Eros, the Greek god of love, is shown as a beautiful youth with both male and female characteristics. The figure was originally part of a lamp holder and would have had an oil lamp on the tendril he holds in an outstretched hand. The sculpture shares in the expressive, dynamic qualities of later Greek Hellenistic art; it appears to be flying on the beautifully detailed wings. The lamp from which the figure came was probably made in the eastern Mediterranean for a wealthy house or villa in Italy. The bronze has been associated with a trove of Greek luxury goods recovered from an ancient shipwreck near the town of Mahdia on the coast of Tunisia. - Anne Bromberg, Dallas Museum of Art.
A cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. However, in late antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. 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). The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries portrayed Eros as the child of Night (Nyx). Influenced by Orphism, 5th century BCE playwright Aristophanes described his birth:
"At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night (Nyx), Darkness (Erebus), and the Abyss (Tartarus). Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Darkness, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Love (Eros) with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light."
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