Table Of ContentKrešimir Vuković
Wolves of Rome
Transregional Practices
of Power
Edited by
Milinda Banerjee, Julia C. Schneider,
and Simon Yarrow
Volume 2
Krešimir Vuković
Wolves of Rome
The Lupercalia from Roman and
Comparative Perspectives
ISBN 978-3-11-068934-1
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069011-8
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069018-7
ISSN 2625-235X
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944290
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Cover image: Lupercalia (by Andrea Camassei, approx. 1635 ). © Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
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For all those who lost their lives in the servitude of empires
Preface
Thisbookisarevised,expanded,andupdatedversionofmydoctoralthesis,de-
fended at the University of Oxford in July 2015.The focus of my thesis was the
Roman festival of the Lupercalia,which remains the focus of the book.The Lu-
percalia has fascinated me ever since I was an undergraduate student, but
Ichoseittobethetopicofmydoctoralthesisalmostbyaccident.Onlyinhind-
sightdidIcometorealizethatmyinterestintheRomanfestivalofyoungnaked
Luperci grew alongside my acceptance of my identity as a gay man. (I say this
with the awareness that many will use it to dismiss the book as a serious
study.)ButtheLupercaliawasnotallfunandgames.Thefestivalhasalonghis-
tory that spans not only all the periods of ancient Rome, but also connects to
other cultures, particularly Indo-European ones, and this was often misused
by right-wing scholars.
Theterm‘Indo-European’isaconstructthatvariousideologieshaveusedfor
over two centuries starting from colonial India,where the British first invented
the term. Classicists may be surprised to see it carries so much weight in this
book. I believe that the discipline needs to open itself up and to look beyond
itstraditionalGreco-Romancanontoincludeotherancientcultures.Thevarious
traditions classed under the linguistic term‘Indo-European’ provide justone of
the many ways inwhich a more balanced perspective can be attained. It is not
surprisingthatIndo-Europeanstudieshavebeenheavilyabusedbyimperialists
andfascists.ThesearchforIndo-Europeanrootsandcausesinvolvesadegreeof
speculationthatgoesfarbeyondthewrittenrecordandintotherealmofmyth-
ology.Asthebookunfolds,itwillbecomemoreclearthatIproposenewwaysto
fillthespacesofthisprehistorictime.Oldimperialistprojectionscannotsimply
be discarded with nothing to replace them. I am not the first to argue that our
present age requires us to find new ways of conceiving of the environment
and the place of human animals in the wider ‘web of life’ (to use Alexander
von Humboldt’s term). I believe that ancient mythologies have much to offer
in this regard and I find that the Vedas provide a necessary counterweight to
theGreekand Romanclassics.ThestoryoftheLupercaliawouldbeincomplete
without recourse to Vedic religion.
More than a century has now passed since Croatian artist Ivan Meštrović
said: ‘I and my people, being considered barbarians and an inferior race, feel
a certain distrust of European culture…’¹ The sentiment that he expressed has
CitedinĆurčin1933,12asastatementthatMeštrovićmadetotheItaliansculptorBistolfiin
1914.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110690118-001
VIII Preface
changedinthelightofthedisintegrationofEuropeanempiresandthefallofthe
IronCurtain.Butithasnotentirelydisappeared.Itwillbecleartoanyonefamil-
iarwiththemostpopulousEuropeanlanguagesthatthewords‘Slav’and‘slave’
areetymologicallyandideologicallyrelated.‘EasternEurope’isoneinaseriesof
Western imperialist constructs with ever-shifting borders and no end in sight.
Myrejectionofnationalisticideologiesalsostemsfromthedisintegrationof
communisminthispartoftheworld.IwasborninYugoslavia,achimericalen-
titythatfellapartinbloodywarwhenIwasfouryearsold.Myfirstmemoriesare
filled with news of battles,military parades, and war songs. Myfirst childhood
friendswererefugees.Isaythisbecausemyoutsiderstatusshouldbeevidentto
anyonereadingthisbook.Classicsintheso-called‘Westernworld’stillbearsso
manytraitsofanelitediscipline,thoughthereishopeinthegrowingacceptance
of diversity.
Myaversiontoimperialistprojectsisalsoaconsequenceofhavinglivedina
beautiful country,Croatia,where all the operations of state have combined the
inheritanceofseveralimperialistbureaucracieswiththatofcommunistapparat-
chiks.I havedespised fascism andits nationalistdescendantsbecause their to-
talitariantendenciesarequicktodismissanyperspectivebuttheirown,perspec-
tiveswhichareinvariablyheteronormative.Forwhatitisworth,Idonotbelieve
that I project my queerness onto a study of Roman and Vedic priests,warriors,
and young men and women, one that seems to point to an ancient system in
the murky waters of Indo-European prehistory. However, when it comes to
wolves, my name itself betrays me: I was born Vuković (‘Wolfson’) and this ac-
cidentalsignifierofSlavonicaffiliation(infactoneofthemostfrequentCroatian
surnames) has played a small part in my fascination with these wild animals,
though I cannot vouch for shedding my skin to fight vampires at night.
The wolf occupies a central position in the foundation myth of Rome, but
few scholars have taken the animal seriously. Most have confined themselves
to the study of the wolf as a symbol. This probably has to do with the fact
that we are raised with stories of the ‘Big Bad Wolf’. The majority of humans
choosetobelievethatwolveshabituallykillhumansandcattle.Infact,statistics
showthatmorehumansdiefromencounterswithcows,vendingmachines,and
even toothpicks than from wolf attacks.² Human hatred of wolves partly stems
from the fact that they are similar to us in many respects.Wolves are powerful
social animals that fascinated early cultures on the move; the Roman complex
of the Lupercalia carries memories of a time in which nature and culture were
not strictlyseparated, andwhenmen identifiedwithwolvesin ritesofpassage.
SeeMonbiot2014,xi-xii.
Acknowledgements IX
ThisbooktakestheLupercaliaonajourneyfromprehistoryintheEurasian
steppestothefuriouscondemnationsofaPopeintheRomeofthelatefifthcen-
tury AD. A time span so large touches on many different fields of expertise in
whichIamnotanexpert.Itriedtoconsultandengagewiththerelevantbibliog-
raphy, and I hope that specialists in various areas will excuse my inevitable
omissions.The term Indo-European has alwaysbeen fraughtwith political bag-
gage,mostfamouslyinitsapproximationwiththeconstructofAryanorNordic
race.‘Inthefaceofsuch history,youwouldhavetobeveryself-righteous,and,
frankly, pretty un-self-aware, to think your own political commitments are so
transparently and comprehensively beyond reproach that no future will find
you lacking in some significant respect.’³
Acknowledgements
Iincurredmanydebtsinwritingthisbookanditisnooverstatementtosaythat
it would not have been completed without the support of so many friends and
colleagues. My supervisor Stephen Heyworth guided my thesis with a steady
hand and provided essential aid throughout the process. Since that time many
stimulating conversations with him helped me clarify my ideas and structure
the book. Myco-supervisors Gavin Flood and Anna Clark helpedwith mycom-
parativeresearchandRomanhistory,respectively.MilindaBanerjeeencouraged
me toworkon the topic longafter manyothersdeclared itunworthyof abook.
HehasbeenaconstantwellspringofideasandIwouldbenowherewithoutour
livelydiscussions.MyfriendMariaMariolaGlavanreadthewholemanuscriptof
thebookwithameticulouseyeforerrorsandsavedmefrommyIllyrianEnglish.
Sheand Helena Philipps-Robins havebeenwonderfulcollocutors andprovided
invaluablesupport.Elizabeth Tuckertaughtme Vedic Sanskritand helpedwith
Vedic terminology and mythology in the book. The late Daniel Nečas Hraste
opended my eyes to the beauty of Roman religion as an undergraduate at the
UniversityofZadar.EnricoProdiandStefaniaPeterliniwrotetoItalianmuseums
andinstitutionsonmybehalftoobtainpermissionforthefiguresincludedhere.
DavidSick,AleksandrKoptev,andFrancisBrassardkindlyreadseveralchapters
andprovidedusefulfeedbackduringthefinalstageofwriting.LovroLulićhelp-
ed with the referencing software.The series editors, Milinda Banerjee, Julia C.
Schneider andSimonYarrowcarefullyreadthetextandprovidedvaluablesug-
gestions. Many stimulating conversations with John and Caitlin Matthews in-
Goldhill2021.
X Preface
spiredmycomparativeappreciationofancientmythologies.Myfamilyhavebeen
a wellspring of support in all times, and I would especially like to thank my
mother, Kata Vuković, for her religious devotion, my late father Ante Vuković,
my brothers Slavimir, Zvonimir, and Zorislav and their partners, Branka and
Iva, and especially Sanja Cicvara,who has always managed to find more ques-
tions than I am able to answer. I hope this book will open more questions for
her and others.
Therearemanyotherswhohelpedwithvariousaspectsoftheproject:Dan-
iel Jolowicz, Joseph Farrell,Tristan Franklinos, Ante Delić, Jasminka Vejmelka,
David Sick, Jaspal Ubhi, Emily Blanchard West, Ranko Matasović, Neven Jova-
nović, Robert Coates-Stephens, Peter Campbell, Stephen Kay, Peter Smith,
John Penney, John Rainey, Jennifer Taylor, Daniele Miano, Krešimir Matijević,
Alessio Quaglia, Bartolomiej Bednarek,Giorgio Ferri, John Miller, Robin Meyer,
JelleWouters,JohnPearce,MichaelSquire,JanyceDesiderio,ThomasTsartsidis,
Ursula Rothe, Siniša Bilić Dujmušić, Feđa Milivojević,Therese Fuhrer, Andreas
Ammann,Gisela Huber,ChristopherSmith, AdamTrettel, AdamGitner,Christo-
pherDowson,AnnaKatharinaRieger,GregoryHutchinson,KrishnaRam-Prasad,
Mai Musié, Jenny Strauss Clay, David Elmer, Evan Jewell, Jaclyn Neel, Robert
Parker,Yasunori Kasai, Mark Usher, Christopher Schliephake,Chiara Tommasi,
ChristopherPelling,LaurentFranz,EmmaLoftus,PaoloCarafa,RogerWoodard,
and the late Martin West.
My students have been wonderful collocutors on the Lupercalia in my
classes, especially Latin Core at the University of Oxford (Miranda Davies,
AidanChivers)andtheseminaronLateRepublicanSourcesattheCatholicUni-
versityof Croatia.
I have also enjoyed the support of several institutions: the University of
Oxford,the British School at Rome, the Catholic University of Croatia, Ludwigs
Maximilians Universität München, the American Academy in Rome, and the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Finally,IwouldliketothankGeorgBucher,UrsulaSchmidtandtheircollea-
gues at Walter de Gruyter for seeing the manuscript through to publication.
Munich, summer 2022 Krešimir Vuković
