Eros was depicted as often carrying a lyre or bow and arrow. In later myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares: it is the Eros of these later myths who is one of the erotes.
He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. 400 BC), influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros:Īt the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a very original god, but not quite primordial, since he was the child of Night ( Nyx). 400 BC), one of the pre-Socratic philosophers, makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence. 700 BC), one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros (the god of love) was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos, Gaia (the Earth), and Tartarus (the abyss). Mythology Primordial god Īccording to Hesiod's Theogony (c.
The Thespians celebrated the Erotidia ( Ancient Greek: Ἐρωτίδεια) meaning festivals of Eros. Eros is also part of a triad of gods that played roles in homoerotic relationships, along with Heracles and Hermes, who bestowed qualities of beauty (and loyalty), strength, and eloquence, respectively, onto male lovers. Įros was one of the Erotes, along with other figures such as Himeros and Pothos, who are sometimes considered patrons of homosexual love between males. In Athens, he shared a very popular cult with Aphrodite, and the fourth day of every month was sacred to him (also shared by Herakles, Hermes and Aphrodite). However, in late antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. Ī cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. Ultimately, in the later satirical poets, he is represented as a blindfolded child, the precursor to the chubby Renaissance Cupid, whereas in early Greek poetry and art, Eros was depicted as a young adult male who embodies sexual power, and a profound artist. In later sources, however, Eros is represented as the son of Aphrodite, whose mischievous interventions in the affairs of gods and mortals cause bonds of love to form, often illicitly. In the earliest sources (the cosmogonies, the earliest philosophers, and texts referring to the mystery religions), he is one of the primordial gods involved in the coming into being of the cosmos. Cult and depiction Įros appears in ancient Greek sources under several different guises. The Greek ἔρως, meaning 'desire', comes from ἔραμαι 'to desire, love', of uncertain etymology.
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