Eros

The account

Two figures share this name and they are almost opposites. Hesiod's Eros is one of the first things that exists, arriving with Chaos and Gaia before there is anything to desire, and he is a cosmological necessity: without him nothing would combine and the genealogy would stop at the first generation. Hesiod calls him the most beautiful of the deathless gods, the one who loosens the limbs and overpowers the mind and the sensible counsel of everyone, gods included. The later Eros is a boy with a bow who works for his mother, causes trouble at her direction, and is eventually multiplied into a crowd of Erotes decorating vases and walls. Roman Cupid is that second figure. Both are kept here under one entry with two parentages, because the split is the interesting thing about him: the same god is either the reason the universe holds together or a mischievous child, depending on which century is telling it.