Roman Festivals

The Lupercalia

Origins of the festival- it was a festival of purification and fertility in honour fo the god lupercus. it was a wolfy fesitval and also honoured romulus. it happened on feb 15th.

officials- they were creatively called luperci (basically of lupercus </3) and were from the rich male population 

the programme- so the lupercali gathered in the lupercal, the cave where the wold suckled romulus + remus. 
in the cave was an altar to lupercus. they luperci went into 2 teams, did a sacrifice and the teams did a race around bottom of the palatine hill

the sacrifice- in the cave, they sacrificed dogs and goats. apparently these animals were very virile. idk. 

the sacrifice happened like usual: mola salsa, head nodding, knife slicing, then the knife was dipped in blood and dripped onto the luperci, then it was wiped off with wool-soaked milk  (the whole think is so weird idkk) then they laughed (i'm sorry what) 

the haruspex read the entrails, if the entrails said good stuff the luperci would eat the meat and drink cakeloads of wine. then they would slice up the skins and would be used to cover the body and as whips during the race.

for some reason in the race everyone was naked. bc that's how lupercus wanted apparently.

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