Editing Venus (mythology) (section)

== The Cupids ==
{{Main|Eros|Anteros|Cupid}}
Cupid (lust or desire) and Amor (affectionate love) are taken to be different names for the same Roman love-god, the son of Venus, fathered by [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]], [[Vulcan (mythology)|Vulcan]] or Mars.<ref>See entry "Cupid" in ''The Classical Tradition'', edited by Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, and Salvatore Settis (Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 244–246; cf Cicero, ''On the nature of the Gods'', 3.59-3.60.</ref> Childlike or boyish winged figures who accompany Venus, whether singly, in pairs or more, have been variously identified as Amores, [[Cupid]]s, [[Erotes]] or forms of Greek [[Eros]]. The most ancient of these is Eros, whom [[Hesiod]] categorises as a [[Greek primordial deities|primordial deity]], emerging from [[Chaos (cosmogony)|Chaos]] as a generative power with neither mother nor father. Eros was the [[Greek city-state patron gods|patron deity]] of [[Thespiae]], where he was embodied as an [[aniconic]] stone as late as the 2nd century AD. From at least the 5th century BC he also had the form of an adolescent or pre-adolescent male, at [[Elis]] (on the [[Peloponnese]]) and elsewhere in Greece, acquiring wings, bow and arrows, and divine parents in the love-goddess Aphrodite and the war-god Ares. He had temples of his own, and shared others with Aphrodite.<ref>{{cite journal |last=O'Hara |first=James J. |year=1990 |title=The significance of Vergil's Acidalia Mater, and Venus Erycina in Catullus and Ovid |journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |volume=93 |pages=335–338|doi=10.2307/311293 |jstor=311293 }}</ref><ref name=Wlosok1975>{{cite journal |last1=Wlosok |first1=Antonie |title=Amor and Cupid |journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |date=1975 |volume=79 |pages=165–179 |doi=10.2307/311134 |jstor=311134 }}</ref>
[[File:Altar Mars Venus Massimo n4.jpg|thumb|right|Fragmentary base for an altar of Venus and Mars, showing cupids or [[erotes]] playing with the war-god's weapons and [[biga (chariot)|chariot]]. From the reign of [[Trajan]] (98–117 AD)]]
At Elis, and in [[Athens]], Eros shared cult with a twin, named Anteros. [[Xenophon]]'s [[Socrates|Socratic]] ''[[Symposion]]'' 8. 1, features a dinner-guest with ''eros'' (love) for his wife; in return, she has ''anteros'' (reciprocal love) for him. Some sources suggest Anteros as avenger of "slighted love". In [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]]' 4th century commentary on Virgil's [[Aeneas]], Cupid is a deceptive agent of Venus, impersonating Aeneas' son and making [[Dido]], queen of [[Carthage]], forget her husband. When Aeneas rejects her love, and covertly leaves Carthage to fulfill his destiny as ancestor of the Roman people, Dido is said to invoke Anteros as "contrary to Cupid". She falls into hatred and despair, curses Rome, and when Aeneas leaves, commits suicide.{{efn|Cicero presents Anteros as a "third Cupid", fathered by Mars and birthed by a "third Venus", the huntress [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]] (more usually described as ''virgin''). See Cicero, ''On the nature of the Gods'', 3.59-3.60}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=O'Hara |first=James J. |year=1990 |title=The significance of Vergil's Acidalia Mater, and Venus Erycina in Catullus and Ovid |journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |volume=93 |pages=335–338|doi=10.2307/311293 |jstor=311293 }}</ref><ref name=Wlosok1975/> 

[[Ovid]]'s Fasti, Book 4, invokes Venus not by name but as "Mother of the Twin Loves", the ''gemini amores''.{{efn|Ovid, ''Fasti'', 4, 1: ''Amores'', 3. 15. 1: ''Heroides'', 7. 59: 16. 203. See also Catullus C. 3. 1, 13. 2: Horace, 1. 19. 1 :4. 1. 5.}} "Amor" is the Latin name preferred by Roman poets and ''literati'' for the personification of "kindly" love. Where Cupid (lust) can be imperious, cruel, prone to mischief or even war-like, Amor softly persuades. [[Cato the Elder]], having a [[Stoicism|Stoic's]] outlook, sees Cupid as a deity of greed and blind passion, morally inferior to Amor. The Roman playwright [[Plautus]], however, has Venus, Cupid and Amor working together.<ref name=Wlosok1975/>

In Roman cult inscriptions and theology, "Amor" is rare, and "Cupido" relatively common. No Roman temples seem dedicated to Cupid alone but the joint dedication formula ''Venus Cupidoque'' ("Venus and Cupid") is evidence of his cult, shared with Venus at her Temple just outside the Colline Gate and elsewhere. He would also have featured in many private household cults. In private and public areas alike, statues of Venus and Mars attended by Cupid, or Venus, Cupid and minor ''erotes'' were sometimes donated by wealthy sponsors, to serve both religious and artistic purposes.<ref>Clark, Anna, ''Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome'', Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 177.</ref><ref>Leonard A. Curchin, Leonard A., "Personal Wealth in Roman Spain," ''Historia'' 32.2 (1983), p. 230</ref> Cupid's roles in literary myth are usually limited to actions on behalf of Venus; in [[Cupid and Psyche]], one of the stories within ''[[The Golden Ass]]'', by the Roman author [[Apuleius]], the plot and its resolution are driven by Cupid's love for Psyche ("soul"), his filial disobedience, and his mother's envy.<ref name=Wlosok1975/>