Some are born knowing that life is a thing to be enjoyed, and others grow up viewing it as an opportunity to complain. Sometimes one has to deal with the latter, and so we do, with an opening section in which certain criticisms are addressed. You can read that, if you wish, or you can skip ahead to the discussion of the Lupercalia, and how it might be celebrated today.At some places we will hit upon subjects which are slightly distasteful. One can scarcely discuss sexual morality without doing so. There is nothing lurid, however, and the more displeasing passages come, we feel, with ample warning, and content labeling tags which should insure that parental filtering software will kick in as needed.
A point that we've made before, that has often fallen upon the stubbornly deaf ears so often found in the Pagan community, is that "fertility festivals" very often were not what some people insist on believing that they were. In some cases, sex wasn't even hinted at; consider the ancient Greek festival of the Thesmophoria, which men were forbidden to attend and sexual abstinence on the part of the women present was mandatory. Reading a description of what went on during the Kalligeneia, on the third day of the festival, on the Hellenic NeoPagan Calendar site, we come across this mouth watering passage:
"While women clap to scare away the sacred snakes that guard the caverns, the Antletriai go down into the caves, collect the Thesmoi in buckets, and place the putrefying matter on the altars of Demeter and Persephone. Later this "compost" is removed from the altars and mixed with the grain to be sown the following month (i.e., late Nov. to early Dec.)."
This material that is being spread comes from the remains of the piglets that were sacrificed last year, by tossing them into a chasm. So we're looking at the carting away of year old, decomposed, smashed pig carcasses. If somebody is feeling sexually aroused by this description, I've already learned far more about that person's dating life than I need to. The rest of us should recognize this ritual for what it is: the creation of fertilizer, something about as sexual as a trip to the 4H club.
But never underestimate the power of a mindless, knee jerk reaction. One says the words "fertility festival", and more than a few people react strangely. This particular Roman festival was nothing like the pungent Kalligeneia, but as we have said elsewhere, those who came to the original festival seeking sexual conquests were bound to be disappointed. This festival was intended to help bring children in the world, and so the (admittedly sometimes naked) young women who attended would most likely have been married.
Outside of the bed chambers of some of the emperors and the scandal mongering writings of some of the writers of the time, the Romans took marital fidelity very seriously throughout most of their history. Arguably, much more so than modern Americans, given the fact that the latter have not made adultery a capital offense, or anything akin to being one (eg. a class X felony in Illinois). When we do see this stern response breaking down, it is doing so in a time when the Caesars have succeeded in turning a once reasonably free people into the prisoners of a police state spanning most of the civilized world in the West.
For some of the worse emperors to even have wealthy (and loyal) citizens murdered merely because they desired their lands, was hardly an unheard of event. As civil liberties broke down, any who might object to their antics on the basis of traditional values were likely to stay silent. In this, we can accuse none of them of cowardice. Even if they had no fear of what dissent might lead the authorities to do to them, there was the unhappy question of what those same authorities might do to their families.
It is not without reason that the time we look to, as we read this, for the most part will be that of the Republic. This was an era that, if not utopian, was at least one during the rule of law held firmer than it would in the Imperial period. For all of the cultural details that have come down to us, that would strike some today as being "colorful eccentricities", the prevailing values, if unduly harsh by modern standards were, at their core, profoundly moral ones. A point that some Neo-Pagans would quickly forget, but we, as Traditionalists, would like people to remember. Enough blathering, let's get on with the article.
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