Valentine's Day

Tumescent red hearts, flying babies with weapons, and a saint named Valentine - where does this stuff come from?

Charles Odahl, professor of ancient and medieval history at Boise State University, gives us the lowdown.

ST. VALENTINE, THE MYTH

Valentine, a priest in the Roman church, got on pagan Emperor Claudius Gothicus' bad side by trying to convert him and by presiding over weddings of men whom Claudius wanted to remain single and devoted to their military duty.

So Claudius, who ruled from 268-270 A.D., sentenced Valentine to die for his crimes.

While in jail, Valentine fell in love with a jailer's daughter, cured her blindness, and sent her a love letter signed, "your Valentine," before he was executed.

A PRETTY STORY, BUT IS IT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

That version of events came from later, fictionalized accounts of the life of St. Valentine, Odahl said.

In actuality, Claudius didn't care if his soldiers were married. He didn't persecute Christians, and was "up near the Danube River, fighting barbarians," when he allegedly met and sentenced Valentine to die in Rome.

SO HOW DID VALENTINE GET HIS OWN DAY?

In A.D. 303, a group of Roman emperors led a 10-year persecution to end Christianity.

Thousands of Christians died, some of whom later became saints, including a few big names - Sebastian, Agnes and Valentine, to name a few.

Things changed when Constantine the Great became emperor. He converted to Christianity in 312, threw out the persecutors and started building churches for the martyrs.

Pope Julius II (337-352) built a church for St. Valentine a few miles north of Rome. Church leaders later added a feast day to the church calendar to honor St. Valentine on Feb. 14.

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO, GOT TO DO WITH IT?

In the Middle Ages, Christian festivals and feasts replaced ancient rites. The feast of St. Valentine meshed with the Roman festival of the Lupercalia, which also fell in mid-February and was named for the wolf that saved the life of the twins Romulus and Remus, who legend says founded Rome.

Lupercalian festivities for young Roman men included donning wolf costumes, then running around, hitting women on the bottoms with sticks.

And as if the romance ante could possibly be upped beyond that, some traditions held that Feb. 14 was also mating day for birds.

"One only has to walk around Boise in mid-February and watch all the mallard ducks pairing up to realize that the ancients may have been right on the bird issue," Odahl says.

IS THAT AN ARROW IN YOUR QUIVER...

In Roman mythology, Cupid was the son of love goddess Venus.

"His arrows were tipped with what we might today call 'Love Potion No. 9,' " Odahl said.

An arrow to the heart from Cupid's bow would result in "furor amoris," aka the "madness of love."

And you know what that feels like.

PUT IT IN A HEART-SHAPED BOX

The mind has always been the source of logic, but the heart is the seat of emotion - and the target of Cupid's arrows, Odahl said.

The color red is significant, too, for its reference to blood, and the suffering of martyrs like St. Valentine.

"But when people are in love, the heart beats faster and their 'blood is up,'" Odahl said. "The shape of the heart and the color red are ideal for the boxes of candy one gives to a beloved on Valentine's Day, both from the pagan, and Christian roots of the festival."