Primordial god According to
Hesiod's
Theogony (c. 700 BC), one of the most ancient of Greek sources, Eros (Love) was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after
Chaos,
Gaia (Earth), and
Tartarus.
Homer does not mention Eros. However,
Parmenides (c. 400 BC), one of the
pre-Socratic philosophers, makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence.
Aristophanes, in his comedy
The Birds (414 BC), presents a parody of a cosmogony which has been considered Orphic, in which Eros is born from an egg laid by Night (
Nyx): :At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. 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. 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. In some versions the Orphic Egg which contains Eros is created by
Chronos, and it is Eros who bore
Nyx as his daughter and took her as his consort. Eros was called "Protogonos" meaning "first-born" because he was the first of the immortals that could be conceived by man, and was thought of as the creator of all other beings and the first ruler of the universe. Nyx bore to Eros the gods
Gaia and
Ouranos. Eros passes his scepter of power to
Nyx, who then passes it to Ouranos. The primordial Eros was also called
Phanes ('illuminated one'),
Erikepaios ('power'), Metis ('thought') and Dionysus. Zeus was said to have swallowed Phanes (Eros), and absorbing his powers of creation remade the world anew, such that Zeus was then both creator and ruler of the universe. The Orphics also thought that Dionysus was an incarnation of the primordial Eros, and that Zeus (the modern ruler) passed the scepter of power to Dionysus. Thus Eros was the first ruler of the universe, and as Dionysus he regained the scepter of power once again.
Son of Aphrodite In later myths, he was the son of
Aphrodite. The 6th-to-5th-century BC lyric poet
Simonides considered him to be the son of Aphrodite and
Ares. • [Hera addresses Athena:] : "We must have a word with Aphrodite. Let us go together and ask her to persuade her boy [Eros], if that is possible, to loose an arrow at
Aeetes's daughter,
Medea of the many spells, and make her fall in love with
Jason ..." (
Argonautica) • "He [Eros] smites maids' breasts with unknown heat, and bids the very gods leave heaven and dwell on earth in borrowed forms." (
Phaedra) • "Once, when Venus' son [Eros] was kissing her, his quiver dangling down, a jutting arrow, unbeknown, had grazed her breast. She pushed the boy away. In fact the wound was deeper than it seemed, though unperceived at first. [And she became] enraptured by the beauty of a man
[Adonis]." (
Metamorphoses) • "Eros drove Dionysos mad for the girl
Aura] with the delicious wound of his arrow, then curving his wings flew lightly to Olympus. And the god roamed over the hills scourged with a greater fire." (
Dionysiaca)
Eros and Psyche .|left The story of
Eros and Psyche has a longstanding tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in
Apuleius's
Latin novel,
The Golden Ass. The novel itself is written in a picaresque Roman style, yet Psyche retains her Greek name even though Eros and Aphrodite are called by their Latin names (Cupid and Venus). Also, Cupid is depicted as a young adult, rather than a fat winged child (''''). The story tells of the quest for love and trust between Eros and Psyche. Aphrodite was jealous of the beauty of mortal princess Psyche, as men were leaving her altars barren to worship a mere mortal woman instead, and so she commanded her son Eros, the god of love, to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest creature on earth. Instead, Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and spirits her away to his home. Their fragile peace is ruined by a visit from Psyche's jealous sisters, who cause Psyche to betray the trust of her husband. Wounded both emotionally and physically, Eros leaves his wife, and Psyche wanders the Earth, looking for her lost love. She visits the Temple of Demeter and the Temple of Hera looking for advice. Eventually, she finds her way to Aphrodite's temple and approaches Aphrodite asking for her help. Aphrodite imposes four difficult tasks on Psyche, which she is able to achieve by means of supernatural assistance. After successfully completing these tasks, Aphrodite relents. After a near death experience, Zeus turns Psyche into an immortal to live amongst the gods with her husband Eros. Together they had a daughter, Voluptas or
Hedone (meaning physical pleasure, bliss). In Greek mythology, Psyche was the deification of the human soul. She was portrayed in ancient mosaics as a goddess with butterfly wings (because
psyche was also the Ancient Greek word for "butterfly"). The Greek word
psyche literally means "soul, spirit, breath, life, or animating force". In the
Gnostic narrative found in
On the Origin of the World, Eros, during the universe's creation, is scattered in all the creatures of
Chaos, existing between the midpoint of light and darkness as well as the angels and people. Later, Psyche pours her blood upon him, causing the first rose to sprout up on the Earth, followed by every flower and herb.
Dionysiaca , Museum of Agrigento Eros features in two
Dionysus-related myths. In the first, Eros made
Hymnus, a young shepherd, to fall in love with the beautiful
Naiad Nicaea. Nicaea never reciprocated Hymnus's affection, and he in desperation asked her to kill him. She fulfilled his wish, but Eros, disgusted with Nicaea's actions, made Dionysus fall in love with her by hitting him with a love arrow. Nicaea rejected Dionysus, so he filled the spring she used to drink from with wine. Intoxicated, Nicaea lay to rest as Dionysus forced himself on her. Afterwards, she sought to find him seeking revenge, but never found him. In the other, one of
Artemis's maiden nymphs
Aura boasted of being better than her mistress, due to having a virgin's body, as opposed to Artemis's sensuous and lush figure, thereby bringing into question Artemis's virginity. Artemis, angered, asked
Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance and retribution, to avenge her, and Nemesis ordered Eros to make Dionysus fall in love with Aura. The tale then continues in the same manner as Nicaea's myth; Dionysus gets Aura drunk and then rapes her.
Other myths .|306x306px|left Eros made two chaste hunting companions of Artemis,
Rhodopis and Euthynicus, to fall in love with each other at the behest of his mother Aphrodite, who took offence at them rejecting her domain of love and marriage. Artemis then punished Rhodopis by turning her into a fountain. In another myth, Eros and Aphrodite played in a meadow, and had a light competition about which would gather the most flowers. Eros was in the lead thanks to his swift wings, but then a nymph named
Peristera ("dove") gathered some flowers herself and handed them over to Aphrodite, making her victorious. Eros turned Peristera into a dove. According to
Porphyrius,
Themis, the goddess of justice, played a role in Eros growing up. His mother Aphrodite once complained to Themis that Eros did not grow and remained a perpetual child, so Themis advised her to give him a brother. Aphrodite then gave birth to Anteros (meaning "counter-love"), and whenever he was near him, Eros grew. But if Anteros was away, Eros shrank back to his previous, smaller size. Another time, when Eros had assumed his child-like appearance and tried bending his bow, the god
Apollo, who was similarly an archer god as well, mocked him by saying that he should leave the weapons to the older gods, and bragged about his slaying of
Python. Eros was angered, so he immediately struck Apollo with a love arrow, making him fall in love with
Daphne, a virginal nymph of the woods. In the same fashion he struck Daphne with a lead arrow, which had the opposite effect, and made the nymph be repulsed by Apollo and his ardent wooing. In the end, Daphne would be transformed into a tree in order to escape the god's advances. == Attributes ==