United States or Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Antony knew this thoroughly, and first of all he selected the Lupercalia and that procession in order that Caesar in the relaxation of his spirit and the fun of the affair might be rebuked with immunity, and next he selected the Forum and the rostra that his patron might be shamed by the very places.

The opinion that is so often met with in pious books, that this feast with its procession of candlebearers was established by the Church to replace the riot and revels of the Pagan Lupercalia, is now rejected by scholars. For, processions, with or without lights, were so common amongst Pagans and Christians that any connection between these two feasts is negligible. March. St. Joseph.

The Romans were celebrating their festival, called the Lupercalia, when Caesar, in his triumphal habit, and seated above the Rostra in the market-place, was a spectator of the sports. The custom is, that many young noblemen and of the magistracy, anointed with oil and having straps of hide in their hands, run about and strike, in sport, at everyone they meet.

And at the feast of the Lupercalia , when the consul Antony placed a crown upon his head in the rostra several times, he as often put it away, and sent it to the Capitol for Jupiter, the Best and the Greatest.

The Lupercalia, by the time of its celebration, may seem to be a feast of purification, for it is solemnized on the dies nefasti, or non-court days, of the month February, which name signifies purification, and the very day of the feast was anciently called Februata; but its name is equivalent to the Greek Lycaea; and it seems thus to be of great antiquity, and brought in by the Arcadians who came with Evander.

But if those words have any meaning, then I, an augur, demand of my colleague to know what that meaning is. But lest by any chance, while enumerating his numerous exploits, our speech should pass over the finest action of Marcus Antonius, let us come to the Lupercalia. XXXIV. He does not dissemble, O conscript fathers; it is plain that he is agitated; he perspires; he turns pale.

The Lupercalia were then celebrated, a feast at the first institution belonging, as some writers say, to the shepherds, and having some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea.

At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honor of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

In 44 B.C. he had been consul with Caesar and had then offered him the crown at the festival of the Lupercalia. After Caesar's murder he had attempted, and not without a sort of right, to succeed to his power. It was he who pronounced the speech over Caesar's body and read his will to the people. It was he who obtained Caesar's papers and his private property.

It was the festival of the Lupercalia, about which many writers say that it was originally a festival of the shepherds and had also some relationship to the Arcadian Lykæa.