Lupercalia: Did you mean...?

The Lupercalian festival in Rome: Cupid and Personifications of Fertility encounter the Luperci dressed as dogs and goats, a pen and ink drawing by the Circle of Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610).

Before chocolates, roses and letters from your valentine were given on Valentines Day, there was the Ancient Roman Festival of the Lupercalia in honour of both the agricultural god Luperca and the she-wolf who sucked Romulus and Remus, Lupus...

Saint Valentine’s Day, or simply Valentine’s Day, is celebrated on the 14th of February, almost internationally but primarily in western societies. It is a commemorative Christian feast for some but a secular occasion for others who see it...

Marcus Junius Brutus (85 BCE to 42 BCE) was a Roman senator most famous for his role in the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BCE. Said to have been descended from the semi-legendary founder of the Roman Republic...

Gaius Cassius Longinus (circa 86-42 BCE) was a leader of the 'Liberators', the faction of Roman senators who assassinated Julius Caesar on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BCE. Motivated by a desire to save the Roman Republic from collapsing...

Veni, vidi, vici! This was the simple message the Roman commander Julius Caesar sent to the Senate in Rome after a resounding victory in the east against King Pharnaces of Pontus - a message that demonstrated both arrogance as well as great...

Ancient Roman culture affected vast numbers of people across the known world of its time, beginning with the rise of the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE) and throughout the duration of the Roman Empire (27 BCE - c. 476 CE in the West and 1453...

Augustus is well known for being the first Emperor of Rome, but even more than that, for being a self-proclaimed “Restorer of the Republic.” He believed in ancestral values such as monogamy, chastity, and piety (virtue). Thus, he introduced...

Love, sex, and marriage in ancient Rome were defined by the patriarchy. The head of the household was the father (the pater familias) who had complete control over the lives of his wife, children, and slaves. This paradigm was justified...

Courtly Love is a literary genre of poetry that began in the south of France in the 12th century during the period known as the High Middle Ages. In this new genre of poetry, motifs were established that are still commonly used today in the...