Valentine's Day in Ancient Rome

What are the origins of Valentine's Day? Perhaps the answer lies in a pagan festival that starts with a sacrifice in a cave above Ancient Rome. What connects the naked running through the streets of Rome to Valentine's Day today? How did the onset of Christianity in Rome effect celebrations? And when did Valentine's Day as we know it today first take off? Joining Kate to find out all about this, is friend of the show and author, Emma Southon. Check out Emma's book A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women, here https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/A-History-of-the-Roman-Empire-in-21-Women/Emma-Southon/9780861542314. This podcast was edited by Amy Haddow and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

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• 0:38Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Hannah Burner from Giggly Squad, and the holidays are around the corner, which means I'm officially entering my Hostess Hannah era with Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. You guys know I love cats and fostering, but when I'm hosting, I do not want my house smelling like cats. I want people focusing on my hosting skills. That's why I love Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. It delivers long-lasting odor control and forms compact clumps that make cleanup easy, so that's one less thing I need to worry about when people come over. Be guest-ready with Arm & Hammer Cat Litter. Find it now at Walmart or Amazon.

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  Tune in to Two Girls, One Ghost wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen at your own risk.

• 1:46Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely betwixters! It's me, Kate Lister. Happy Valentine's Day, week, or whenever this is going out! There's nobody that I would rather be spending the day with, but before we can do anything together, I have to tell you once again, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. And we have to tell you that because if you get upset, well, then we can just say, "We did tell you. Fair dues. You were warned, and you listened anyway, you maniac." Right, on with the show!

• 2:22Kate Lister?

  It is a beautiful, cool February afternoon in the 5th century B.C. and we are in Rome. And I have decided to go for a hike up the Palatine Hill. That is a complete lie. I would not go hiking anywhere, let alone up a hill. But we will suspend our disbelief for the podcast. Breathe it in, betwixt us. This is the stuff. It's good to get out the hustle and bustle, isn't it? It's so tranquil up here.

• 2:54Kate Lister?

  Just a minute.

• 2:57Kate Lister?

  There's a bunch of priests coming out of a cave, completely ruining the vibe I've got going on here. And they're covered from head to toe in goat's blood? What on earth? This wasn't in the hiker's handbook. And now they're wiping it across each other and soaking it in wool and milk and... Oh my god, no, I knew hiking was a terrible idea. Right, I'm going back down the hill. But you know what? Now I think about it, those mad priests could have been worshipping the Lupercalia, which tends to happen around these parts at this time. And that was a completely bonkers festival, which involved goats, blood, cave, and a lot of smearing and whipping. Curious to know more?

• 3:42Kate Lister?

  Well, I know I am. Let's crack on.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  What are you calling, man?

• 3:48Speaker 05

  Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

• 3:52Speaker 06

  I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning him up and pushing the button.

• 4:05Speaker 05

  Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

• 4:07Speaker 07

  Goodness, what a beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, d'ry.

• 4:16Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Is it a coincidence that our Valentine's Day falls at the same time of year as the Lupercalia festival was held in ancient Rome? Did Rome's transition to Christianity and a distancing from its pagan past have anything to do with merging goat smearing priests with fat little cupid babies and boxes of chocolates? And if it did, or even if it didn't, how did the Valentine's Day we know and possibly loathe to this very day become a thing? Joining me today to answer all of these questions and more is the one and only Emma

• 4:58Kate Lister?

  Southern, expert in all things Roman and disgusting, and longtime friend of the show. If this episode has piqued your interest, then why not scroll back to our previous episodes with Emma, including the one on gladiators, sex lives and murder in the Roman world? Right, goat whips at the ready, Betwixters, let's do this.

• 5:21Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, it's only Emma Southon, how are you doing?

• 5:27Speaker 06

  I am very well, thank you. I am waiting for spring to come and all of this-

• 5:33Kate Lister?

  Fucking freezing, isn't it?

• 5:34Speaker 06

  It's so cold. And we're here talking about springtime festivals and the possibility of rebirth, and we need it right now.

• 5:43Kate Lister?

  Don't we? For our latest installment in the unofficial series, fucking hell the Romans were shit, weren't they? Which I'm thoroughly enjoying. We seem to get a lot of mileage-

• 5:53Speaker 06

  This one's fucking hell the Romans were weird.

• 5:57Kate Lister?

  They're intensely weird. Before we even get going, I should ask you, have you seen the new Gladiator film yet?

• 6:02Speaker 06

  I have seen the new Gladiator film.

• 6:04Kate Lister?

  I haven't seen it yet, I should have watched it. What's your thoughts?

• 6:07Speaker 06

  Um- It's not as good as the first one, to be honest with you. And kind of not weird enough. The sharks are quite good, I'll give you that. I wish they hadn't been ruined by the trailer because I was sort of delighted by them. But yeah, it's not, it's not as good as the first one, is what I thought.

• 6:25Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 6:25Speaker 06

  And also, they do bad things to Caracalla, which I don't think I will ever forgive Ridley Scott for. But that, I can go on about that for about a thousand years. But just important to note that he was not a small, syphilitic, insane person. He was a large, hot African man.

• 6:41Kate Lister?

  Right, duly noted. I don't know if you can stream it yet, presumably you can, I might, I'm gonna make myself a little note. Watch Gladiator two this evening. And then text Emma about it, that's all right, I've just made a little note.

• 6:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 6:56Kate Lister?

  But we're not here to talk about Gladiator, more to the pity. We're here to talk about the rather peculiar Roman festival, the Lupercalia.

• 7:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 7:05Kate Lister?

  Which some people float the suggestion it's a Valentine's Day thing. But take it from the top, Emma, what on earth is this?

• 7:13Speaker 06

  It's so weird that even the Romans didn't know what it was or where it came from. And they came up with about 50 different explanations for why it happened. But the main part of it was a load of noble, kind of equestrian level, so just like the second highest class, young men and senators as well, running around the streets completely naked, hitting women with goat skin lashes and the women being like, yes, I love it. And then they would have a big party afterwards.

• 7:46Kate Lister?

  Yeah, that's weird. That is, that's.

• 7:49Speaker 06

  It is weird.

• 7:51Kate Lister?

  How do you end up there? That can't have been somebody suggesting that to a planning committee in all its glory of just like, right, I really think that women want to be whipped through the streets with bits of a goat.

• 8:02Speaker 06

  By naked Mark Antony.

• 8:04Kate Lister?

  From somewhere. By naked men, oh god.

• 8:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's very, very ancient. And like, kind of the ancient historian, kind of anthropological opinion is that it is like very pre-Roman, like Latin. Or Etruscan shepherd based like ritual to do with kind of letting loose and fertility and men running around protecting people and like purification. That just stuck around in Roman culture, like a lot of their stuff did. So like, they didn't know what the Vestal Virgins were either. They had no clue and they had to constantly make up. Stories and that's what they do for the Lupercalia because they don't really know why it's called the Lupercalia. They don't really know why they do it. They just know it's really important that they do.

• 8:50Speaker 06

  And so they come up with like three or four different explanations for why it is important for them to do this. There's also a whole kind of. Before the bit where they are eh running through the streets naked, they all get together in a cave at the bottom of the Palatine Hill. So a bunch of guys get together and sacrifice a goat. And then they pick two of the boys, like who are the initiates and they put blood of the goat on their foreheads. And then they dip some woolen milk and then wipe the blood off of their foreheads and then everybody has to do a ritual laugh. So.

• 9:26Kate Lister?

  I see.

• 9:28Speaker 06

  And then they skin the goat. So it's like, it's a combination of just men being really fucking weird in a cave and then insisting that everybody else get involved in their weirdness in the streets.

• 9:38Kate Lister?

  That, no, the Romans loved a festival and they loved sacrificing things too. That I've learnt that from you is if they're not killing something, then frankly, what was the point?

• 9:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's not a day if you've not sacrificed something.

• 9:51Kate Lister?

  So why was this festival particularly odd even to them? Because they've definitely sacrificed. Was it the nudity and the whipping bit?

• 9:58Speaker 06

  It's the nudity and the whipping bit, yes. They don't usually go around naked in the streets and they. Usually all of their festivals, they're actually very covered up. So they have a whole thing with covering their heads when they're doing sacrifice and they're kind of very. Most Roman festivals, which, of which there are hundreds, are very like. They look like a person with obsessive compulsive disorder, like doing everything in very specific ways. Everything has to be done with the right sounds and the right movements and. The right words at the right time and you have to be kind of very precise and careful. And if you do it wrong in any way, the whole thing has to be done all over again. And because otherwise the gods will come and get you.

• 10:40Speaker 06

  And this is one of the few where they have this little bit in the cave where they have to do these things. But then the rest of it is kind of a naked free for all. And there's lots of kind of laughing and men and women are involved, which is quite unusual. And it ends kind of with a big like dinner. And it's so it is quite unusual for a Roman festival where that for the kind of actual religious part to be fun, rather than quite a stressful set of rituals where the gods will smite you if you've done it wrong. And for everyone to be running around naked. So it is a weird one, but it seems to be one that people are really into.

• 11:19Kate Lister?

  Well, I mean, there's a certain element of fun to it. I can see that. Who's naked? Is everybody naked? At what point do they get naked? They did the thing in the cave with the goat and then everybody, what? Goes back home and then gets undressed then? What's happening?

• 11:33Speaker 06

  I think they probably take their clothes off before they get in there, to be honest. And if nothing else, you don't want blood. If you like, it's not a very big cave. You probably don't want blood on your toga.

• 11:41Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 11:41Speaker 06

  But it, what it is, is a collegia. So it's like a, an association and you get inducted into it. And it's like a bit like being in the Masons or something like Romans loved these things.

• 11:52Kate Lister?

  Oh, so it's a gang?

• 11:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, sort of like a gang, like a little club that you're in, like the Jacobins in the French Revolution, something like that. Like they're a club and it's only open to people of like a certain class. And you get the rest of the year, who knows what they were doing, hanging out. This is the one time of the year that you get to go and like, you're very important for the city. And you get to go and take off all your clothes and run around. And then it gets kind of linked.

• 12:17Kate Lister?

  Not, not everyone can do this. It's just certain people get to do it.

• 12:20Speaker 06

  So only certain people are inducted into it or are allowed to join. Although we have no idea like what that process is. All we know is that there are loads of, well, not even loads. There's a few like epitaphs of people who have had themselves remembered as members of the Lupercali. So they like, it's a membership thing that you have to presumably like apply to be allowed to run around naked every so often.

• 12:45Kate Lister?

  And you're, it's the men applying, not the women.

• 12:48Speaker 06

  Yeah. So the women are just in the streets.

• 12:50Kate Lister?

  Right, okay.

• 12:50Speaker 06

  And it develops this idea that if you are hit with the goat skin, so if they hit you, then either you will become pregnant, if you're not pregnant and you want to be, or if you are already pregnant, then you'll have an easy birth. So you won't die in childbirth, which happens surprisingly often. So women kind of love it and they're getting in the way going, ha, ha, ha, I'm gonna be. And it's a

• 13:14Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 13:15Speaker 06

  kind of gaily time of if you want to get pregnant, then you go and get in the way of whoever is running around. And if you are pregnant, then the story goes that it'll be better for you. So people want to be hit by them for the most part.

• 13:28Kate Lister?

  I'm trying to think of like, at what point, what got joined up here to the killing a goat? To, to, this is good for pregnant women. Like, what, how can we join those dots? Is there any way of joining the dots?

• 13:41Speaker 06

  Not really.

• 13:41Kate Lister?

  Were goats like good for pregnant women?

• 13:43Speaker 06

  Well, so it basically, when the Romans worked backwards, or the Greeks work backwards, because a lot of what we have writing about it is the Greeks trying to explain it to other people. And then occasionally the Romans trying to explain it to themselves. But the Greeks made it so that it linked to the Greek god Pan, who is obviously a goat hoofed god and is connected to kind of wilderness and woods and sex and fertility. And so they developed like this whole myth, basically, that there's loads of Roman myth. People forget about that the Romans loved a good myth as much as the Romans did. They're just kind of less sexy than the Greek ones. But there's this Roman myth that there was a guy called Evander,

• 14:26Speaker 06

  who comes from Arcadia in Greece, which is like the middle of the Peloponnese. And he was kicked out for some reason that no one could agree on, went to Italy, founded a city there on the Palatine. And like, it's called Palatineum, and he found a city and then kind of gathers people together and then instructs them in Greek ways. And he introduces to them this very ancient, pre-civilization Greek festival of Pan, which becomes the Lupercalia, and it's called the Lupercalia because he's from a place called Lysia and that becomes Lupercalia. And that is the best that the like Greeks could come up with.

• 15:04Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 15:05Speaker 06

  To say like, oh, it's very ancient. And that's what Cicero thinks it is. He thinks it's like a very ancient. Before we had civilization, everybody was running around naked. And so that's why we take our clothes off. And it's related to pan, so it must be to do with fertility.

• 15:20Kate Lister?

  A sexy thing.

• 15:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, sexy thing.

• 15:21Kate Lister?

  So Cicero writes about it, the Greeks write about it. Does any, who else is is throwing the hat in the ring with this and going, I know why we do this?

• 15:29Speaker 06

  Everybody kind of has a bit of a bash. So Livy has a go, Dionysus of Halicarnassus has a go. Plutarch writes about it a lot. It comes up in histories because there is a very, very famous moment that happens at one Lupercalia. Which is when Mark Antony, who is naked at the time, offers Julius Caesar the crown and offers him the chance to be a king. And Julius Caesar says, no.

• 15:52Kate Lister?

  Ooh.

• 15:53Speaker 06

  And that happens, I do think that this is underestimated while everybody is nude.

• 16:00Speaker 06

  There's just a bunch of naked men standing around and everybody's having a giggle. And then Julius Caesar decides to attempt to start a constitutional crisis in the middle of it. But that's like, so everybody then has to explain what the hell was going on and why Mark Antony had his dick out while he was offering a crown to Julius Caesar.

• 16:16Kate Lister?

  Yes, please.

• 16:17Speaker 06

  Yeah. So Plutarch and a bunch of others get involved. And they also offer this like Roman version, which is that is absolutely nothing to do with the Greeks, that they invented it all by themselves. And actually it's to do with Romulus and Remus. And it's either, or possibly both, that this is the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the wolf. So the Lupercalia comes from lupus. Or it is to celebrate an occasion when Romulus and Remus were just running around naked for fun. And somebody came up and said, oh, there's a like cattle rustler who's coming to steal all of your sheep and cows. And they ran off and chased them away and therefore protected the city.

• 17:01Speaker 06

  And that's why everybody runs around naked. Or it's a Completely separate one to do with, they were just having a party and then they got nude and ran around and then they killed a goat and dressed up as a goat. And that was hilarious. And everybody just remembers it because it's funny.

• 17:15Kate Lister?

  And this is Romulus and Remus, the ones who founded Rome allegedly.

• 17:19Speaker 06

  Yes. So Romulus and Remus are, the myth is that they're sons of Mars and a vestal virgin who is raped by Mars. That she then gives up the children at the instigation of her uncle and she, she has supposed to drown them, but she doesn't. They are exposed and rescued by a wolf, which is why Romans love wolves, who suckles them until they're taken in by a shepherd. And they can go and found their own city. And then they have a big fight over who, what they're going to call the city and where it's going to be, whether it's going to be on the Palatine or on the Esqualine. And Romulus stabs Remus in that argument, which is why it's called Rome and not Reem.

• 18:00Kate Lister?

  And not Reem?

• 18:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 18:01Kate Lister?

  That would have been, it could have had Times New Reeman fun.

• 18:05Speaker 06

  Times New Reeman, yes. Occasionally people do memes about Reem and imagine it as like the most glorious peaceful nation. So where Romulus is, it started like the most warlike nation who can't do anything without doing a stabbing. Um, the Reem would be just, everybody loves each other and it's peace and harmony and like a seventies flower child.

• 18:29Kate Lister?

  I would, I would like to have seen Reem.

• 18:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:31Kate Lister?

  This is an interesting Roman theory that, that I've, I've read about. I mean, to the bottom line of like, if none of it is true.

• 18:37Speaker 06

  No, no.

• 18:38Kate Lister?

  But I have heard it argued by some people that the wolf, the wolf that allegedly suckled Romulus and Remus might have actually, actually been a hooker.

• 18:47Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 18:47Kate Lister?

  And that somewhere along the lines, it got mixed up because the Roman, what's it, the Roman word, the Latin word, fucking okay. The Latin word.

• 18:56Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 18:56Kate Lister?

  For, for a sex worker is lupus, isn't it?

• 18:59Speaker 06

  It is.

• 18:59Kate Lister?

  And that's where we have lupinar, which is a brothel.

• 19:01Speaker 06

  I think that's from Livy actually, where he says, like, obviously he likes to debunk a myth. He doesn't. Ever say they didn't happen, he just says that the magic part didn't happen. So he's like those guys who are like, oh, maybe, you know, Noah's Ark actually was a real flood or whatever. So he's like, oh, yeah, no, it wasn't a wolf that suckled off my stomach. It was, it was like, we've got confused with the words leopards and leaper. And actually, it was a sex worker and we just don't know what we're talking about. And they didn't. They were just making it up. God bless them.

• 19:34Kate Lister?

  Just, it's all being made up.

• 19:36Speaker 06

  It is.

• 19:42Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Emma after this short break.

• 20:01Kate Lister?

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• 21:24Speaker 01

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• 21:56Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Would you believe us if we told you there was a podcast that was haunted? Well, there is. It's called Two Girls, One Ghost. We didn't want to believe it at first, but we can no longer ignore it. Two Girls, One Ghost is the most haunted podcast in America. We're talking ghosts caught on camera. Demonic possessions. Cursed mirrors. Bigfoot. Poltergeists. Exorcisms. Near-death experiences. Unsolved mysteries. Missing persons. Each week, we explore the deepest, darkest, spookiest places in the world. Tune in to Two Girls, One Ghost wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen at your own risk.

• 23:13Kate Lister?

  Is there any chance that the lupercalia could be anything to do with sex workers? Is that a reach?

• 23:19Speaker 06

  No. In fact, I would say probably sex workers.

• 23:21Kate Lister?

  Damn.

• 23:22Speaker 06

  They very often are trying to avoid pregnancy, so probably they would stay away.

• 23:26Kate Lister?

  Oh, good point. Good point. Okay. It's got slightly wolfy undertones.

• 23:32Speaker 06

  It has wolfy undertones. And apparently, they would also sacrifice a dog. They're like one saucer says that they sacrifice a dog, which even, that was weird for the Romans. They didn't do that very often.

• 23:43Kate Lister?

  The whole thing is incredibly weird. Of all the suggestions and explanations that have been put forward by various people, all of which sound quite mad, are there any of them that modern historians are like, well, actually, that one might, that one seems less mad than the others?

• 23:59Speaker 06

  Well, I think possibly it is pretty Roman. So the Greek one is, all of the ones that are like, this is a Greek thing, it's come from Arcadia, it's to do with pan, are considered to be just fabrications. The ones, it is very much a Roman festival that almost certainly started when they were just like shepherd guys sitting on a hill. So the ones where the story is that they were protecting or purifying or kind of encouraging the fertility of their sheep flocks are the ones that are considered to be kind of probably the most likely. So this is a time when they're running around, what is the middle of, like, it's still winter,

• 24:42Speaker 06

  it's still pretty grim, it's a good party, and what you're interested in as shepherds is the safety and like increase of your flocks. And then that gets transferred on to people when Rome is, hasn't got any sheep in it anymore, when it's a city of brick and where the sheep are all outside of the city, then you get worried about the fertility of your people.

• 25:06Kate Lister?

  I mean, we've, Erin said that it's all completely bonkers, but it is quite mad. But there are like modern, not recreations of this, but like similar weird festivals that happen, they're not sacrificing dogs or like whipping people. But like, there are strange festivals where men like chase after women or try and spank women. There was one recently that they tried to ban because someone went, should we be spanking women in the street that we don't know? I'm not entirely sure.

• 25:32Speaker 06

  I don't know how to feel about that.

• 25:33Kate Lister?

  That's a great idea.

• 25:34Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 25:35Kate Lister?

  But that was, what the hell was that? But that was a fertility thing as well. And there's a few of those that men go running around and they try and either kidnap women, joke, joke, kidnap joke, or they spank them for some reason.

• 25:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I don't know, it's like a kind of pre-European, Indo-European, like one of those. Strange things where it clearly has come from something that is before all of us.

• 25:56Kate Lister?

  Somewhere.

• 25:57Speaker 06

  That, like, you know, you have certain words that appear in all, like, lots of languages like that. Just, or, or certain myths that appear over and over again across cultures and times. Because there is something way back in the very distant human Indo-European past. And, and somewhere along the line, this idea of kind of grabbing women and spanking them or lashing them or holding them. Like, got embedded in our little monkey brains as a, a great idea.

• 26:27Kate Lister?

  And we keep doing it.

• 26:27Speaker 06

  As a sexy thing.

• 26:28Kate Lister?

  We think it's really.

• 26:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:30Kate Lister?

  Sexy, fun thing to do. Yeah, maybe it's not that completely bonkers. We still do weird shit like this around the world today. But I can't imagine the Christians like this very much. But then I was going, but what time period are we talking about here? Presumably before they turned up and went, um, excuse me, everybody, could you stop doing that, please?

• 26:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, pretty much. I mean, as far as we know, the Lupercalia existed in Rome from as soon as Rome existed. Like, like the Vestal Virgins.

• 26:54Kate Lister?

  From when it was a little dot.

• 26:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, from day dot, it was there and they were doing some form of it. The last time that we hear that it occurs is in the fifth century, at the end of the fifth century, in like four nine five A D. So.

• 27:08Kate Lister?

  A D. So it hung in there, actually.

• 27:09Speaker 06

  It hung in for a very long time, for over a thousand years.

• 27:13Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 27:13Speaker 06

  Although by that time, it is a very, very different festival, which brings into question like what had changed between its foundation? And by the time we hear of it in like the late Republic. What happens is that a pope, a bishop of Rome, writes a letter to somebody in Rome in response to complaints that the Lupercalia isn't being held. And somebody writes to him and says, oh, like, there's famine and there's plague here. And we reckon that it's because nobody's holding the Lupercalia. And we think that we should do it again, like we should bring it back. And, because no one's just really bothered for a while. It hadn't been outlawed. Sacrifice had been outlawed, but festivals surrounding them hadn't. And the pope writes back and is like, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

• 27:56Speaker 06

  One, because the Lupercalia was never invented to help with plague or famine. Like, it was always. It was about fertility. Livy says it was about fertility. Everybody says he like pulls out all of these quotes and it's like, nobody ever thought that it was about plague. And if it was about plague, then it wasn't doing a very good job. And then he says, you know, it's not like we even do it like they used to anyway, because these days we don't run around naked ourselves. We pay somebody else to do it. So they had somebody else running around naked, like actors. And our women aren't whipped anymore either. What they do is just shout names out. So by the fifth century, it had turned into something where there was little to no sexiness.

• 28:38Speaker 06

  It was just like actors running around in the street and they would like shout people's names out and it had turned into less of a fertility festival and more of a like naming and shaming festival of like.

• 28:50Kate Lister?

  Um. Doesn't sound nearly as much fun, does it?

• 28:53Speaker 06

  No.

• 28:54Kate Lister?

  No.

• 28:55Speaker 06

  Uh. So he was like, look, I mean, I think that he does have a great line, which is that if Christians do this, it's spiritual adultery, um, which is, I think, a great thing to be accused of. And but he said, like, if pagans want to do it, then that's their problem. But Christians shouldn't be doing it because it's gross. And I'd really appreciate it if you didn't mention this ever again. Thanks. Bye.

• 29:17Kate Lister?

  Was it, did anyone else do it? Was it just in Rome? Did anyone else like have their own version of the Lupercalia?

• 29:23Speaker 06

  And this is a question that no one knows the answer to, but because it is so specifically based on this one cave, like that, this cave at the bottom of the Palatine is where it has to be. They think it's possibly just a Roman one in this form that it is. And if other places had something like it, then it would be something that was similar, but would have a different name possibly.

• 29:45Kate Lister?

  Was it outlawed? Was it ever outlawed? Did it just sort of eventually fall out of favour? Just, just sort of dwindled away?

• 29:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, just kind of drizzled away. That's the last time we ever hear of it. And this is kind of before the Pope, the Bishop of Rome has any real like power to tell anybody. But the sacrifice element was illegal, so that was outlawed by Theodoces a couple of hundred years before that. A couple of hundred years, a hundred years. And eventually people just seemed to have stopped, like with a lot of things.

• 30:12Kate Lister?

  Got a bit bored.

• 30:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, everybody, like, there's clearly.

• 30:16Speaker 06

  People doing like pagan festivals while still being a Christian and eventually those pagan festivals just lose all of their meaning and then they just become like a thing and no one knows why they're doing them and then one year somebody stops and then it's clear from the letter from the Pope that they're not doing it all the time, like there's obviously been two or three years where it hasn't happened and they're thinking about bringing it back and he's like, no. So we don't know if they actually did bring it back after that, or that might have been the end of it, that they never did it ever again.

• 30:47Kate Lister?

  So how in the hell does a bunch of naked men running riot and whipping women with bits of a dead goat get linked to Valentine's Day? Cause I've never had that on a Valentine's

• 30:57Speaker 06

  No, I've never had that on a Valentine's Day.

• 30:59Kate Lister?

  And if you were woken up by a nude man with a bit of a goat trying to whip you, you'd phone the police.

• 31:05Speaker 06

  I would. I'd be very concerned, even if it was my husband, I think I'd be like

• 31:09Kate Lister?

  Very concerned.

• 31:10Speaker 06

  The last time he bought me a Valentine's Day present, it was to change the gas over from a meter and that was extremely good Valentine's Day present. So it would be quite a change of pace.

• 31:22Kate Lister?

  He'd be stepped up a gear, wouldn't he?

• 31:25Speaker 06

  Well, I'd wonder where he'd got the goat from. It'd be a lot.

• 31:32Speaker 06

  But it becomes connected to Valentine's Day kind of in the late Middle Ages, basically. First, there is this whole story that that the Pope banned it with this letter and then replaced it with the purification of the Virgin Mary. So it stops being the purification of people and starts being purification of the Virgin Mary. So that starts in 16th century and there's this Italian cardinal, basically, who invents this story that it was that the purification of Virgin Mary has been celebrated for so long, it's been celebrated since 5th century, da, da, da. And then everybody sort of stops worrying about the purification of Virgin Mary. It's not something that anybody really celebrates anymore. But what does emerge is the idea of courtly love and concept of romance and seducing and things like that.

• 32:15Speaker 06

  And the first mention of like Saint Valentine that you get as a something that people are celebrating in a romantic fashion is Chaucer. So around about the same Time, you get this notion that people have started to celebrate it. And then later after that, uh, towards like the, the 18th, 19th century, people start connecting the fact that this is on the 14th of February and the fact that the Lupercalia was on the 15th of February. They do overlook the fact that there's loads of other festivals that are happening at the same time, including one that's called something like the Fornicatia, um, which I think is a much, it's one that I would have gone for.

• 32:52Kate Lister?

  Oh, that sounds like an interesting.

• 32:55Speaker 06

  Uh, I'd say this is one of those, uh, ones where Latin is really leading you down a direction that sounds way more fun than it is.

• 33:01Kate Lister?

  Oh, you're just gonna tell me it's something like to do with pot plants or something now, aren't you?

• 33:05Speaker 06

  It's even more fun. It is the celebration of the grain oven.

• 33:11Kate Lister?

  Suck it up. Imagine misreading that and showing up completely in the nip of the oven. Your latex thigh high boot.

• 33:19Speaker 06

  The 15th, yeah.

• 33:22Kate Lister?

  You know, oh no.

• 33:25Speaker 06

  This one's the offens one, yeah.

• 33:27Kate Lister?

  The, oh god, you'd be so disappointed. You'd feel such a fool.

• 33:31Speaker 06

  You would, the embarrassment.

• 33:34Kate Lister?

  So the Lupercalia gets linked to St. Valentine's sort of purely by the fact it was the day after, and it's got a slightly love romantic-y thing in the fact that it was about fertility.

• 33:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, and because St. Valentine is a kind of, uh, in much the same way, like we celebrate it and it's become quite a big deal in the calendar. And people need to come up with a reason why, and exactly the same way that Romans were trying to come up with a reason why they ran around naked, like. And so St. Valentine doesn't refer to a single saint. There's like two main ones and then a couple of extra ones who have had romances developed around them that like are invented in the 18th century as well. And basically we're doing the exact same thing. We're making up like origin stories to explain why we do this stuff and why it occurs. And for some, there is a real.

• 34:27Speaker 06

  Desire for festivals that are in the Christian calendar to somehow have been deliberately supplanting Roman festivals. Like, people say the same thing about Christmas, that it was deliberately supplanted, like was brought in or invented in order to supplant the Saturnalia, rather than just existing by itself as its own thing and people liking to celebrate stuff.

• 34:52Kate Lister?

  Yeah. We do like that. It's quite a trendy thing, isn't it, to say, well, the Christians, they ruined everything. But in this particular case, ruined nude men charging around the streets.

• 35:02Speaker 06

  They did, they did. Although, by the sounds of it, they had already stopped being mostly nude by the time the Christians got involved. Although, we don't know, it might have been the Christians that stopped them being naked.

• 35:13Kate Lister?

  It might have been, but there's absolutely no link whatsoever between any of the Saint Valentines who are out there and this particular custom, nothing.

• 35:21Speaker 06

  No, the only link is that one of the Saint Valentines was from Rome and, like, I think he is a saint because he, like, ministered to martyrs. So if he lived in Rome, he almost certainly saw a lupercalia.

• 35:34Kate Lister?

  And that, that will have to do us, I think.

• 35:36Speaker 06

  That's what we've got.

• 35:37Kate Lister?

  That's what... He might have seen a goat as well at some point.

• 35:42Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 35:43Kate Lister?

  Like, you know, oh, I don't know if that's disappointing or not. I suppose it's just, it's just a thing that happened, isn't it? Do you think there's any chance it was bringing the lupercalia back?

• 35:53Speaker 06

  I'd be surprised, largely because people are very against sacrificing goats and dogs these days. And I think if you tried to be like...

• 36:00Kate Lister?

  They objected to, wouldn't it?

• 36:01Speaker 06

  It would be the puppies, you know.

• 36:03Kate Lister?

  Yes, you're right, you're right. They wouldn't like that at all. We'd have to have, like, vegan leather.

• 36:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 06

  And I'd struggle to connect vegan leather to fertility, to be honest.

• 36:17Kate Lister?

  So it's dead and gone. Oh, well.

• 36:20Speaker 06

  R.I.P.

• 36:21Kate Lister?

  R.I.P. But it must have been very, very popular in its time for us to still be talking about it and still be wondering about it to this very day.

• 36:29Speaker 06

  I feel like it was probably like a carnival or something like that. Like, it's a day where everybody gets a day off work, everybody gets to run around, it's hysterical, probably everybody's quite drunk, they get to have a big meal. It's like, it's a fun day out for...

• 36:43Kate Lister?

  It's a fun day out.

• 36:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:45Kate Lister?

  For a Roman. And look, you have been brilliant to talk to yet again. You always are. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 36:54Speaker 06

  They can find me at emmasouthern.com or they can find me at Emma Southon on Instagram or they can find me on my podcast, The History is Sexy, where we are recording an episode on the Marquis de Sade tomorrow, so very sexy.

• 37:07Kate Lister?

  No, if anybody knew anything about whipping anyone with a bit of a goat, it was him.

• 37:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, quite joylessly, I have to say, having read later.

• 37:17Kate Lister?

  Oh, thank you so much for coming on. You've been marvelous.

• 37:20Speaker 06

  A pleasure as always. Thank you.

• 37:27Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Emma for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you wanted to explore a subject or maybe you wanted to send us a Valentine's Day card, we don't need any goat hides, thank you very much, but you could email it to us at [email protected]. Coming up, we've got episodes on everything from the history of fatphobia to Michelangelo's sex life all coming your way. This podcast was produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets for History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Would you believe us if we told you there was a podcast that was haunted? Well, there is. It's called Two Girls, One Ghost. We didn't want to believe it at first, but we can no longer ignore it. Two Girls, One Ghost is the most haunted podcast in America. We're talking ghosts caught on camera. Demonic possessions. Cursed mirrors. Bigfoot. Poltergeist. Exorcisms. Near death experiences. Unsolved mysteries. Missing persons. Each week we explore the deepest, darkest, spookiest places in the world. Tune in to Two Girls, One Ghost wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen at your own risk.