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The name of the last month of the old Roman year is derived from the word februum, usually understood as an instrument of purification. This word, and its derivatives were best known in connection with the Lupercalia, the most prominent of the festivals of the month. There is hardly another festival in the Roman calendar so interesting and so well known as Lupercalia. Owing to the singular interest attaching to its celebration in BC 44, only a month before Caesar’s death, we are unusually well informed as to its details; but these present great difficulties in interpretation, which the latest research has not altogether overcome.
