Lupercalia Festival

Month : February
Place : Rome
Famous For : Traditional Festival
Attractions : Sacrificial Feast, People Dressing in Goat Skins

Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed during the month of February. The two day festivity is observed to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. An interesting fact related to Lupercalia festival is that it led to the name of February month. The observation subsumed Februa, a possibly earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February its name.

Major Attractions

The Lupercalia festival was partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome,[5] explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, or "Wolf Festival." The festival was celebrated near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine Hill (the central hill where Rome was traditionally founded[6]), to expiate and purify new life in the Spring. The religious ceremonies were directed by the Luperci, the "brothers of the wolf (lupus)", a corporation of priests of Faunus, dressed only in a goatskin, whose institution is attributed either to the Arcadian Evander, or to Romulus and Remus. The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called Februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near.