'Friends, Romans, Countrymen... Goats?': Shakespeare, the Lupercalian Festival and the Roman Experience

Article by Simon Lax. Edited by Amy Calladine. Additional Research by Rob Russell.

Caesar: Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,

To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,

The barren touched in this holy chase,

Shake off their sterile curse.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II 

Ecce! The ides of February, in the imperial city of Rome, crowds gathered at the base of the Palatine hill. Focussed on the Lupercal cave, mythical home of the wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, the Lupercalia (‘this holy chase’ above) was celebrated to ensure the purification of the populace, and to promote the fertility of all Romans. The Luperci, wearing only goatskins around their loins sacrificed two male goats and a dog. They called forward two nominated Luperci to be anointed with the blood, and the knife was cleaned with wool soaked in milk. Throughout all of this, bawdy songs were sung, and it was required of the bloodied Luperci that they smile and laugh throughout. There followed a sacrificial feast which culminated in the Luperci cutting small thongs from the skins of the sacrificed animals (februa) and running around the base of the Palatine hill, whipping the crowds who would assemble, although the focus was more on women than men. Being struck was meant to ease childbirth, prevent or cure female sterility.

With the slightly-less-boring-than-usual narrative section out the way, it is worth noting that this festival was not the same in the early 3rd century BC (as recorded by Livy in Ab Urbe Condita Libri), as it was on February 15th in the late 5th century. The provenance of the festival in entirely unknown. No-one can claim with any surety which gods the festival is dedicated to, why wolves seem to have been replaced by goats as the animal sacrifice, and especially what the link between all this and fertility is. I’m not going to venture into those problems of how Romans ascribed meaning to a festival of whose history even they seem to have been unaware, but instead focus on what the festival can tell us about the changing faces of Rome.

There are two episodes in particular that are instructive. The first is set in the year 44BC, when Gaius Julius Caesar’s family, the Julii, were given the rights to make their sons into Luperci. Before that, it had been restricted to the Fabians and the Quinticilians (both old families, involved in the founding of Rome). The Julii, as a family on the way up from the second tier of Roman families (this episode post-dates Julius’ conquest of Gaul, invasion of Britain and crossing of the Rubicon), was being given access to levels of the Roman hierarchy it had not had before. Involvement in the public and civic religious life of the city of Rome was a prerequisite of power therein: it was expected of the paterfamilias that he was not only noble as a senator, or brave as a general, or just as a governor, but a man who ensured the safety of the city and the republic through the appropriate religious festivals. By giving the Julii the power over the fertility of the women of Rome, they gave them a gift they could never take away: the Julian priest’s actions at the festival became inextricably linked to the success of women in birth, just as the Julii became a byword for military success under Gaius Julius. Also of interest to the Shakespeareans, and maybe the historians, is that one of the Luperci nominated by the Julii to run that very year (and the Antonius of the passage) was a certain Mark Antony. Exactly one month later, Julius Caesar would be proclaiming famously ‘et tu, Brute?’, before doing his best impression of a colander on the senate floor. The excuse that he had become a tyrant, that his power had become too great, was not helped by the gift of religious offices to his family and the very real authority they gave.

The other thing this episode tells us, in conjunction with both the Shakespearean quote and the experience of Calpurnia, is rather interesting. Although my severe lack of knowledge regarding gender history or the classical era (which is to say, everything that could be relevant) prevents me advancing the point too forcefully, it is interesting the way in which the Roman family unit seem to be the focus of this festival: an unusual family structure in the particular case of the Julii, in its focus on adoption and patronage taking on many parallels of the normal Father/Son relationship. Julius Caesar was succeeded by his adopted son (posthumously), Octavian, a tradition followed by many of the later Julio-Claudians, and many other Roman families of the era. This led to some degree to the circumventing of the traditional role of women as wives, and yet the festival makes the need for an heir central to a woman’s role in society. That the Romans had advanced adoptive practices at the same time shows the need for heirs at any cost trumped the need for heirs from a specific wife in high senatorial families.

The second episode is the sad death of this festival. In 494 Pope Gelasius I, to his eternal discredit, abolished the festival by proclaiming that Christians should not engage in the 15th February Lupercalia, but rather focus on the far less fun festival of Candlemas (2nd February: certainly no naked youths involved). The letter we have from him to Andramarchius tells us why: after some 150 years of toleration for a rite that was primarily civic rather than overtly religious, the church would no longer tolerate Christians participating in rites with no obvious, or a pagan religious content. Seeing as the only religious context the Lupercalia could work in was a pagan one, and worked on mainly civic lines, Christians could not take part, QED. On top of this, the pope attacked those who claimed that he could not abolish the festival because it was traditional: the senators and their families no longer ran in this festival, delegating the role to the poor. If the pagan senators wished to continue, they should do it in the traditional way (running nearly nude in the streets in the middle of February being only Archimedes’ and paupers’ idea of fun). Because the pagans were in the minority, generally noble, and not idiots, they recognised the danger of continuing a festival which had had a pro-civic purpose, after the point that the pope had declared it irreligious for the majority of those who involved themselves in it. The nobles in Ostrogothic Rome (the city had fallen in 476) needed allies amongst the lower classes, the church, and the Ostrogothic rulers to have any hope of maintaining their position. The festival ended over such practical concerns.

As interesting as the practicalities of the festival are (frankly, the only reason I decided to write this article was to use the phrase ‘freshly slaughtered goatskin whips’) what is useful is the way it intersected with Roman society and politics. Whether the political dealing of the Julii, the religious motivations of the Pope, or the place of women in Roman society, there’s far more to this festival than februa, naked youths and mystic caves...

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Meanings of terms:

Lupa- ‘she-wolf’

Lupercalia- the name of the festival meaning ‘wolf-festival’

Lupercal- the cave in which Romulus and Remus were found to be suckling from the Lupa

Luperci- the priests who directed the festival, meaning ‘brothers of the wolf’

Quinctiliana and Fabiani- the two halves of the Luperci, deriving from the Roman families the Quinctilia and the Fabia

“Lupercalia, of which many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time 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.”

The Lupercalia as described by Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer who often detailed the lives of Emperors, and other famous Greeks and Romans, as highlighted in his most famous text Parallel Lives.

There are some who claim that the Lupercalia is actually the foundations of the modern Valentine’s Day, and instead of being named after a saint one should be aware of its Pagan origins. One of the purposes of the Lupercalia is to increase fertility of barren women and make childbirth easier for those approaching it. Other connections include Valentine’s Day falling on the eve of the Lupercalia. Such views and concepts are supported by sociologist Dr Leo Ruickbie.

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