This is the ninth day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.
     In Greece on this day they celebrated the feast of Adonis and Aphrodite. As the story goes, one day Venus (Aphrodite) was playing with her son Cupid (Eros) when she accidentally got pricked by one of his arrows. Before it healed she happened to catch sight of a young hunter named Adonis. She left heaven and followed Adonis endlessly, taking up hunting just to be with him. One day Adonis was killed by the sudden attack of a wild boar and as Venus cried over his body she swore he would not be forgotten. Thereupon she sprinkled nectar on his blood and there rose a flower called the Anemone or Wind Flower. The flower is blood red but short-lived like Adonis, only lasting until the wind blows its petals away.