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Why do the Luperci sacrifice a dog?1 The
Luperci are men who race through the city on the
Lupercalia, lightly clad in loin-cloths, striking those
whom they meet with a strip of leather.
[p. 105]
Is it because this performance constitutes a rite of
purification of the city? In fact they call this month
February, and indeed this very day, februata; and
to strike with a kind of leather thong they call
februare, the word meaning ‘to purify.’ Nearly
all the Greeks used a dog as the sacrificial victim
for ceremonies of purification ; and some, at least,
make use of it even to this day. They bring
forth for Hecatê2 puppies along with the other
materials for purification, and rub round about with
puppies3 such persons as are in need of cleansing,
and this kind of purification they call periskylakismos
(‘puppifrication’).
Or is it that lupus means ‘wolf’ and the Lupercalia
is the Wolf Festival, and that the dog is hostile to
the wolf, and for this reason is sacrificed at the Wolf
Festival?
Or is it that the dogs bark at the Luperci and annoy
them as they race about in the city?
Or is it that the sacrifice is made to Pan, and a dog
is something dear to Pan because of his herds of
goats?
1 Cf. 290 d, infra; Life of Romulus, chap. xxi. (31 b ff.); Life of Numa, chap. xix. (72 e); Life of Caesar, chap. lxi. (736 d); Life of Antony, chap. xii. (921 b-c); Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 13; scholium on Theocritus, ii. 12.
2 Cf. 277 b, supra, and 290 d, infra.
3 That the puppies were later sacrificed we may infer from the practive elsewhere and on other occasions.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 4.
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