Naomi
05-13-2007, 09:24 AM
354
I was flipping through my Mythology book last night, scrying a little bit and I came upon Eros's page. It's interesting to note that while the Greeks regarded him as one of the most powerful gods in their pantheon, and Aphrodite was regarded as his daughter. Later, as the Romans assimilated their culture, he was relegated to the role of playing Venus's mischievious sidekick, and took the shape of a fat toddler with wings. Venus herself was also considerably transformed by Roman ideals of femininity, a domestic companion, rather than the Greek view of her as one of the most ancient and venerated deities, and the ruler of victory in war.
From Mythology: The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth and Storytelling
"Eros, the quintessence of love, was originally a mysterious, primeval force. But with time he was gradually transformed into the familiar, winged Roman figure of Cupid - the mischievious, cherubic infant equipped with the bow and arrows of desire.
As with Aphrodite, there are two traditions explaining Eros's or Cupid's birth. On e associates him with the pre-Olympian world. The poet Hesiod told how Eros came into existence as the power of love at the very beginning of the world, along with Gaia (the Earth) and Tartarus (the underworld). Other accounts say that the world came into being with the mating of Eros and Chaos, so that even the gods owe their existence to him.
Gradually, however, as the various myths and mythic themes consolidated around the individual gods, Aphrodite became the divine personification of love. But because his worship was so well established, Eros was assimilated into this new tradition as the son of Aphrodite. As the offspring of the goddess, Eros came to represent the masculine ideal of love, in the same way that aphrodite represented the feminine ideal, and he was always depicted as being as young and beautiful as she was.
As the mythic tradition developed over the centuries and Zeus became more powerful, so, increasingly, Aphrodite was seen as his daughter, and therefore under his power like the other Olympians, rather than as a goddess born to Uranus, who belonged to an earlier divine generation. Her loss of status affected her son. His appearance became less impressive. his wings and arrows were introduced, as were tales of his mischievous nature and his light-heartedness about passion.
When the Romans established their control over the body of myth, Cupid, as they called Eros, became less mysterious still. He was depicted both in stories and in art as a chubby child, often naughty but always charming. He appeared in art as decoration, portrayed as a whimsical cherub, frequently playing with a hoop or a butterfly - in contrast to the mighty god he had originally been among the Greeks. "
I was flipping through my Mythology book last night, scrying a little bit and I came upon Eros's page. It's interesting to note that while the Greeks regarded him as one of the most powerful gods in their pantheon, and Aphrodite was regarded as his daughter. Later, as the Romans assimilated their culture, he was relegated to the role of playing Venus's mischievious sidekick, and took the shape of a fat toddler with wings. Venus herself was also considerably transformed by Roman ideals of femininity, a domestic companion, rather than the Greek view of her as one of the most ancient and venerated deities, and the ruler of victory in war.
From Mythology: The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth and Storytelling
"Eros, the quintessence of love, was originally a mysterious, primeval force. But with time he was gradually transformed into the familiar, winged Roman figure of Cupid - the mischievious, cherubic infant equipped with the bow and arrows of desire.
As with Aphrodite, there are two traditions explaining Eros's or Cupid's birth. On e associates him with the pre-Olympian world. The poet Hesiod told how Eros came into existence as the power of love at the very beginning of the world, along with Gaia (the Earth) and Tartarus (the underworld). Other accounts say that the world came into being with the mating of Eros and Chaos, so that even the gods owe their existence to him.
Gradually, however, as the various myths and mythic themes consolidated around the individual gods, Aphrodite became the divine personification of love. But because his worship was so well established, Eros was assimilated into this new tradition as the son of Aphrodite. As the offspring of the goddess, Eros came to represent the masculine ideal of love, in the same way that aphrodite represented the feminine ideal, and he was always depicted as being as young and beautiful as she was.
As the mythic tradition developed over the centuries and Zeus became more powerful, so, increasingly, Aphrodite was seen as his daughter, and therefore under his power like the other Olympians, rather than as a goddess born to Uranus, who belonged to an earlier divine generation. Her loss of status affected her son. His appearance became less impressive. his wings and arrows were introduced, as were tales of his mischievous nature and his light-heartedness about passion.
When the Romans established their control over the body of myth, Cupid, as they called Eros, became less mysterious still. He was depicted both in stories and in art as a chubby child, often naughty but always charming. He appeared in art as decoration, portrayed as a whimsical cherub, frequently playing with a hoop or a butterfly - in contrast to the mighty god he had originally been among the Greeks. "