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History
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Goats, Gore, and Fertility: The Bizarre Truth of Rome's Lupercalia Festival
Lupercalia was an ancient Roman festival of purification and fertility held in February. It featured priests sacrificing goats, then running nearly naked through the streets, striking willing women with goatskin strips to bless them with fertility and ease childbirth.
Long before heart-shaped chocolates and greeting cards dominated mid-February, the streets of Rome ran wild with a festival far more primal and chaotic: the Lupercalia. Celebrated from February 13-15, this ancient pastoral rite was a visceral display of purification and fertility, involving animal sacrifice, ritualistic running, and a practice that would seem shocking to most modern observers—naked men striking women with strips of goat hide.
The Ritual Unveiled
The festival began at the Lupercal, a sacred cave on Palatine Hill where, according to legend, the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were suckled by a she-wolf. Here, priests known as the Luperci, drawn from noble families, conducted a sacrifice. A few male goats and a dog—animals noted for their potent fertility—were offered to the gods. The foreheads of two young Luperci were then smeared with the sacrificial blood and promptly wiped clean with wool soaked in milk, at which point they were required to laugh. This bizarre sequence of events was just the prelude to a city-wide spectacle.
The Chase of the Luperci
After the sacrifice and a celebratory feast, the Luperci would cut thongs from the skin of the sacrificed goats. These thongs were called februa, from which the month's name, February, is derived, meaning “to purify.” Clad only in the skins of the goats they had just sacrificed (or, according to some accounts, completely naked), the Luperci would run a course around the Palatine Hill and through the Roman Forum. As they ran, they playfully struck anyone they encountered with the goat-hide strips.
A Strange Path to Fertility
Instead of fleeing, many women of child-bearing age would deliberately place themselves in the path of the runners. They believed that a strike from the sacred februa would grant them fertility and ensure a safe childbirth. The act, far from being seen as an assault, was considered a divine blessing. The historian Plutarch described the scene in his writings:
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 to an easy delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.
This willing participation highlights a worldview where magic, religion, and the raw forces of nature were deeply intertwined with daily life and the survival of the community.
From Pagan Rite to Modern Myth
Lupercalia remained a popular festival for centuries, even after the rise of Christianity. However, its overtly pagan and chaotic nature was a point of contention for the Church. In 494 AD, Pope Gelasius I is credited with abolishing the festival, condemning it for its immorality. While some have tried to link Lupercalia to the modern Valentine's Day, largely because of its mid-February date and themes of fertility, there is no direct historical evidence to support this connection. The link appears to be a much later invention. Lupercalia was not a festival of romantic love, but a raw, earthy ritual aimed at purifying the city and ensuring its prosperity and continuity through the miracle of birth.