Most people think Valentine’s Day a.ka. Single’s Awareness Day is just some made-up greetings card holiday (aren’t they all), but technically it’s not. In 2002 the religious police in Saudi Arabia, restricted the sale of all Valentine's Day related items -as they consider Valentine's Day a Christian holiday- for the first time. In the play Julius Caesar, Caesar commands Anthony to give his wife Calphurnia who is sterile a good whipping during the Lupercalia celebration which takes place one month prior to the Ides of March. The Lupercalia festival was to honor Lupa, the she-wolf, who according to legend nurtured the infant orphans Romulus and Remus. Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome in 753 B.C. The once paganistic festival also honored the God of shepherds: Lupercus.
In 313 A.D. Roman Emperor Constantine the Great endorsed Christianity thus ending the persecution of Christians in Rome. However, the former heathens did not entirely abandon their old traditions and practices after their change of faith. One of these traditions that were instituted to the church was Lupercalia: a fertility celebration. During the celebration they believed a clandestine and inexplicable influence affected the amiable powers of the animal and vegetable world.
After the death of Emperor Anthemius, the festival of Lupercalia was officially put into practice by the church as a day to honor St. Valentine; Pope Gelasius changed Lupercalia from February 15 to St. Valentine's Day to be held on February 14 in homage to St. Valentine the patron saint of lovers.
During the celebration there is a ceremony that consists of the priests sacrificing a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. Then, the men slice the goat's hide into strips, dip them in the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, tenderly spanked both women and fields of crops with the goat hide strips. Roman women welcomed being smacked with the goat strips because it was thought that the strips would make them more fertile in the upcoming year. Later in the day, the young women in the city would leave their names in a giant jug. The city's bachelors would then choose a name out of the jug to be paired with for a year often ending in marriage.