Happy Lupercalia

Sex sells. Ask any modern advertiser and he or she will be the first one to tell you that making something seem sexual – overtly or subtly – is still seen as the best way to get people to pay attention to a product. Humans, caught as we are between apes and angels, are interested in sex. That’s why sex, in the form of fertility celebrations, has such a lasting hold on the cultural mindset.

Fertility rites, now thinly disguised behind the romance of St Valentine’s Day, have an eons-old history of being celebrated in the middle of February.  St Valentine’s Day, on the 14th of the month, was originally the day it was believed birds chose their mates, and the middle of the month is an even older celebration of mating in the form of the Lupercalia. 

The Lupercalia was a fertility festival even older than Rome, celebrated on the 13-15 of February, to ‘clean away’ winter and bring spring – with all its new life – back to the earth. Although the female sex workers of Rome were called she-wolves (lupa), the name of the Lupercalia does not derive from prostitution – sacred or otherwise. It comes form the “Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia, a wolf festival … and the worship of Lycaean Pan”, one of the earliest nature deities.  Like all nature deities, Pan is associated with fertility of crops and herds and animals, and thus with generative sex. And also lusty sex just for the hell of it, of course.

The sacred aspect of this celebration of Pan/sex/rebirth was performed by the priesthood known as the Luperci, made up of high-born young Roman men.  To be in the Luperci was an honor, and although it was fun, the men took it seriously. The spring ritual took place within the Lupercal, “the cave where tradition held that Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf (Lupa).” The Lupercal was situated at the foot the Palatine Hill, and beside it grew one of the wild fig trees considered sacred to Romulus and Rome. The fig tree, with its pendulous, testicle-shaped fruit and milky sap, was considered an aphrodisiac and a fertility booster for men, and was often called the ‘goat-fig’ for its association with Pan and male potency. The Lupercal was also flanked by a shrine to Rumina, the goddess of breastfeeding, a reminder that a mother’s milk (of any species) was crucial to the survival of Rome.

Inside the Lupercal, members of Pan’s priesthood would sacrifice either goats or dogs to the nature god, and then enjoy a celebratory feast. The skins of the sacrificed animals were cut into strips, called februa, and these februum were attached to a flail handle to make a kind of whip. Then the Luperci would run naked “along the old Palatine boundary, in an anticlockwise direction around the hill of Palantine.” Women would stand near enough to be ‘flogged’ by the youths, because the rawhide whips were believed to confer the twin blessings of a safe birth and a fertile womb to any woman they touched. This was such an important religious festival in Ancient Rome that the month of February itself is named after the februum used in the ritual race.

What is it about this time of year that inspires fertility/sex/romantic holidays? The northern hemisphere is only halfway to the next equinox, and spring won’t ‘officially’ begin for another six weeks. Why celebrate new life and birth when many places still have snow on the ground?

Well, for one thing, by mid-February the days are noticeably longer than they were at the end of December. The extra sunshine makes the days feel warmer, even though they are probably not that much different in temperature. Some of the earlies flowers, like snowdrops and daffodils, are starting to push their way out of the ground. Birds are getting noisy, marking out their territories and starting to prepare for egg-laying. Herd animals, like sheep, usually breed around this time, so their young will be born in later spring or early summer, when foraging is the best. Life is beginning to stir, and when humans lived closer to nature, we could feel it. As animals ourselves, it turned our minds to reproduction and new life in our own families. We can mate all year round, but the most active birth month is still September, and all those who got pregnant during the midwinter holidays (Saturnalia for the Romans, Christmas for many in the West) were beginning to be more sure that they were up the pole by mid-February.

So enjoy the lengthening days and lighter hearts, and for all those who are hoping to have a child in the coming year – Happy Lupercalia!