The author here seems to be confusing several characters and events. That Jupiter would be the one pissing down when it rains is true, though there is no association between the month of February and the Great Flood that Ovid speaks of. February is in fact associated with his wife, Iuno (Iuno Februata) “the Purifier”. Additionally, a minor god in its own right is associated with the month, whence the name is derived (or rather, they share a common source) - Februus, the god of lustrations⁷, and he, like the month, is named after the one very important lustration that occured in February, one of the big festivals of the Roman calendar, held on the 3rd day after the Ides of February, also known as the 15th of February, the appropriately named Februa, more commonly known as Lupercalia. (con’td in ⁶). ↩

The Five Ages of Humanity. Comes from Near Eastern Mythology, with Hesiod adding the Age of Heroes before the Age of Iron. Ovid speaks of it too in his Metamorphoses. The Author was known to be fond of the following passage from Works and Days: Were I not among the Fifth I’m torn; Would I be better dead or not yet born; For this is an Iron Age indeed; Suffering alone is our creed. From what one can glean, the Author’s associates were not overly fond of the phrase. It is found often in their notes, ever since they’d stumbled upon Hesiod’s work in early 2025. ↩

The Author clearly wants you to know that they too had read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. ↩

The Author here had obviously hoped that based on the previous references to the ancient Roman religion, spring and the date (15th, as opposed to the 14th), the Reader will realize the celebration in question is not St. Valentine’s Day, not referenced at all despite the dates and many mentions of love, but Lupercalia. Somewhat of a stretch, since the connection is complicated by the long description of the rapturous emotion of romantic love, as opposed to Lupercalia’s nature as a fertility festival. For Valentine’s Day’s connection to romantic love, one has to thank Chaucer. No doubt there are links to Lupercalia there (the days are right next to one another, and many newspapers would say as much, surprisingly few academic sources), though it’d been many centuries since the pagan festival had ended.
There are examples of connections between the beginning of spring, a season indubitably associated with fertility (which is arguably only tangentially related to love, if that) and the memory of Lupercalia, if not the real thing: for example, in the Book of Ceremonies, written in the mid 10th century by a Byzantine Emperor, the day’s games in the Hippodrome are introduced as “Luperc.”, clearly the Lupercalia, that happening over 500 years after the cessation of the original festival, but these celebrations are notably accompanied by a hymn to spring.
Many folk traditions, that are associated with certain saints, do in fact have their origin in pagan myths - e.g. Greek folk tales about the Prophet Elias, who was a seafarer, and was impious, but then repented for his life, and wanted to move somewhere far from the sea; so he took his oar and kept asking people if they knew what it was, once he was far enough inland for people to say it was just a stick, he knew he’d walked far enough. Thus shrines to Elias are often at mountain and hill peaks. This is also what happens to Odysseus - who needs to make a sacrifice to Poseidon as far from the sea as possible. In Arcadia according to Pausainias there was a sacred space to Athena and Poseidon he’d made, and Arcadia was the inland region in the Peloponese.Moving on, regarding Lupercalia, that the Author had alluded to so many times, is to be explored furhter (cont’d in ⁶) ↩

Referring to the origin of the word enthusiastic, from the ancient Greek enthusiasmos, en - in and theos - god, that is to say possessed by a god (who in this case would be Love, Eros/Cupid). An example of such possession might be the revelers in the Bacchanalia, who were thought to be possessed by Bacchus, or Dionysus. This did not always end up well for those involved - Book III/IV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The following note by the author was found attached:
Ask the Thebans what happens when Bacchus possesses them! But is it not glorious? Such revelry! To be so lost in the moment, as to be blind to reality and consequence! You can only imagine the feeling of rapture, ecstasy - another word you love. Nothing more but pure frenzy! Pentheus deserved it, why could he not let people have fun? And how powerless was Athena rendered when she tried to contest Bacchus’s control over the city, now ivy grows over the looms of Minyas’ daughters! This isn’t a lesson, this is possession.Don’t you know I’m born of this? ↩

Not a famine, a rather different crisis. The Author yet again shows their consistent ignorance. The origins of Lupercalia date all the way back to Rome’s earliest myths, or at least that is what the Romans believed. There are multiple “in-world” origins. It is said good man Evander brought the gods of Greece to Italy, including the worship of Lycaean Pan, before the Trojan War sent devoted Aeneas over the seas. It is also said the brothers Romulus and Remus were making a sacrifice to Faunus; they and their squads were working out, naked, when a shepherd spotted some bandits stealing their flock. Both brothers lead out their followers, Remus the Fabii and Romulus the Quinctilii, and they rushed out. Remus and the Fabii recovered the bullocks, and when they returned, they feasted on the meat on the spits as the victors. Very curious, as Remus, the bad guy, has here won.Thus, Lupercalia, with its two colleges, the Fabii and Quinctilii, ran again naked each year (until Julius Caesar added the Julii, in his honor, seen in the diadem incident). Further, in 276BC, there was an epidemic of malformed births in humans and animals. When Iuno was consulted, she said that the “sacred he-goat must enter the women of Rome”. Instead of having Roman matrons be fucked by the Luperci, an alternative interpretation was found. When they made their sacrifice, they’d cut the skin of the animal and fashion it into whips with which to hit the Roman women. If the skin was broken, they’d have been “penetrated”, and the gods appeased. The actual attested festival during the Republic was the following: starting from a cave, appropriately named the Lupercal, where the sacrifices are performed, the runners ran around the Palatine, on a much disputed route, ending up at the Forum. It was a time of great gaiety. Roman women weren’t horrifically beaten, that ended up being abstracted away to; they were light, playful lashes, and they’d throw themselves at the runners to be hit, and thus to become fertile. Of course, Octavian ruined everything in due time, and soon the runners were not joyful but solemn, and women were dutifully offering their wrists. By the time of the late Empire, Lupercalia was still going, but now the runners were not the proud Fabii, but the lowest class of people. This is elaborated in the main text, a rare example of the Author bothering to give any kind of explanation. ↩ ↩² ↩³

An act or instance of cleansing especially by moral or spiritual purification, via Marriam-Webster (02.2026), from the Latin lustratio ↩