Mars and Venus produced Cupid, Timor, Pavor, and Harmonia. Their affair was famously discovered by Vulcan, who trapped the lovers in an unbreakable net.
⚠ Cicero (De Natura Deorum 3.23) lists multiple Cupids with different parentages. The Mars-Venus parentage follows Hyginus and the dominant Roman tradition.
Cupid fell in love with the mortal Psyche after accidentally pricking himself with his own arrow. After Psyche endured Venus's trials, Jupiter granted her immortality and the pair married on Olympus, producing a daughter named Voluptas.
Eros and Cupid are the same winged archer of desire — golden arrows to kindle love, leaden arrows to kill it — transmitted from Greek into Roman worship with his mother Aphrodite becoming Venus.
Apollo mocked Cupid's archery after slaying Python, and the small god proved his arrows mightier than any other — shooting Apollo with gold to kindle hopeless desire for Daphne, and Daphne with lead to kill all love forever.
Cupid took the form of Ascanius at Dido's banquet and breathed invisible fire into the Carthaginian queen, kindling an irresistible passion for Aeneas that fulfilled Venus's scheme to protect her son and his fleet.
Jupiter granted Psyche immortality at Cupid's request, welcoming her to Olympus so the god of love could marry a mortal raised to divine status. Jupiter served ambrosia at their wedding feast.
Venus commanded Cupid to shoot Pluto with a golden arrow, inflaming the lord of the dead with desire for Proserpina and triggering the abduction that would give the earth its seasons.
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