Pan’s connection to Lupercalia and wolves

There are many stories surrounding the festival of Lupercalia and its origins. As you may know, Lupercalia has to do with wolves. Wolves and the god of shepherds, sheep, and goats? Sounds like an oxymoron, but yes, there is a connection between Pan, Lupercalia, and wolves.




While Lupercalia is primarily a Roman festival, it has its origins in Ancient Greece. Originally male adolescents in Arkadia would reenact the feast of Lycaon and the gods every year. At the original feast, Lycaon prepared a feast for the Olympian gods that included some human flesh, perhaps from one of Lycaon’s male relatives. This so enraged Zeus, that he struck Lycaon’s house with a thunderbolt.
At the Arkadian reenactment, the teenagers would gather on a mountaintop and partake of a meal of animal entrails. However, amongst the animal guts was hidden one piece of human intestine. If a participant ate this juicy morsel, he would turn into a wolf and was only able to become human again if he refrained from eating human meat for nine years. Another way that the boys could achieve this lupine transformation was to swim across a special mountain pool. Once again, after nine years, they could regain their human form.



How does this relate to Pan? Arkadia is one of Pan’s original domains, so therefore he was naturally involved. In fact, he was sometimes referred to as Lykaian Pan (Wolf Pan) because it was believed that he held the secret to becoming a werewolf and controlling them. This belief traveled to Rome via Hermes’ son, Euandros, who exported the cult of Pan Lykaios and the festival of Lykaia (remember where the boys would eat humans) to Italy. This festival later became the festival of Lupercalia.





Once the wolf festival was transported to Rome and became Lupercalia, many different stories and deities became associated with the celebration. However, Pan still kept his hooves’ involved in the festivities. To honor Pan, two goats and a dog were annually sacrificed. The dog was sacrificed because they were sacred for their ability to protect flocks and because Pan raised hounds. Skin from the sacrificed goats was used for the flails that the Lupercalia runners would whip the female spectators with. It was believed that through this aggressive behavior Pan would bless the ladies with fertility.
Besides being linked to wolves through Lupercalia and the Lykaia celebration, Pan is also linked to wolves through other myths. One myth is a version of the Echo story. Upon her refusal of Pan’s love and affection, Pan turned a group of shepherds into wolves and had them chase Echo and tear her to pieces. In other myths Pan turns shepherds that disturb him during his noon nap into wolves and have them devour their flocks. Occasionally, the sheep and goats would be turned into wolves to attack a shepherd who had displeased Pan.
Pan is not just the god of flocks and shepherds. As master of Arkadia, he has the power to change humans and animals into wolves and other creatures, but that’s another story.