Talk:Erotes

Plan for DYK

• Lead (100 words?)
• Section on their general role. (100 words?) done
• Section with subsection for each Erote, using summary style. (50 words each = 200 words) done

• Lots of images to choose from, in individual articles. dene
• Media related to Erotes, Eros and Pothos at Wikimedia Commons

DYK:

• "that in Greek mythology, Aphrodite had a retinue of winged-Gods called Erotes"

• "the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite's retinue included the Erotes, representing different aspects of love and homoerotic desire?"
• I like, "that the presence of the Greek mythological erotes in non-sexual images, such as of two women, has been interpreted to indicate a homoerotic subtext?" Gonzonoir (talk) 13:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Good work so far, if I think of anything I will add it in. Haiduc (talk) 16:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Template talk:Did you know#Erotes (mythology)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. Nothing done to Erōtes (Lucian), as it is a redirect, but Erotes (Lucian) will be created as a redirect. --BDD (talk) 22:38, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• Erotes (mythology) → Erotes
• Erōtes (Lucian) → Erotes (Lucian)Erotes (Lucian)

– Erotes is currently a dab, but it disambiguates only two article titles, Erotes (mythology) and Erōtes (Lucian). Erotes (mythology) should be moved because (1) it is the clear primary topic; and (2) erotes is also a term in art history for the visual motif of a bunch of little cupids, so the parenthetical disambiguator misrepresents the scope. Note too that Erōtes (Lucian) is only a redirect; the page is actually titled Amores (Lucian). Although Greek works are often known by Latin titles, I'm not sure that's still the predominate usage for this work. If it's decided that Lucian's page should be named Erotes (Lucian) (the macron isn't needed: who's going to search for it with that?), it not only seems less likely as the search target, but also has a straightforward and sufficient disambiguator. Because only two pages are involved, no dab is needed: disambiguation can be accomplished with a "For" hatnote. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:29, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support this article seems to be the primary topic. Paul August ☎ 22:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support. As long as the artistic motif is closely connected and reasonably covered in the article, there's no need to disambiguate here; the Lucian disambiguator should suffice. And macrons aren't normally used in western writing, except to indicate pronunciation. They should probably never occur in article titles from these languages (I believe they are widely used in some modes of representing Japanese in the Latin alphabet, however). P Aculeius (talk) 23:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's true of Japanese. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:35, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support. I'm agnostic on the Ps.-Lucian title. Standard reference works will still generally follow the practice used in earlier treatments of Greek corpora, but I do remember at least one recent article that called it the Erotes.  davidiad { t } 12:28, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

If Amores is more common for the title of the work than Erotes, that's more reason not to disambiguate. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:35, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, for what it's worth, the OCD and New Pauly both still use the old corpus titles for Lucianic works. (I feel like I'm frowning at youths dancing to say I'm happy to see this and not "Loves". I'd drown my Lucian if this were the case.)  davidiad { t } 22:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support, rational proposal with good rationale. — Cirt (talk) 18:50, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support per nom. --Joshua Issac (talk) 13:18, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Members" of the Erotes?

My impression has always been that Erotes are Eros conceived as a plurality, a bit the same way one comes across "Pans" and "Eileithyias". The term is generally used in the context of ancient art (aside from the odd poetic reference). On Wikipedia, it is often treated as though it denotes some sort of guild with "members". Are there any sources (other than this one) which use the term in this manner? If not, the list of "members" here should be removed, and the article cut down to something much simpler (or arguably even merged with Eros?). – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:22, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

I've removed the section of "members", per the above. All the content that section contained seems to more or less already be covered by the figures' individual articles, with the exception of Pothos, whose article I've restored (it was apparently a redirect to this page from 2009). – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:27, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

@Michael Aurel Why is Theoi considered a bad source? GoingRampant (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

@Michael Aurel Okay, I found a 1951 journal article to cite: "Eros: Erotes" by Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, which cites Hermann Usener as the originator of the idea that the Erotes had specific members like Himeros, and Rosenmeyer pulls together different Usener ideas to suggest that early Greeks held the Erotes as a retinue of nameless beings but that the Sophists introduced the idea that they had individual named members. GoingRampant (talk) 18:03, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

@GoingRampant: I'm happy to explain its issues more thoroughly if you like, but I'll restrict myself to saying that the inaccurate information on Theoi.com has caused numerous problems in Greek mythology articles. The website often presents information that has no basis in ancient evidence and is not present in modern scholarship, and its quotations of ancient texts frequently include annotations (in square brackets) that misunderstand the passages. You can view a list of a handful of the problems it has caused at User:Michael Aurel/sandbox#Problems caused by Theoi.

That article was an interesting read. Usener's ideas, though generally wrong, are often fascinating. The problem with which that article grapples isn't really the same as the issue here. Rosenmeyer is careful to maintain Usener's distinction between pluralisation and fission, and the article deals with the former as it applies to Eros. The question as to whether the Greeks conceived of the "Erotes" as a group with discrete members is somewhat different to this. Usener's theory also pertains to pluralisation, not fission. The difference is that he adds a step to the process, believing that the early, singular Eros himself descended from a plurality of Erotes. But as Rosenmeyer says, there's no evidence for such an original plurality. Rosenmeyer also stresses that the multiplied Eros has little in the way of character: Eros has become a band of youths hovering in mid-air, one holding a hare and another a lyre, but all looking alike because the artist has ceased to be sensitive to the unique personality of the one Eros. The Erotes of Makron, no less than the Erotes of Pindar, are indicative of the end of an era; of the old Eros only the contour is left, and lacking the burden of passion which had once held it securely to the ground, the contour begins to float in a vacuum, to lose its identity, and to give itself over to a kind of compensatory multiplication. Nevertheless, if this article is to remain separate from Eros, it certainly should cover this issue of pluralisation.

Regarding the sentence added to the article about Gorgias: Rosenmeyer states that Lasserre was of the view that the sophists created the "new iconography of a double Eros". I haven't read the relevant page of Lasserre's book, but Rosenmeyer seems to imply that this is a case of fission; I'm sceptical that this gets us to a genuine group with individual members, though. Contrary to the added sentence, Gorgias didn't introduce the idea of multiple Erotes, as there survive iconographic depictions of such figures from as early as the 6th century BC (see Rosenmeyer, p. 15). Rosenmeyer believes that the earliest signs of pluralisation in literature can be found in Pindar (see p. 19). However, depending on what more recent scholars think of Lasserre's theory, presenting it in our article might be appropriate. Seltman identifies two figures depicted on a plaque – figures which Rosenmeyer states "may be called Erotes" – as Himeros and Eros. This sort of language is fairly common in the context of ancient iconography, and I don't think it can be taken as indicating that Pothos, for example, was part of a guild of Erotes with discrete members; Seltman himself certainly isn't suggesting that these figures were part of such a group. Hopefully this clears things up. – Michael Aurel (talk) 15:21, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Alright, I can see that I likely approached the issue from the wrong angle by trying to find a citation to back up an existing claim rather than trying to figure out what was specifically going on. If you think that article isn't useful, I won't argue with you on removing content based on it. --GoingRampant (talk) 16:29, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

The article is a touch old, but Thomas G. Rosenmeyer is a reputable classicist. Assuming that no subsequent sources have taken issue with the ideas expressed in the article, its use at this page should be perfectly alright. The problem is that it addresses a somewhat different issue to the one I originally raised here, and it doesn't really support the relevant sentences in the article. I've removed those two sentences for now, but it would definitely be good to add something about the pluralisation of Eros, whether or not it's from Rosenmeyer. It might also be worth mentioning Lasserre's theory. Feel free to add some of this yourself, or to present any relevant sources you find here; otherwise, I'll hopefully conjure up something when I have the chance. A more recent source that might be helpful is Caroline Huguenot's "Les «erotes» volants: recherche sur la signification d'un groupe de terres cuites hellénistiques d'Érétrie". – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:41, 19 June 2026 (UTC)