Valentine

Valentine's Day is commonly associated with romance and love, but its origins are actually rather dark and bloody.

To learn more about this romantic vacation, we'll visit ancient Rome, a city with a rich culture and history influenced by several gods. Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, Venus, and more

In ancient Rome, there were numerous festivities. Here we'll focus on the Lupacalia festival, which was held from February the thirteenth to February the fifteenth. Lupacalia was an earlier celebration to Valentine's Day.

However, it was not as much celebrated as it is now. Alia was a fertility festival honoring fauna, a Roman deity of agriculture, and the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Lubricai, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or Lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip it into the sacrificial blood, and take it out to the streets.

Men sacrificing goats and dogs seems creepy, although I understand it was done in the past.

However, it does not end with the sacrifice. In ancient Rome, men would whip women with the bloody hides of their slain animals, and women would line up for the men, believing it would make them more fertile in the coming year. The festival featured a matchmaking lottery where young women placed their names in a big urn and the city's bachelors chose a name to be partnered with a woman for the year. These unions typically resulted in marriage.

The Romans may have given rise to the modern term "love." In the third century, Emperor Cladius II executed two men named Valentine on February 14th. The Catholic Church commemorates their martyrdom with the celebration of Saint Valentine's Day. After Christianity spread to Rome and other lands, Emperor Constantine adopted Pagan rituals and customs into Christianity. Christmas was originally known as Saturnalia. Valentine's Day was not incorporated into Christianity during Constantine's reign.

Let's start with the execution, which occurred in the fifth century.

The Catholic Church recognizes three Saints named Valentine, all of whom were martyred. One legend points to Valentine was a priest who served in Rome during the third century. Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men, opining that single men generated more effective soldiers as opposed to those with wives and households.

Valentine defied Claudius' decree and secretly carried out marriages for young lovers. When his actions were discovered, Nadius ordered his execution. Some argue that Saint Valentine of Journey, a bishop, is the true namesake of the holiday. Claudius II beheaded him outside of Rome. Other stories suggest that Claudius was killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons in which they were often persecuted. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine sent the first Valentine greeting himself after falling in love with a young girl, possibly his jailer's daughter, before his death. He is said to have written her a letter signed from your Valentine. During the Middle Ages, the holiday of Gallatin's Day gained popularity in Britain and Europe. It was likely confused with Saint Valentine's Day owing to its similarity to the holiday celebrated by the Normans. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their works. In 1375, a writer referred to Saint Valentine's Day as a day of love festivity, stating that it was a time for fools to choose their mate.

Valentine's Day was popular in the Middle Ages, but written Valentines did not appear until after 1400. The oldest known Valentine is a poem written in 1445 and 1415 by Charles Duke of Orleans to his wife while imprisoned in the Tower of London after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. The poem is now part of the British Library's manuscript collection in London, England. Several years later, it was claimed that King Henry V paid a writer named John Langate to produce a valentine note for Catherine of Aragon.

Some believe he is the son of Nyx and Erebus, Aphrodite and Aries, Iris and Zephyrus, or even Aphrodite. According to Greek Archaic poets, Eros was a handsome Immortal who played with the emotions of Gods and Men, using golden arrows to incite love and lead to aversion. It wasn't until the Hellenistic period that he began to be portrayed as the mischievous chubby child on Valentine's Day cards. The tradition spread to the new world with the Industrial Revolution, which brought factory-made cards in the 19th century and Hallmark cards in 1919.