*smooches you all*

[strange_complex]

Aww, it is Valentine's Day! Le cute. :)

I hope that you have all been checking out the messages on 021407. Some of you have reason to, y'know! ;)

Edit: now with bonus discussion of the 'relationship' between Valentine's Day and the Lupercalia in the comments!

Comments

[rich-r.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered how Valentines Day relates to Lupercalia (tomorrow I know). Being all-knowing on matters Roman, do you know if there's any connection?

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

This comes up quite regularly, but personally I don't see much link. OK, so the Lupercalia seems to have had a fertility aspect, but so did lots of ancient religious festivals. It also has elements relating to purification and the foundation of Rome - although even the Romans weren't really very sure what it was all about. They just knew they'd done it every year, and acquired a huge and prosperous empire, so they carried on doing it, not wanting to rock the boat!

Some of the different interpretations you get in the literary sources are as follows:

* Festival in honour of Pan - Dion. Hal. 1.80.1; Plut Roman Questions 3
* Commemoration of foundation / flood - Ovid, Fasti 2.381; Plutarch Romulus 21; Augustine, City of God 18.12
* Purification - Plutarch Romulus 21, Numa 19 and Roman Questions 3; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.80.1; Varro On the Latin Language 6.13
* Fertility - Plut Romulus 21 and Caesar 61

I don't have time to give hotlinks to the references right now (that's just copied and pasted from one of my levcture handouts), but you can see how the picture is rather confused, and there isn't really a very direct link with romantic love in any of the above.

Others have suggested (http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/dunkle/romnlife/luprclia.htm) that it's more directly linked with Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin (later moved to Feb 2nd), and that sounds more plausible to me. Valentine's Day is much too modern a construct, but at least the date for Candlemas was set in the 5th cent AD.

[rich-r.livejournal.com]

That seems fair enough to me. I know a lot of Valentine's Day as we know it today was a pretty much Victorian thing.

I actually first came across Lupercalia when in Tunisia of all places, when visiting Sousse. The guide was telling us about it (it being February when we were there). Though he was a bit vague when someone asked if it was a pre-Roman thing.

Thank you for your excellent answer!

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you've been to Sousse? Lucky-lucky-lucky!

I am hoping to get to some of the Roman sites in N. Africa in the context of my next research project, but it'll be some time yet... :(

[rich-r.livejournal.com]

I've been twice :) Both back in the early 1980s.

My mum was a geography teacher, and the school did a geography field trip to Tunisia for the 6th form (back in the days when school trips were on a if you can't afford it you can't go basis). So my dad, sister and I went too for the holiday (I'd be about 11 or 12)

A large amount of the Monty Python Life of Brian set was still in place in Monastir too. My memories of Carthage are that it was very hot, very windy but quite a picturesque place to have a city.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is one ace school trip! Good for your Mum.

I'm planning to try to avoid the summer when I go, as I have fair, Celtic skin which really doesn't mix well with hot sun.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

And now here's that list in a tidier format, with links where possible:

• Festival in honour of Pan - Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.80.1 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/1D*.html#80); Plutarch, Roman Questions 68 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Roman_Questions*/C.html#68)
• Commemoration of foundation / flood - Ovid, Fasti 2.381; Plutarch Romulus 21 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Romulus*.html#21); Augustine, City of God 18.12 (http://ccel.org/fathers/NPNF1-02/Augustine/cog/t98.htm#t98.htm.1)
• Purification - Plutarch Romulus 21 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Romulus*.html#21), Numa 19 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Numa*.html#19.5) and Roman Questions 68 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Roman_Questions*/C.html#68); Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.80.1 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/1D*.html#80); Varro On the Latin Language 6.13
• Fertility - Plutarch Romulus 21 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Romulus*.html#21) and Caesar 61 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html#61)

[rich-r.livejournal.com]

Hmm certainly from reading those it does seem like they were quite unsure as to the origins of the festival, or even what people were meant to do during it.

I guess it's just coincidence with the modern Valentine's Day - maybe a tenuous revival of a romantic notion of what people did at that time in the past.

Or maybe it's just that people were feeling a bit randy mid-February as the weather starts to get better...

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I do think it's interesting that a lot of people obviously want to find an ancient festival that can be identified as the 'origin' of Valentine's Day - just as they do for Christmas, Easter and lots of others. Of course a lot of it is about a modern desire to reject Christian traditions by finding older festivals which they can simply be said to have 'stolen'. But I think there's also an insight into the power of tradition generally there - the idea that the further back we can trace a festival, the more meaningful or significant it is.

And of course, what's most interesting of all from my point of view is that the Romans were up to exactly the same think when they went round tracing the origins of their own festivals to the Greek, the Etruscans or the very foundation of their own city.

[rich-r.livejournal.com]

It certainly seems that way.

Personally I'm just miserable and don't celebrate any special occasions. I'm not Christian, so generally find Easter and Christmas quite annoying in that all the shops are shut, and there's nothing worth watching on the telly!

Though I do make the effort to go to Whitby twice a year, but that's probably more of an excuse to meet up with people and dress up all Gothy :)