Before civilisation and laws. The Campana clay relief with a scene from the Lupercalia and the sociocultural value of nudity and running in the Roman world

Abstract

The topic of this paper is the analysis of the Lupercalia scene depicted on one of the so-called Campana clay reliefs, dated to the Augustan age and coming from the area of the House of Livia on the Palatine. The relief depicts the running of three naked luperci equipped with the characteristic strips of goatskin used for ritual whipping during the festival. By comparing literary, epigraphic, and iconographic sources relating to the Lupercalia, the paper aims to analyse the social and cultural value of the nudity and running in the Roman world.