiquity to evince some connection with the Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia, a wolf festival (Greek : λύκος, lýkos; Latin : lupus), and the worship of Lycaean Pan , assumed to be a Greek equivalent to Faunus, as instituted by Evander. [5] Justin describes a cult image of "the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus", as nude, save for a goatskin girdle. [6]
The statue stood in the Lupercal, the cave where tradition held that Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf (Lupa). The cave lay at the foot of the Palatine Hill, on which Romulus was thought to have founded Rome. [7] The name of the festival most likely derives from lupus, "wolf", though both the etymology and its significance are obscure. The wolf appellation may have to do with the fact that an animal predator plays a key role in male rites of passage. [8] Despite Justin's assertion, no deity named "Lupercus" has been identified. [9]
The rites were confined to the Lupercal cave, the Palatine Hill, and the Forum, all of which were central locations in Rome's foundation myth. [10] Near the cave stood a sanctuary of Rumina, goddess of breastfeeding; and the wild fig-tree ( Ficus Ruminalis ) to which Romulus and Remus were brought by the divine intervention of the river-god Tiberinus; some Roman sources name the wild fig tree caprificus, literally "goat fig". Like the cultivated fig, its fruit is pendulous, and the tree exudes a milky sap if cut, which makes it a good candidate for a cult of breastfeeding. [11]
The Lupercalia had its own priesthood, the Luperci ("brothers of the wolf"), whose institution and rites were attributed either to the Arcadian culture-hero Evander, or to Romulus and Remus, erstwhile shepherds who had each established a group of followers. The Luperci were young men (iuvenes), usually between the ages of 20 and 40. They formed two religious collegia (associations) based on ancestry; the Quinctiliani (named after the gens Quinctia) and the Fabiani (named after the gens Fabia). Each college was headed by a magister. [12]
In 44 BC, a third college, the Juliani, was instituted in honor of Julius Caesar; its first magister was Mark Antony. [12] The college of Juliani disbanded or lapsed following the Assassination of Julius Caesar, and was not re-established in the reforms of his successor, Augustus. In the Imperial era, membership of the two traditional collegia was opened to iuvenes of equestrian status.
At the Lupercal altar, a male goat (or goats) and a dog were sacrificed by one or another of the Luperci, under the supervision of the Flamen dialis, Jupiter's chief priest. [lower-alpha 2] An offering was also made of salted mealcakes, prepared by the Vestal Virgins. [14] [ failed verification ] After the blood sacrifice, two Luperci approached the altar. Their foreheads were anointed with blood from the sacrificial knife, then wiped clean with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to laugh.
The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs (known as februa) from the flayed skin of the animal, [1] and ran with these, naked or near-naked, along the old Palatine boundary, in an anticlockwise direction around the hill. [11] In Plutarch's description of the Lupercalia, written during the early Roman Empire,
...many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy. [15]
The Luperci completed their circuit of the Palatine, then returned to the Lupercal cave.
The Februa was of ancient and possibly Sabine origin. After February was added to the Roman calendar, Februa occurred on its fifteenth day (a.d. XV Kal. Mart.). Of its various rituals, the most important came to be those of the Lupercalia. [16] The Romans themselves attributed the instigation of the Lupercalia to Evander, a culture hero from Arcadia who was credited with bringing the Olympic pantheon, Greek laws and alphabet to Italy, where he founded the city of Pallantium on the future site of Rome, 60 years before the Trojan War.
Lupercalia was celebrated in parts of Italy; Luperci are attested by inscriptions at Velitrae, Praeneste, Nemausus (modern Nîmes) and elsewhere. The ancient cult of the Hirpi Sorani ("wolves of Soranus", from Sabine hirpus "wolf"), who practiced at Mt. Soracte, 45 km (28 mi) north of Rome, had elements in common with the Roman Lupercalia. [17]
Descriptions of the Lupercalia festival of 44 BC attest to its continuity. During the festival, Julius Caesar publicly refused a golden crown offered to him by Mark Antony. [18] [19] The Lupercal cave was restored or rebuilt by Augustus, and has been speculated to be identical with a grotto discovered in 2007, 50 feet (15 m) below the remains of Augustus' residence; according to scholarly consensus, the grotto is a nymphaeum, not the Lupercal. [11] The Lupercalia festival is marked on a calendar of 354 alongside traditional and Christian festivals. [20]
Despite the banning in 391 of all non-Christian cults and festivals, the Lupercalia was celebrated by the nominally Christian populace on a regular basis into the reign of the emperor Anastasius. Pope Gelasius I (494–96) claimed that only the "vile rabble" were involved in the festival [21] and sought its forceful abolition; the Roman Senate protested that the Lupercalia was essential to Rome's safety and well-being. This prompted Gelasius' scornful suggestion that "If you assert that this rite has salutary force, celebrate it yourselves in the ancestral fashion; run nude yourselves that you may properly carry out the mockery". [22]
There is no contemporary evidence to support the popular notions that Gelasius abolished the Lupercalia, or that he, or any other prelate, replaced it with the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [23] A literary association between the Lupercalia and the romantic elements of Saint Valentine's Day dates back to Chaucer and poetic traditions of courtly love. [24] [25] [26]
Horace's Ode III, 18 alludes to the Lupercalia. The festival or its associated rituals gave its name to the Roman month of February (mensis Februarius) and thence to the modern month. The Roman god Februus personified both the month and purification, but seems to postdate both.
William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar begins during the Lupercalia. Mark Antony is instructed by Caesar to strike his wife Calpurnia, in the hope that she will be able to conceive.
Research published in 2019 suggests that the word Leprechaun derives from Lupercus. [27] [28] [29]
The Lupercal was a cave at the southwest foot of the Palatine Hill in Rome, located somewhere between the temple of Magna Mater and the Sant'Anastasia al Palatino. In the legend of the founding of Rome, Romulus and Remus were found there by the she-wolf who suckled them until they were rescued by the shepherd Faustulus. Luperci, the priests of Faunus, celebrated certain ceremonies of the Lupercalia at the cave, from the earliest days of the City until at least 494 AD.
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the rustic god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile, he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan, after which Romans depicted him as a horned god.
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In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are twin brothers whose story tells of the events that led to the founding of the city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus, following his fratricide of Remus. The image of a she-wolf suckling the twins in their infancy has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the ancient Romans since at least the 3rd century BC. Although the tale takes place before the founding of Rome around 750 BC, the earliest known written account of the myth is from the late 3rd century BC. Possible historical bases for the story, and interpretations of its local variants, are subjects of ongoing debate.
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A festival said to be of Juno Februata or Juno Februa, though it does not appear in Ovid's Fasti, was described by Alban Butler, famous as the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, who presented an aspect of the Roman Lupercalia as a festival of a "Juno Februata", under the heading of February 14:
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Lupercus or Lubercus or Luberkus was a god in Roman mythology. Lupercus was a protector of the farmers, harvesting and packs of wild animals. Every year on 15 February in honor of him, the Romans held the Lupercalia. He was an ancient Italian god, worshipped by shepherds as the promoter of fertility in sheep and protector of flocks.
In the Roman foundation myth, the she-wolf was an Italian wolf who nursed and sheltered the twins Romulus and Remus after they were abandoned in the wild by decree of King Amulius of Alba Longa. She cared for the infants at her den, a cave known as the Lupercal, until they were discovered by a shepherd, Faustulus. Romulus would later become the founder and first king of Rome. The image of the she-wolf suckling the twins has been a symbol of Rome since ancient times and is one of the most recognizable icons of ancient mythology.
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