| Department of Classics | University of Colorado at Boulder | May 2002 |
Table of Contents
Professors Schütrumpt and Knox Receive Prestigious Boulder Faculty Assembly Awards for Excellence
Department Graduates Outstanding Class of 2002
Seven Earn Classics Masters Degrees
Lenski Sponsors Lupercalia in his Paganism to Christianity Class
AIA Lecture Schedule Set For 2002-03
Five Nichols Scholarships Awarded to Outstanding Undergraduates
Noel Lenski Wins Humboldt Award
Classics Reaches Out to Denver Middle Schoolers
Friends of Classics at CU-Boulder
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Department of Classics
University of Colorado at Boulder
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248 UCB
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0248
Lenski Sponsors Lupercalia in his Paganism to Christianity Class
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| Professor Lenski, dressed in the garb of an ancient Roman Flamen Dialis, prepares for a Lupercalian sacrifice. |
On a snowy February 15, Professor Noel Lenski sponsored a traditional Roman Lupercalia using students in his course on Paganism to Christianity as participants. Several students volunteered to play the role of Luperci, traditionally naked male priests who ran around the Capitoline Hill striking maidens with strips of goat hide every February 15.
The festival, designed to honor the god Pan and to ensure fertility for young maidens, forms the basis for the modern festival of St. Valentine. Our modern Luperci - both male and female in keeping with current gender norms - wore a bit more clothing - in keeping with current decency laws - and ran in the freezing cold around Norlin Quadrangle striking anyone with synthetic goat hide - in keeping with current attitudes about animal cruelty. Professor Lenski officiated as Flamen Dialis, the priest of Jupiter charged with overseeing the sacrifice of a dog and a goat, for which stuffed equivalents were substituted.
