Eros is the Greek god of love, lust, desire, and sex. The Romans called him Cupid or Amor. In the earliest accounts he is a primordial power who comes into being near the start of the cosmos; in later myth he is usually the winged child or youth of Aphrodite, armed with bow and arrows that kindle love in gods and mortals. His major independent narrative is the tale of Eros and Psyche. This entry treats the mythological god, not later astronomical namesakes such as the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Eros" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Primordial and Olympian genealogies
In Hesiod's Theogony, Eros is among the first beings to exist after Chaos, alongside Gaia and Tartarus — a primal force of attraction rather than Aphrodite's son. Parmenides made Love the first of the gods; Aristophanes' Birds presents a comic Orphic-tinged cosmogony in which Night lays an egg in Erebus from which winged Eros springs. Orphic tradition also knows a first-born Eros (Phanes) as creator and early ruler of the universe.
In later lyric and narrative myth he is the son of Aphrodite, often by Ares according to Simonides and subsequent writers. Homer does not name Eros as a personal god. These competing portraits — cosmic Love versus the mischievous attendant of Aphrodite — both belong to the same mythological figure under different source traditions.
II.Mythology and attributes
Eros's usual role is catalytic: he loosens arrows that bind lovers, often at Aphrodite's command, as when he makes Medea love Jason in Apollonius's Argonautica. Ovid distinguishes golden arrows that inspire love from leaden ones that inspire aversion, famously used on Apollo and Daphne. He cannot touch the virgin goddesses who have sworn chastity — Hestia, Athena, and Artemis.
The fullest romance attached to him is the story of Psyche, preserved in Apuleius's Golden Ass: Aphrodite orders Eros to punish the beautiful mortal, but he loves her instead; after trials Psyche is made immortal and their daughter is Hedone (Pleasure). Smaller anecdotes include the bee-stung child Eros compared by Aphrodite to his own painful arrows, and the birth of Anteros so that Love might grow.
III.Cult and depiction
A cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece but was less important than Aphrodite's. At Thespiae he received major honour and the Erotidia festival; in Athens he shared a popular cult with Aphrodite, and the fourth day of each month was sacred to him. Spartans and Cretans were said to sacrifice to Eros before battle, valuing the friendship of those who stood side by side.
Early Greek art shows Eros as a handsome winged youth; later satire and Roman tradition prefer the blindfolded or chubby child familiar as Cupid. Epithets include Klêidouchos ("key-bearer," holding the keys to hearts) and Pandemos ("common to all the people").