Chapter 5 Flashcards
The Lupercalia, to judge from the time of its celebration, would seem to be a festival of purification. For it is performed on the inauspicious days of the month of February (a name of which may be explained as meaning ‘purificatory’) – and in early times they used to call the day itself ‘Febrata’. But the name of the festival has a sense equivalent to the Greek ‘Lycaea’ <feast>, and because of that it seems to be exceedingly ancient, going back to the Arcadians under Evander. In fact this is the generally accepted explanation; for it is possible that the name is derived from the she-wolf <'lycaina'>.</feast>
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 21.3: Plutarch is offering an explanation that the festival was based on purification. Inauspicious days were marked N for nefasti.
Moreover we see that the luperci start out on their circuit of the city from the place where Romulus is said to have been exposed. But what actually happens in the festival makes it hard to hazard a guess about its origin. For they sacrifice goats; then two boys of noble family are brought forward – and some touch their forehead with a bloody knife, and others immediately wipe off the blood using wool soaked in milk. Once they have been wiped, the boys must laugh. After this, they cut the goat skins into strips and run about naked but for a belt around their waist, striking anyone in their path with the thongs. And women of childbearing age do not try to escape the blows, believing that they help toward fertility and easy childbirth. A distinctive feature of the festival is that the luperci sacrifice a dog as well.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus, 23.1-8: Gives and account for the start of the Lupercalia as commemoration of Romulus and Remus and their suckling of the she-wolf.
Now it is generally agreed that the foundation of the city took
place eleven days before the Kalends of May. And this day is
celebrated by the Romans with a festival, which they call the
birthplace of their country. In the beginning, it is said, they
sacrificed no living creature – but thought that they should keep pure and bloodless the festival commemorating the birthday of their country. However, even before the city’s foundation, they had a herdsmen’s festival on that day and they called it ‘the
Parilia
Plutarch, Life of Romulus, 12.1: Plutarch attempts to rationalize the different associations of the Parilia. He suggests two chronological changes: (a) the development of a pre-Roman pastoral festival into a festival commemorating the foundation of the city; (b) the introduction of animal sacrifice into a festival which had originally been ‘bloodless.’ This suggests a negative view of animal sacrifice.
While the conversation was continuing in this way, right then
throughout the whole city was heard the resounding noise of the pipes, the clash of cymbals and the beat of the drums, accompanied by singing. It turned out that it was the festival of the Parilia, as it used to be called – now called the Romaia, to commemorate the foundation of the temple of the Fortune of the city of Rome by the universally greatest and most cultured emperor Hadrian. That day is celebrated each year as a special occasion by all the inhabitants of Rome and by those staying in the city.
Athenaeus, Table Talk, viii.361 e-f: Athenaeus, writing in Greek, describes a learned Greek
gathering in Rome (part of a literary genre of dinner banquet dialogues that goes back to Plato’s Symposium). This passage suggests that the Parilia came as a surprise to the speakers in Athenaeus’ dialogue. The temple mentioned (of Venus and Roma) continued to be used for the celebration of the foundation of Rome for several centuries.
Meanwhile the head of the slave household, whose responsibility it was to offer sacrifice to the Penates, to manage the provisions and to direct the activities of the domestic servants, came to tell his master that the household had feasted according to the annual ritual custom. For at this festival, in houses that keep to proper religious usage, they first of all
honour the slaves with a dinner prepared as if for the master; and only afterwards is the table set again for the head of the household. So, then, the slave came in to announce the time of dinner and to summon the masters to table.
Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.22-3: Religious festivals sometimes gave license to disrupt the established social rules and hierarchies. One of the best known aspects of the private Saturnalia was the privilege of wining and dining that was briefly extended to household slaves. Part of loosely the same literary genre as Athenaeus’ Table Talk, dating to the late
empire. At the Saturnalia, slaves eat first.
