The most plausible theory for St. Valentine's Day traces it's customs back to the Roman Lupercalia, a feast celebrated in February in honor of the pastoral god Lupercus, a Roman version of the Greek god Pan. The festival was an important one for the Romans and, occuring when it did, naturally had some apects of rebirth rite to it.
Also during the Lupercalia, but in honor of the goddess Juno Februata, the names of young women were put into a box. Youths then drew names and the boys and girls so matched would be considered patner's for the year, which began in March.
Everywhere that the Christians came into power they immediately adapted the holidays and customs of the people to their own creed. Now it was a simple matter to call the day that this drawing took place St. Valentine's Day, for the date of his beheading and of the drawing were almost identical. To Christianize the heather practice of picking lots for sweethearts, all that was needed was to replace the names of the girls with the names of saints and to have the young people emulate the particular virtues of whatever sint they drew. Incidentally, this custom is not dead today and is still observed in some religious orders.
It was always more fun, of course to pick a girl's rather than a sait's name. Consequently, by at least as early as the fourteenth century the custom had reverted to its original form. Another effort to have saintly valentines was made in the sixteenth century by St. Francis de Sales. According to Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints, de Sales "severely forbad the custom of Valentines, or giving Boys in writing the name of Girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving imitate in a particular manner." This attempt was as unsuccesful as its predecessor.
Later on, starting in Frace, it was customary for both sexes to draw from the valentine box.
Cupid, ancient Roman god of love in all its varieties, the counterpart of the Greek god Eros and the equivalent of Armor in Latin poetry. According to myth, Cupid was the son of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods and Venus, the goddess of love.
The ancient Greeks and Romans described Cupid as having both a cruel and a happy nature. Cupid's cruelty came forth in his treatment of his wife, the beautiful princess Psyche. Cupid forbade Psyche everf to try to see what he looked like. He refused to be with her except at night in the dark. One night while Cupid was asleep, Psyche lit a lamp so she could look at him. Cupid awoke and fled in anger. But myths also describe Cupid as a happy, handsome lad who united lovers.
The earliest images of Cupid show him as a handsome, athletic young man. By the mid-300's B.C., he was portrayed as a chubby, naked infant with wings, holding a bow and arrows. A person shot with one of Cupid's arrows supposedly fell in love.
Taken from "Celebrations, The Complete Book of American Holidays" by Robert J. Myers and World Book Encyclopedia.
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