At relatively the same time period, Emperor Claudius II, a.k.a. Claudius the Cruel, was in the habit of engaging in a series of nasty wars. As an aside, I am considering changing my nom de plume to "Purple Flag on Saturday the Cruel". Has a nice ring to it, no? Back to Claudius, he was having trouble finding enough soldiers for his armies, and he figured that it was because the fellas didn't want to leave their significant others, so he canceled all the marriages and engagements. It may also have had some connection to the fellas not wanting to get killed, but Claudius was a make war not love kind of guy, and he was the emperor, so he got his way. Go figure.
Now, back to Valentine, a priest, who was way into love not war, and was secretly performing marriages to hitch up all those Roman GI Joes and their nubile babe pals. Claudius found out about Valentine's righteous peace gig and, being a rather impatient sort, had Valentine arrested. Valentine was convicted (like there was any doubt about how that would turn out) and sentenced to being clubbed and beheaded. In that order, apparently, as clubbing a beheaded fella would be cruel and unusual.
The photo is the reliquary of St. Valentine. It might not be "the" Valentine, but the church that's showing this very weird stuff is happy with it, and I think it's pretty cool.
Now the pastors in Rome were trying to S.O.P.--stamp out paganism. What they did to further that was to use saints as the new headliners for the old pagan feasts. The new Christian martyr, Saint Valentine, thus became the poster boy for the former feast of Juno.
Goes around comes around: Marcus Aurelius Claudius, a.k.a. Claudius Gothicus, a.k.a. Claudius II a.k.a. Claudius the Cruel, ascended to power in the year 268 and croaked just two years later, probably from smallpox. Turns out that Valentine just had bad timing.
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