The Roman Festival of Lupercalia

Those looking for the origins of Valentine's Day inevitably encounter the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia. The Lupercalia festival is described in sometimes conflicting details by classical and Christian writers, so we have some idea of what went on at it, but there's even more about it we don't know. We don't know:

• which god was celebrated,
• exactly how/where it was celebrated, or
• what its origins were.

Lupercalia is one of the most ancient of the Roman holidays (one of the feriae listed on ancient calendars from even before the time Julius Caesar reformed the calendar) and it is familiar to us today for two main reasons:

1. It is associated with Valentine's Day
2. It is the setting for Caesar's refusal of the crown that was made immortal by Shakespeare, in his Julius Caesar.

The name of the Lupercalia is on our minds now more than ever since the 2007 discovery of the legendary Lupercal cave -- where, supposedly, the twins Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf.

The Lupercalia may be the longest lasting of the Roman pagan festivals. Some modern Christian festivals, like Christmas and Easter, may have taken over elements of earlier pagan religions, but they are not essentially Roman pagan holidays. Lupercalia may have started with the founding of Rome or before. It ended about 1200 years later, at the end of the 5th century A.D., at least in the West, although it continued in the East for another few centuries. There may be many reasons why Lupercalia lasted so long, but most important must have been its wide appeal.

Why Is Lupercalia Associated With Valentine's Day?

If all you know about Lupercalia is that it was the background for Mark Antony to offer the crown to Caesar 3 times in Act I of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, you probably wouldn't guess that Lupercalia was associated with Valentine's Day. Other than Lupercalia, the big calendar event in Shakespeare's tragedy is the Ides of March, March 15. Although scholars have argued that Shakespeare did not intend to portray Lupercalia as the day before the assassination, it sure sounds that way. Chronologically, Lupercalia was a full month before the Ides of March. Lupercalia was February 15 or February 13-15, a period either proximate to or covering modern Valentine's Day.

Sharing a date is not enough to connect Lupercalia and Valentine's Day closely. For that there is a thematic connection.