 Holidays don't just spring up sporadically just because somebody feels like celebrating something. Our traditional holidays that we celebrate in our modern times, most of the time, have roots in our ancient past, specifically pagan roots. And even though there are so many stories around this holiday of Valentine's Day, there's one origin story in particular that we're going to talk about today. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Also, again, a very, very, very special thank you to all of our patrons who helped make this channel possible. Welcome to esoteric Atlanta and on this very special Valentine's Day edition, we are going to talk about Lupercalia. Never heard of Lupercalia. And in my digging, I found a very interesting quote given to us by the History Channel. Now I know the History Channel is kind of suspect with this information, but nonetheless, this is what the History Channel had to say about Lupercalia. Lupercalia was a bloody, violent and sexually charged celebration awashed with animal sacrifice, random matchmaking, and coupling in the hopes of warding off evil spirits and infertility. Lupercalia was a Roman holiday, a Roman celebration that took place on February the 15th. It traces as far back as the 6th century BC and ended in the 5th century AD, which we'll get to later on in this story. But to start with, what was Lupercalia? Now the origins of Lupercalia go all the way back to the story of Romulus and Remus. Most people are familiar with the story of Romulus and Remus, but just a Cliff Notes version in case you are not. Romulus and Remus were the nephews of King Amulius. Now Romulus and Remus' mother was the king's sister, and she had taken vows of celibacy. However, obviously those vows were broken when she gave birth to twin boys. And so the king ordered that the twin boys be drowned in the Tiber River. But kind of like with the story of Moses, somebody made baskets for the little boys and put them in the basket and sent them down the river. The basket got stuck in some weeds where they were found. And they were found by a she-wolf who took them into a cave and raised them as her own. There's a very famous statue of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf. I grew up in a city called Rome as well, Rome, Georgia, considered a sister city to Rome, Italy, and we do have our own statue of Romulus and Remus downtown in Rome, Georgia. Now funny story, last time I was in Rome, Italy, they didn't seem to impressed about the fact that there was a small town in Georgia that was considered to be Rome's sister city. But nonetheless, I too grew up with the statue of Romulus and Remus. Now eventually the boys were found by a shepherd and his wife and they took the boys in and then raised them as their own. The boys later went back to the cave where they found the she-wolf who had raised them. And there they named her Luperkul. The boys then went back and killed their uncle who tried to have them killed as babies. Romulus ended up becoming like the king of the area, and that's where we get the name Rome from. And this is not only the origin story for the Luperkulian holiday, but also for Rome itself. Now Luperkulia, the festival that happened on February 15th, started on Palantine Hill in the actual cave where Romulus and Remus were said to be protected by the she-wolf. This was a Luperkul cave, again because they named the wolf Luperkul. Now the festivities would start with the priestly caste, and there were two priestly cast. These were, you guessed it, bloodline families. Both of these priestly cast were said to descend from both Romulus and Remus. The Quentilei priest were the descendants of Romulus, and the Fabii priest were the descendants of Remus. So they were like celebrity big deals in the city of Rome, especially since we know apparently bloodlines have been super important since the beginning of time, especially to our elite. So these priests would meet in this cave together, this dark, dingy cave, and they would have a feast where they would also get pretty drunk. Then here comes the really sad part to me and probably to a lot of people watching that. They would then sacrifice goats and one dog, yes you heard me right, dog, to their gods. People believe that they sacrificed a dog because the dog was the closest thing to the she-wolf, and they wanted to pay homage to the wolf who rescued Romulus and Remus from whence they descended from. At this point they would have two young boys step forward from each clan to represent Romulus and Remus. At that point the priest would take the bloody knife from the sacrifice and rub the blood on their forehead. At that point they would take a cloth and goat's milk and also rub the goat's milk on the forehead. Probably didn't smell too, too good. And after that was over they would take the hide of the goats and they would make whips with these goat hides. Now these whips were called febbruary, or february, hence where we get the month's name from the loop or carolian holiday and from these whips made of goat's hide. Once they had the whips they would then strip down naked and being drunk and having these boys covered in blood and goat's milk they would run all over the streets whipping people with these goat's hide. Very interesting mating call if you ask me. I feel like we're a little bit more civilized nowadays when we try to mate with people and the reason why I say mate with people is because it was mostly women that they would try to whip and women would willingly put themselves out there to be whipped because this whipping was a sign of fertility and it also was supposed to take away the pain of childbearing. Now once the whipping and the shenanigans on the streets were done the priests would then cook up the rest of the goat to serve to everybody else of course with loads and loads of alcohol. People in the town would also sing songs about their neighbors and their friends' sex life. Yes you heard me correct they would go out in this town and sing about their neighbor who had a propensity of showing up at brothels. Then to make it even more weird and possibly a little bit like a swingers club the women would write their name on these tablets and place them into these jars where the men would come and draw out a woman's name. Now these women apparently allegedly were the women that they were supposed to spend the next year with. It was the hopes of these women that they would get pregnant during this time and have children. In my humble opinion e-harmony is a way better way to find a match than being whipped and putting your name in a jar having no clue who you're going to actually end up with for the next year. Now again as I stated this festival happened from basically the 6th century BC all the way up to the 5th century AD and it wasn't until 496 that they actually got rid of this pagan holiday and the pope at the time replaced it as the feast day for a man named Saint Valentine. Now Saint Valentine had been executed on February 14th hence why the date of the festival got changed and hence why it is now called Valentine's Day. Yes the origins of Lupercalia were set in love and wrote not I don't know if it's romance because maybe romance I guess it depends on who you're matched with but definitely fertility and sex but as we see it today was definitely changed in 496 AD. So who was Saint Valentine? Well Valentine was a priest who lived in the Roman Empire in the 200th so the 3rd century this was long before Christianity became an official religion of the Roman Empire this was long before Constantine the Great was around. In fact it is believed that Valentine was born in 226 AD so yeah like 100 years before the Council of Nicea but with that being said the Christian faith had spread throughout the Roman Empire especially to the lower class of the Roman Empire. They were starting to turn away from the pagan ideology of the Roman Empire and embracing more of this Jewish or Abrahamic faith coming out of Israel called Christianity. Now around this time the time of Valentine or closer to his execution we had an emperor in Rome called Claudius II or known as Claudius the Cruel and Claudius really loved war. Unfortunately a lot of for Claudius at least a lot of his men were not longing or wanting to sign up to be a part of the military. For the young men of the Roman Empire it appeared that they instead of signing up to go to war and possibly die in a horrible terrible way they wanted to get married and have a family and live relatively peaceful lives. Don't really blame them do you? Well this was not good for Claudius II or Claudius the Cruel because he needed men he needed men to fight for the Roman Empire and so he banned marriages and he started going around and arresting grooms men who were supposed to go get married he would arrest them they could not get married they had to go fight these wars for Claudius not for them but for Claudius. Well Valentine being a priest in Rome decided that God's love and God's hope for mankind to be married was a greater commandment than that of Claudius and so Valentine started marrying people in secret and you do not go against the emperor's wishes. As soon as Valentine was found to be conducting these marriages he himself was arrested and executed he was first beaten in public to death then followed by a stoning then followed by a beheading. His execution was approximately done into 78 AD so it wasn't for over another 200 years before Saint Valentine's Day feast was held on February 14th and again it was acknowledged and it was held just so they could stop practicing lubricalia. I mean we gotta find some way to stop these men from running around drunk naked in the town and you know it was just so handy that here this guy was this priest named Valentine who was marrying people in in secret that's that's love right so let's just shift it and let's shift the date to February 14th the day he was executed and let's just get rid of lubricalia altogether but I'm sure somewhere in our world there are still people who practice lubricalia I'm sure they do it in secret we know the elite do these things in secret all the time. Now reading about lubricalia kind of cracked me up with the running around naked and you know whipping people although I'm not a fan of any type of sacrifice whatsoever and I will continue to celebrate Valentine's Day with my boyfriend by exchanging a card and maybe eating some chocolate and getting some roses. So what are your thoughts have you ever heard of lubricalia was this new to you it was totally new to me but not surprising because almost every holiday we have he's found its origins in pagan beliefs. Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below. Again I'm so happy you joined me today have a wonderful and happy Valentine's Day I love each of you very very much and I hope your day is filled with goodness and fun. Once again thank you to Josh McCabe for doing our music and thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me get this video out to you guys. Again happy Valentine's Day and I will talk to you soon. Bye!