The Lupercal was sacred to Faunus, the wild god of the woodland, and on this ground each February his priests the Luperci sacrificed goats at the cave's mouth before racing naked around the Palatine, striking bystanders with strips of hide.
The shepherd Faustulus discovered Romulus and Remus being nursed by the she-wolf at the Lupercal cave. He took the twins home to raise with his wife Acca Larentia, bridging the wild nurturing of the cave with human foster parentage.
The she-wolf Lupa nursed the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus in the Lupercal cave, her wild mercy in that dark grotto giving the sacred site its name and Rome its most enduring founding image.
The Lupercal, the sacred cave at the foot of the Palatine Hill, was where the she-wolf nursed the infant Romulus and his twin Remus after they were abandoned on the banks of the Tiber.
The swollen Tiber carried the basket holding Romulus and Remus to the foot of the Palatine, where it lodged among fig tree roots near the Lupercal cave, delivering Rome's founders to the she-wolf who would save them.
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