Lupercus
an ancient Italian divinity, who was worshipped by shepherds as the protector of their flocks against wolves, and at the same time as the promoter of the fertility among sheep, whence he was called Inuus or Ἐφιάλτης. On the north side of the Palatine hill there had been in ancient times a cave, the sanctuary of Lupercus, surrounded by a grove, containing an altar of the god and his figure clad in a goat-skin, just as his priests the Luperci (Dionys. A. R. 1.79; Just. 43.1, 4; Liv. 1.5; Serv. ad Aen. 6.776; Isidor. 8.11, 103, &c.; Artemid. Oneir. 2.42). The Romans sometimes identified Lupercus with the Arcadian Pan. Respecting the festival celebrated in honour of Lupercus and his priests, the Luperci, see Dict. of Ant. s. v. Lupercalia and Luperci.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.