An old deity of nature, which, with the help of love longing, ensures the continuous creation and constant renewal of the world. In the dark, in a terrible emptiness, the Night, fertilized by the wind, laid a silver egg, from which came a deity with golden wings - Eros, Protogon or Fanes. The huge egg broke in two halves - Heaven (Uranus) and Earth (Gaia). Eros encouraged Uranus and Gaius to unite. That is how the creation of the world began. That Eros was created after Chaos, together with Gaius and Tartarus, as the basic, original element of the cosmos. Only later are Eros' parents mentioned; he is the son of Uranus and Gaia, the son of Zephyr and Irides, or the son of Ares and Aphrodite.
In philosophical speculations Eros is the oldest of all the gods; it was said that there were two Eros: one good, when Aphrodite Urania gave birth, and one evil, when Aphrodite Pandemos gave birth. Understood as a demon, Eros is the son of Penia (Poverty) and Poros (Wealth); he unites the opposite qualities of his parents: he is never poor or rich, because what he gains immediately he loses; he stands between wisdom and ignorance and between beauty and ugliness. Later, it was believed that there were three Eros: one - the son of Hermes and the chthonic Artemis, the second - the son of Hermes and Aphrodite born of sea foam, and the third - the son of Ares and Aphrodite, the daughters of Zeus and Dionysus. The latter, also called Anteros, was the protector of friendship or love between men.
Eros is the god of love and Aphrodite's constant companion. He is imagined as a boy, often with wings, who brings unrest and love longings into the hearts of people and gods with his bow and arrows. He wounds not only mortals and heroes (Hercules) with arrows, but also great gods (Apollo, Zeus), and even his mother Aphrodite. Eros is the most beautiful of all immortals; golden-haired and longing-eyed, he walks on flowers; sometimes he is gentle and kind, and sometimes like a terrible storm or a cold northerner. He often stays in Cyprus, from where he comes among the people together with spring. At leisure, he plays with Dionysus or Ganymede in the Gardens of Zeus. Unstable and in constant motion, Eros is not permanently attached to any person even in myth. Only the story of his love for the beautiful Psyche is known.
The cult of Eros is very old. In Thespia (Boeotia), Eros was revered as the god of nature, in the form of a stone, which may have had the shape of a phallus. The inhabitants of Thespia held ceremonies at the Helicon every five years in his part, the so-called erotidia, followed by gymnastic and music competitions. In a similar way, Eros was celebrated in Parion, in Troas. His temple and holy grove are also mentioned in the Lacedaemonian Leuctra. As a god of friendship among men (Anteros), he was especially revered in Sparta and on the island of Crete, where sacrifices were offered to him before he went to war.
In fine arts, Eros was often depicted only from the beginning of the 5th century AD, first on vases of the late black-figure style. In important painting in the 5th century AD, Eros is always represented in the circle of men and boys, as a winged young man holding a flower, wreaths or ribbons in his hands. On the Parthenon, on the Panathenaic frieze, this gentle boy relies on Aphrodite and protects himself with an umbrella. Phidias also presented him on the throne of the statue of Zeus in Olympia. It was not until the 4th century AD that Eros became a favorite motif in art. On all the monuments he is shown winged, with a bow and arrows. Three of Praxiteles' statues of Eros are mentioned, the most famous of which is the one dedicated by the heterosexual Frina in Thespia. For the sanctuary in Thespia, Lysippus made a statue of Eros in motion. Scopas' statue of Eros was placed next to the figures of Potos and Chimeros. Beginning in the 4th century AD, in works of art, Eros is always presented in the company of Aphrodite and is introduced to various scenes related to his mother's love for Anchises, Adonis or Ares. In the Hellenistic period, Eros transforms from a handsome young man or boy into a spoiled child, but he also often appears on tombstones, legs crossed, with a torch in his hand.
Eros is the main character of Apuleius' novel Metamorphosis.
Literature:
• Dragoslav Srejović - Aleksandrina Cermanović-Kuzmanović, Recnik grčke i rimske mitologije, drugo izdanje, Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1987
His name is the root of words like erotica. Its Roman equivalent was Cupid, "lust," also known as Cupid, "love." Like Dionysus, he was sometimes called Eleutherios, the "liberator."
According to Hesiod, he emerged from Chaos with Tartarus, Gaius, and Nix. He was later regarded as the son of Aphrodite (Roman Venus) and Ares (Roman Mars); his wife is Psyche (see also Eros and Psyche).
In art, he is often depicted with a bow and arrows to target people, and love is ignited in the hits. According to legend, in addition to the golden arrows of love, he also has iron arrows that ignite hatred.
In the Symposium, Plato combines the cosmological principle of eros as the oldest god, which represents the beginning of the union of all things, with the Orphic god of love and longing, who, as the son of Aphrodite, is the youngest of the gods. Plato's understanding of Eros is idealistic: instead of longing for the sensual, the divinity of Eros lies in man's longing for beauty and good.
In astronomy, the important asteroid 433 Eros is named after Eros.