Erotes- Greek GroupCollective"Winged Loves"

The Winged Loves

In the earliest sources, Eros stands alone — a primordial force that sprang from Chaos at the beginning of the world. But later tradition gave him brothers, each winged, each carrying some part of desire's power. Himeros was there when Aphrodite rose from the sea foam, the god of longing that strikes at first sight. Pothos was the ache of absence — desire for what is far away or lost. Anteros stood for love returned, or in darker tellings, vengeance upon those who scorned a lover's devotion. Later poets added others: Hedylogos, the whisper of sweet talk, and Hymenaeus, the wedding song made flesh.

Together they formed Aphrodite's retinue, armed with bows, arrows, and torches — the weapons through which she aimed her power at gods and mortals alike.

Aphrodite's Agents

When Aphrodite wanted Medea to fall in love with Jason at Colchis, she went to Eros as one goes to a hired archer. She bribed him with a golden ball to shoot the Colchian princess, and the shot struck Medea to the heart. The sorceress who might have destroyed the Argonauts instead betrayed her father and homeland for love of a Greek stranger.

Their arrows did not always serve strategy. The Erotes also inflamed desire unbidden, hovering unseen over mortals and gods, their torchlight kindling passions that no one had asked for and no one could resist.

Worship

The Erotes as a collective had no great temples, but individual members did. Eros held sanctuaries at Thespiae in Boeotia, where the Erotidia festival was celebrated every four years with athletic and musical contests. Anteros had an altar in the gymnasium of the Academy at Athens — a pointed location, where young men trained their bodies and the god of requited love watched over the bonds that formed between them.

In private life, the Erotes were invoked in love charms and honored at symposia and weddings, where their images — winged youths hovering with bows drawn — wished the newly joined the blessings of mutual desire.