Onondaga Central
Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest holidays of the year. Romance is all around, people buy flowers, chocolates, and other gifts for their significant others. Approximately 220 million roses are cultivated for Valentine’s Day each year. Cupid is the Roman god of love (also known as Eros in Greek mythology) and his mother, Venus, loved roses which is why they are associated with love. Americans spend about $20 billion a year for Valentine’s Day, but where did this holiday even come from? Lupercalia is a holiday that is traced back to the Ancient Roman Empire. It was celebrated to purify the city from evil spirits and celebrate the coming of spring and fertility. On February 14th they had a holiday honoring the goddess Juno, the queen of the Roman pantheon and goddess of marriage and women. There was a fertility festival the next day, called the Feast of Lupercalia, to honor gods Lupercus and Faunus. At the Lupercal altar in an ancient cave, a male goat and dog were sacrificed by one of the Luperci priests along with salted meal cakes. Young boys and girls were strictly separated, but for this festival, the names of girls would be written on pieces of paper and placed into a jar. The boys would all draw a name from the jar and the couples would be paired for the duration of Lupercalia, or sometimes for the year, until the next celebration. Most of the time, the couple would fall in love and marry. The festival later became known as Februa, which is Latin for purifications, and the month became Februarius in the Roman Calendar. This tradition continued annually until it was deemed un-Christian and that people shouldn’t be paired based on luck. Emperor Claudius II banned marriage because he believed that men wouldn’t join his army if they were married. A priest, Valentine, went against the Emperor’s law and married couples in secret. When he was discovered, Valentine was sent to death by being beaten with clubs and then decapitated. It’s said that his death occurred on February 14th around the year 270. Pope Gelasius declared the holiday dedicated to Saint Valentine. The day wasn’t necessarily about love until the 14th century, though. The first Valentine letters were sent in the 15th century and in the 1600s it became a tradition to exchange love letters. Valentine’s Day came to the U.S and in the 1840s, cards started to be manufactured and sold, leading to the consumer holiday it is today.
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