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Ancient RomeHODIE · ROMA

a.d. XV Kal. Mart.

February 15 in Ancient Rome

Lupercalia

festivalAnnual

Roman calendar date

The Luperci ran around the Palatine striking onlookers with goatskin thongs in an old purification rite.

Lupercalia

Background

The Lupercalia was one of Rome's oldest and strangest festivals, centred on the Lupercal, the cave at the foot of the Palatine where, in legend, a she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus tradition. Its rites were already ancient and puzzling to Romans of the late Republic.

On 15 February the Luperci, young men in two colleges, sacrificed goats and a dog at the cave. Two youths were touched on the forehead with the bloody knife, wiped clean with wool soaked in milk, and had to laugh per Plutarch. The Luperci, nearly naked and wearing goatskins, then ran around the Palatine striking people with thongs cut from the hides. Women offered their hands to be struck, believing it would help them conceive and give birth per Ovid and Plutarch.

In 44 BC, at the Lupercalia, Mark Antony, running as a Lupercus, offered Julius Caesar a royal diadem, which Caesar refused before the crowd; a month later Caesar was dead. The festival survived long into the Christian era; Pope Gelasius I argued against it in the late 5th century per his letter to Andromachus.

Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 2.267–452 · Reference

Sources
Read moreParentalia begin (Feb 13–21)

Parentalia begin (Feb 13–21)

festivalAnnual

Roman calendar date

Nine days for honouring dead family members, beginning on the Ides of February and ending with the public Feralia.

Parentalia

Background

February was the Roman month of purification and remembrance. The Parentalia, "days of the parents", began at noon on the Ides of February and lasted nine days. A Vestal Virgin opened them with rites for the dead per the calendar inscriptions as reported by modern scholars.

During these days families visited the tombs of their relatives along the roads outside the city, bringing simple offerings. Ovid lists them: a wreath, a sprinkling of grain, a little salt, bread soaked in wine, and loose violets per Ovid. Temples were closed, altar fires were not lit, and marriages were avoided per Ovid. The festival ended with the public Feralia on 21 February.

Tombs lined every road into Rome, from great monuments of the rich to the modest niches of burial clubs, where enslaved people and freedmen pooled small payments to secure a decent burial and remembrance. Not everyone had one: the poorest were dumped in mass pits outside the Esquiline gate. The Parentalia shows how strongly Romans felt that the dead needed care from the living.

Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 2.533–570 · Reference

Sources

Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 12°/3°C (54°/37°F) · rain 28% of days

Rome in FebruaryFebruary was Rome's month of purification and of the dead.

Columella
The sun enters Pisces; sometimes windy weather. (De Re Rust. 11.2)

Fields & crops

The west wind (Favonius) brought the first signs of spring around 7 February per Columella 11.2: vines were pruned, trees grafted, and meadows cleared and manured.

Courts & law

February was when the Senate traditionally heard foreign embassies late Republic, per the lex Gabinia and Cicero's letters. Ordinary law courts kept sitting except on festival days.

Senate & politics

As the last month of the old year, February was used for the intercalary month when the pre-Julian calendar needed correcting, inserted after the Terminalia (23 Feb.), a source of political manipulation pre-Julian.

Military

Still the closed season; armies prepared for spring, recruits trained, and supplies were gathered at frontier bases.

Festivals & religion

The month's name comes from februa, means of purification. The Lupercalia (15 Feb.), the Parentalia for the family dead (13–21 Feb.) ending with the Feralia, the Caristia family reunion (22 Feb.) and the Terminalia for boundary stones (23 Feb.) filled it per Ovid, Fasti 2.

Daily life

February was Rome's month of purification and of the dead. During the Parentalia (13–21 February) families brought simple offerings—wreaths, grain, salt, bread soaked in wine, violets—to their ancestors' tombs per Ovid, Fasti 2.533–42. Death was close: perhaps a quarter or more of infants died in their first year, and tombstones for young children are common modern demographic estimate; disputed in detail.

On farms Columella says the west wind (Favonius) starts about 7 February, signalling pruning, grafting and the first spring work per Columella 11.2. The Lupercalia (15 February) saw young men run through the streets striking women with goatskin strips, believed to help fertility and childbirth per Ovid and Plutarch.

Sources: Ovid, Fasti 2 · Columella 11.2

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LATIN LINE OF THE DAY

Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.

“Tomorrow's life is too late: live today.”

Martial, Epigrams 1.15 · translation ours (literal)