Indeed, the dialogue of Syrian satirist Lucian of Samosata's text Erotes discusses the merits of homoeroticism using Orestes and Pylades as the principal models.
|
|
Stories of the erotes' mischief or pranks were a popular theme in Hellenistic culture, particularly in the 2nd century BCE. Spells to attract or repel erotes were used, in order to induce love or the opposite. Different erotes represented various facets of love or desire, such as unrequited love (Himeros), mutual love (Anteros) or longing (Pothos). The erotes were usually portrayed as nude, handsome, winged youths.
|
|
The earliest known sculptured friezes depicting a group of erotes and winged maidens driving chariots pulled by goats, were created to decorate theatres in ancient Greece in the 2nd century BCE. The representation of erotes in such friezes became common, including erotes in hunting scenes. Due to their role in the classical mythological pantheon, the erotes' representation is sometimes purely symbolic (indicating some form of love) or they may be portrayed as individual characters. The presence of erotes in otherwise non-sexual images, such as of two women, has been controversially interpreted to indicate a homoerotic subtext.
|
|
The erotes are a group of winged gods in Classical mythology. They are associated with love and sexual desire, and form part of Aphrodite's retinue. The individual erotes are sometimes linked to particular aspects of love, and are often associated with same-sex desire. Sometimes the erotes are regarded as manifestations of a singular god, Eros.
|
|
Groups of numerous erotes are portrayed in ancient Greek and Roman art. In addition, a number of named gods have been regarded as erotes, sometimes being assigned particular associations with aspects of love.
|
|
Other named Erotes are Anteros ("Love Returned"), Himeros ("Impetuous Love" or "Pressing Desire"), Hedylogos ("Sweet-talk"), Hymenaios ("Bridal-Hymn"), Hermaphroditus ("Hermaphrodite" or "Effeminate"), and Pothos ("Desire, Longing," especially for one who is absent). The Erotes became a motif of Hellenistic art, and may appear in Roman art in the alternate form of multiple Cupids or Cupids and Psyches. In the later tradition of Western art, erotes become indistinguishable from figures also known as Cupids, amorini, or amoretti.
|
|
Anteros, popularly called Eros, by Alfred Gilbert, 1885; from the Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus. The Erotes () are a collective of winged gods associated with love and sexual intercourse in Greek mythology. They are part of Aphrodite's retinue. Erotes (Greek ) is the plural of Eros ("Love, Desire"), who as a singular deity has a more complex mythology.
|
|
In the cult of Aphrodite in Anatolia, iconographic images of the goddess with three erotes symbolized the three realms over which she had dominion: the Earth, sky, and water.
|
|
Several erotes—small winged gods associated with love and occasionally the cultivation of wine—are seen participating in viticulture management, using ladders and pruning hooks, carrying baskets of gathered grapes, and defending the vines from scavenging birds. The erotes are armed with bows, arrows, and spears. In addition to the domesticated and harvested grape vines, wild raspberry vines and field bindweed flowers wrap throughout the scene to pay homage to the local flora of Petra's northern hinterland. Twaissi et al.
|
|
She is also described as the nurse of the baby Erotes, who are Aphrodite's children.Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 3.84. A fragment by Ibycus describes Aphrodite and Peitho, who is described as tendered eyed (aganoblepharos), nursing Euryalus among rose blossoms.Ibycus, Fragment 288.
|
|
The so-called "tomb of Erotes" lies on a hill to the northwest of Eretria city and counts among the most significant monuments of Evia island. Based on the findings, it is dated to the fourth century BC, the time when these characteristic burial monuments of the Macedonian type make their appearance in southern Greece after the descent of the Macedons. More Macedonian tombs were found in the wider area around Eretria, namely in the settlements of Kotroni and Amarynthos. The tomb of Erotes consists of a single vaulted chamber and a dromos (entrance passageway) of stone and bricks.
|
|
Albert Grenier, Le Génie romain dans la religion, la pensée, l'art, Albin Michel, 1969, p. 278 To her right is an Eros, a creature associated with Venus. Behind the wedding couple, a Nereid, accompanied by two more Erotes and riding a hippocamp, carries another present.
|
|
Giovanni Battista Passeri and Giovanni Pietro Bellori praised Duqesnoy's work, and stressed the fame of the Van den Eynde's putti. They enjoyed huge fame in the following centuries, and served as models of the infant putto for contemporary artists. Bellori wrote: > The Greeks were excellent at sculpting and painting the Erotes and the Genii > as young boys, and it seems that Callistratus gives a very good description > of the putti around the statue of the Nile, and Philostratos does so in his > account of the Erotes at play. Michelangelo made putti in both marble and > paint, all of them resembling figures of Hercules, devoid of tenderness.
|
|
It was commonly rumored in Roman times that Praxiteles's cult image of Aphrodite of Knidos, in Aphrodite's temple, was so beautiful that at least one admirer arranged to be shut in with it overnight.Recorded in the second-century dialogue Erotes that is traditionally misattributed to Lucian of Samosata.
|
|
At Madaba, an Imperial city of the Province of Arabia in present-day Jordan, a series of mythological mosaics has a scene of Aphrodite and Adonis enthroned, attended by six Erotes and three Charites ("Graces"). A basket of overturned roses near them has been seen as referring to the Rosalia.
|
|
His name is compounded of his parents' names, Hermes and Aphrodite.Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 6. 5 "... Hermaphroditus, as he has been called, who was born of Hermes and Aphrodite and received a name which is a combination of those of both his parents." He was one of the Erotes.
|
|
Eros is the Greek counterpart to the Roman Cupid. He is also tied to the Greek gods Anteros and Erotes. Eros is the male equivalent to his mother, Aphrodite, but to a much lesser extent. Whereas Aphrodite has dominion over all aspects of love, Eros tends to gravitate his hold over sudden love, lust and the erotic.
|
|
Additionally, internal details could be added by incision. The themes depicted include erotes, images from the life of women, theatre scenes and dionysiac motifs. Figural, painting is often limited to the upper half of the vessel body, while the bottom half often bears only ornamental decoration. The most common shapes were bell kraters, pelikes, oinochoai and skyphoi.
|
|
Taplin speculates that the iconography of tragedy "could be assimilated into other contexts without danger of confusion", op. cit. p.237. and mythological themes. A number of mythological motifs not represented in surviving literary texts are known exclusively from his vases. On other shapes, especially pelikes, he also painted as wedding scenes, erotes, women, and dionysiac motifs.
|
|
Pothos (Greek: "yearning") was one of Aphrodite's erotes and brother to Himeros and Eros. In some versions of myth, Pothos is the son of Eros, or is portrayed as an independent aspect of him. Yet others called him son of Zephyrus and Iris. He was part of Aphrodite's retinue, and carried a vine, indicating a connection to wine or the god Dionysus.
|
|
The most typical feature of Sicilian vase painting is the use of additional colours, especially white. In the early phase, large vessels like chalice kraters and hydriai were painted, but smaller vessels like flasks, lekanes, lekythoi and skyphoid pyxides are more typical. The most common motifs are scenes from female life, erotes, female heads and phlyax scenes. Mythological scenes are rare.
|
|
In Greek mythology, Hedylogos or Hedylogus () was the god of sweet-talk and flattery and one of the winged love gods called the Erotes. He is not mentioned in any existing literature, but he is depicted on ancient Greek vase paintings. A surviving example on a red-figure pyxis from the late 5th century BC shows Hedylogos alongside his brother Pothos drawing the chariot of Aphrodite.
|
|
It is marked by a return to figural painting, predominantly depicting erotes. Kantharoi and bowls with painted-on handles are now the main shapes. Ribbing is still in use, as is the copious application of white paint, now with yellow added for shading. Unlike local red-figure pottery, South Italian Gnathia vases were also traded to other regions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas.
|
|
One of the earliest extant visual representations of the practice appears on a Roman Empire sarcophagus from the 3rd century AD, which depicts an idealized pastoral scene with a group of Erotes harvesting and stomping grapes at Vindemia, a rural festival.Wight, Karol (2008). Roman sarcophagus, c. 290-300 AD. The J. Paul Getty Museum Many contemporary wineries hold grape-stomping contests to attract visitors.
|
|
All eight spandrels bear Victory holding a wreath and a palm branch, commemorative of the triumph. Above the columns is a frieze decorated with acanthus above, which is a frieze of erotes holding a garland. All four exterior faces share these basic decorative elements, varying only in the central frieze decoration. The northeast frieze, facing the rival city of Leptis, Oea, depicts the triumph.
|
|
His motifs include mythological and dionysiac scenes, as well as genre scenes with erotes, men and women. His most important vessel shape is the volute krater, which became the dominant shape in Apulia maybe due to his influence. Nonetheless, the over 100 works attributed to him include many other shapes. He was one of the first vase painters to substantially use additional white and yellow colour.
|
|
Seneca, Octavia 560. Cicero, however, says that there were three Cupids, as well as three Venuses: the first Cupid was the son of Mercury and Diana, the second of Mercury and the second Venus, and the third of Mars and the third Venus. This last Cupid was the equivalent of Anteros, "Counter-Love," one of the Erotes, the gods who embody aspects of love.Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.59–60.
|
|
Aelian, On Animals, 14. 28 Physically, he is depicted as similar to Eros in every way, but with long hair and plumed butterfly wings. He has been described also as armed with either a golden club or arrows of lead. Anteros, with Eros, was one of a host of winged love gods called Erotes, the ever-youthful winged gods of love, usually depicted as winged boys in the company of Aphrodite or her attendant goddesses.
|
|
The recovered portions of this broken doorway show that it also had three bands of carvings above the head of the goddess. This doorway likely was a part of the mandapa. Portions of broken lintels found lying around the site show figures of erotes, in the same style as one finds in the ancient Khoh temples. The recovered fragments in the ruins when put together show that they are incomplete and parts have been lost.
|
|
In analogy with the alphabet, "YZ" stands for the end of red-figure painting in Athens. The group must have been active around 320 BC. The exact date of the end of red-figure painting remains unclear, because no detailed chronology can be developed from the vases. The fact that YZ vases are relatively numerous may indicate that their production, though short in duration, was large in output. They depict erotes, women and Nike.
|
|
In Greek mythology, Eros (, ;Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: "Eros" , "Desire") is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is described as one of the children of Aphrodite and Ares and, with some of his siblings, was one of the Erotes, a group of winged love gods.
|
|
In Greece, roses appear on funerary steles, and in epitaphs most often of girls.Brenk, Clothed in Purple Light p. 87. In Imperial-era Greek epitaphs, the death of an unmarried girl is compared to a budding rose cut down in spring; a young woman buried in her wedding clothes is "like a rose in a garden"; an eight-year-old boy is like the rose that is "the beautiful flower of the Erotes" ("Loves" or Cupids).Brenk, Clothed in Purple Light, p.
|
|
The clay of the vases is pale pink, the black paint is off matt tone and has a tendency to flake off easily. Particularly typical of Sicilian vase painting is the use of additional colours, notably of white paint. Especially in the initial phase, large vessels such as chalice kraters, volute kraters and hydriai were painted, but small vessels such as bottles, lekanes, lekythoi and skyphoid pyxides are also typical. Popular themes included scenes from female life, erotes, women's heads and phlyax scenes.
|
|
As well as a main scene with a few figures, the ornamental zones are at least partly painted, and elements might be gilded.Stone, 137–138; Sparkes, 101; Stansbury-O'Donnell In the main scene, outlines were drawn in black after firing, a white ground applied within the areas to be fully painted, which allowed the lines still to be seen, and finally tempera paints applied.Stone, 137 The repertoire of figural subjects is limited virtually entirely to women, erotes and weddings. The few exceptions include scenes from the theatre and gods, mostly Dionysos.
|
|
No Imperial portraits are recorded, nor military scenes; unlike so much Roman public art the glasses concentrate on the private interests of individuals. Apart from a single near-naked Venus and some figures of erotes,Lutraan, 25–26 sexual themes are another notable absence compared to much Roman art. Most glasses feature a single image occupying most of the round space within the border, but some have a number of small scenes, usually arranged in small circular frames around a central image. Most portraits are between bust and half-length.
|
|
A couple of metres away was created a rich Apollonian dwelling house of the 3rd century AD: The mosaics are of all types. There are mosaics where the main decorative motives are simple geometric figures, others have ornamental mythological figures like : hypocamposes (seahorses), accompanied by Nereids and Erotes. One of the mosaics represents a scene where Archiles holds the wounded Penthesilea, the beautiful queen of Amazones, in his arms. The Fontana represents in itself a complex structure; it had a wall which collected all the waters that sprang from the earth, and four other aqueducts.
|
|
It is likely that his workshop was at Canosa. He depicted sepulchral scenes (naiskos vases), usually depicting a naiskos on the front and a grave stele on the back, often characterised by figures in yellow- orange garments), mythological and dionysiac scenes, as well as erotes, weddings and scenes from the life of women. Stylistically, especially in regard to vase shapes and pictorial themes, his work is very similar to that of the Underworld Painter. The Baltimore Painter's work is characterised by rich and fine detail, especially in ornamentation.
|
|
In Greek mythology, Anteros (Ancient Greek: Ἀντέρως Antérōs) was the god of requited love, literally "love returned" or "counter-love" and also the punisher of those who scorn love and the advances of others, or the avenger of unrequited love. He is one of the Erotes. Anteros was the son of Ares and Aphrodite in Greek mythology, given as a playmate to his brother Eros, who was lonely – the rationale being that love must be answered if it is to prosper. Alternatively, he was said to have arisen from the mutual love between Poseidon and Nerites.
|
|
He is a main character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, when wounded by his own weapons, he experiences the ordeal of love. Although other extended stories are not told about him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as "Love conquers all" and the retaliatory punishment or torture of Cupid. His powers are similar, though not identical, to Kamadeva the Hindu god of human love. In art, Cupid often appears in multiples as the Amores, or ' in the later terminology of art history, the equivalent of the Greek erotes.
|
|
This story is recorded in the dialogue Erotes (section 15), traditionally attributed to Lucian of Samosata.See also the Hellenistic story of Pygmalion. The same dialogue also offers the fullest literary description of the temenos of Aphrodite at Knidos: > The floor of the court had not been doomed to sterility by a stone pavement, > but on the contrary, it burst with fertility, as behooves Aphrodite: fruit > trees with verdant foliage rose to prodigious heights, their limbs weaving a > lofty vault. The myrtle, beloved by the goddess, reached up its berry-laden > branches no less than the other trees which so gracefully stretched out.
|
|
Heavy clusters of grapes hang from the > gnarled vines: indeed, Aphrodite is only more attractive when united with > Bacchus; their pleasures are sweeter for being mixed together. Apart, they > have less spice. Under the welcome shade of the boughs, comfortable beds > await the celebrants— actually the better people of the town only rarely > frequent these green halls, but the common crowds jostle there on festive > days, to yield publicly to the joys of love. (Pseudo-Lucian, Erotes) Of the Aphrodite herself, the narrator resorts to hyperbole: > When we had exhausted the charms of these places we pressed on into the > temple itself.
|
|
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). Eros was one of the Erotes, along with other figures such as Himeros and Pothos, who are sometimes considered patrons of homosexual love between males. Eros is also part of a triad of gods that played roles in homoerotic relationships, along with Heracles and Hermes, who bestowed qualities of beauty (and loyalty), strength, and eloquence, respectively, onto male lovers. The Thespians celebrated the Erotidia () meaning festivals of Eros.
|
|
Foremost of these were scenes of the Triumph of Poseidon (or Neptune), riding in a chariot drawn by Hippocamps and attended by a host of sea gods and fish-tailed beasts. Large mosaic scenes also portrayed rows of sea-gods and nymphs arranged in a coiling procession of intertwined fish-tails. Other scenes show the birth of Aphrodite, often raised in a conch shell by a pair of sea centaurs, and accompanied by fishing Erotes (winged love gods). It was in this medium that most of the obscure maritime gods of Homer and Hesiod finally received standardised representation and attributes.
|
|
Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1437–46 The classical erotes or putto re-appeared in art during the Italian Renaissance in both religious and mythological art, and is often known in English as a cherub, the singular of cherubim, actually one of the higher ranks in the Christian angelic hierarchy. They normally appear in groups and are generally given wings in religious art, and are sometimes represented as just a winged head. They generally are just in attendance, except that they may be amusing Christ or John the Baptist as infants in scenes of the Holy Family.
|
|
In the wall of the property Bei den Sieben Kindeln 3 ("At the seven infants 3") there is a recessed stone relief from the Roman period depicting six playing, naked children standing around a coffin. Legend says that the commemorative plaque was commissioned by a Roman officer to commemorate the drowning of one of his children (therefore it is said to be "seven" children, although the plaque represents only six: the seventh child is drowned and lies in the coffin). According to current knowledge, the plate once formed the long side of a Sarcophagus, representing Erotes.
|
|
Nicolas Poussin, Hymenaios Disguised as a Woman During an Offering to Priapus, 1634, São Paulo Museum of Art Hymen (), Hymenaios or Hymenaeus, in Hellenistic religion, is a god of marriage ceremonies, inspiring feasts and song. Related to the god's name, a hymenaios is a genre of Greek lyric poetry sung during the procession of the bride to the groom's house in which the god is addressed, in contrast to the Epithalamium, which is sung at the nuptial threshold. He is one of the winged love gods, Erotes. Hymen is the son of Apollo and one of the muses, Clio or Calliope or Urania or Terpsichore.
|
|
The pair were popular in the 18th century, as illustrations of centaurs that posed them as civilized patrons of hospitality and learning, like Chiron, rather than bestial half-animals (as at the Battle of the Centaurs). With their erotes, they were emblems of the joy of young love and the contrasting bondage of maturity to love,Sexual desires "which torment the old and delight the young", as Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny observed in discussing this pair, in Taste and the Antique: the lure of classical sculpture, 1500-1900, 1981, cat. no. 20, p. 178; they discuss the reception of the Furietti centaurs p. 179.
|
|
Also found were small marble reliefs of male and female genitals,Broneer 1935, p.133 fragments of a marble relief of nines Erotes carrying cult paraphernaliaNAMA 1451 and 1452 from the late 4th century. Two inscriptions of circa 450-430 BCE were cut into the rock at the southwest corner of the site, One a dedication to Aphrodite, the other mentions a spring festival sacred to Eros.IG I2 1382 a and b A marble thesaurus of the 4th century BCE was found 100m downslope of the shrine, inscribed “Treasury for prenuptial offerings to Aphrodite Ourania , it testifies to a private sacrifice rather than a public ritual.
|
|
The relationship between Orestes and Pylades has been presented by some authors of the Roman era as romantic or homoerotic. The dialogue Erotes ("Affairs of the Heart"), attributed to Lucian, compares the merits and advantages of heterosexuality and homoeroticism, and Orestes and Pylades are presented as the principal representatives of a loving friendship: : “Phocis preserves from early times the memory between Orestes and Pylades, who taking a god as witness of the passion between them, sailed through life together as though in one boat. Both together put to death Klytmnestra, as though both were sons of Agamemnon; and Aegisthus was slain by both. Pylades suffered more than his friend by the punishment which pursued Orestes.
|
|
Names are inscribed around the edge of the mirror, but because the figures are not labeled individually, the correlation is not unambiguous; moreover, the lettering is of disputed legibility in some names. There is general agreement, however, given the comparative evidence, that the five central figures are Umaele, who seems to act as a medium; Euturpa (the Muse Euterpe), Inue (Inuus), Eraz, and Aliunea or Alpunea (Palamedes in other scenarios). The lovers in the pediment at the top are Atunis (Adonis) and the unknown E…ial where Turan (Venus) would be expected. The figure with outstretched wings on the tang is a Lasa, an Etruscan form of Lar who was a facilitator of love like the Erotes or Cupid.
|
|
Through this Latin translation of the work, the term "Milesian tale" gained currency in the ancient world. Milesian tales quickly gained a reputation for ribaldry: Ovid, in Tristia, contrasts the boldness of Aristides and others with his own Ars Amatoria, for which he was punished by exile. In the dialogue on the kinds of love, Erotes, Lucian of Samosata--if in fact he was the author--praised Aristides in passing, saying that after a day of listening to erotic stories he felt like Aristides, "that enchanting spinner of bawdy yarns". This suggests that the lost Milesiaka had for its framing device Aristides himself, retelling what he had been hearing of the goings-on at Miletus.
|
|
The record received enthusiastic reviews by the Greek music press and the first single/video (produced and directed by the band) "No More Affairs" [Ochi Pia Erotes] became an unexpected hit. In March 2006 Kore. Ydro. appeared live for the first time in Athens (Gagarin 205), while it had already been made official the collaboration of the group with bass player Panagiotis Diamantis, who directed the second video from Cheap Pop for the Elite, for the song "Now that I Do not Have Anyone" [Tora pou den Eho Kanenan] (June 2006). The band-directed video for “The Lovers of Nothing” [Oi Erastes tou Tipota] followed in November 2006. In the same month, Greek music magazine SONIK named Cheap Pop for the Elite “the most important Greek album of the decade up to now.” Kore. Ydro. live appearances climaxed precisely one year after the release of CPftE with their second live in Gagarin 205 [February 2007] in front of a fanatic audience and with an impact that rendered the particular gig a peak in the band's history.
|
|