Cupid (Lat. cupido, 'desire'), also AMOR, the Latin name for the Greek Eros, the god of love. Eros is not mentioned in Homer, but occurs first in Hesiod, whose conception of him is that of a cosmogonic force uniting, as it were, in harmony and love, the conflicting elements of primal chaos. Thus Plato, in his Symposium, speaks of him as the oldest of the gods. Quite different, however, from this venerable and somewhat impersonal deity is the Eros of the epigrammatic and erotic poets, the Cupid of Horace and Ovid. The genealogy of this meddlesome divinity is rather confused. He is variously represented as the son of Aphrodite (Venus) by Ares (Mars), Zeus (Jupiter), or Hermes (Mercury). He appears as a wanton boy, playful and mischievous, with bow, arrows, sometimes a torch, quiver, and wings. The eyes are often covered, so that he shoots blindly. His darts could pierce the fish at the bottom of the sea, the birds in the air, and even the gods in Olympus. The immensity of space was his home, but like his mother, he specially loved the flowery thickets of Cyprus. Later poets make a number of Eroses (Amores and Cupidines), with the same attributes as the prototype. We find also an Anteros ('return love'), whose function it is to punish those who do not return the love of others. Thespiae in Boeotia was the chief seat of the worship of Eros; here was held the Erotidia, a quinquennial festival. Eros or Cupid was a frequent subject for Greek and Roman works of art. The most celebrated statue was that by Praxiteles at Thespiae.
The beautiful fable of Cupid and Psyche, as given by Apuleius, is a literary version of one of the best-known stories in the world. Of course it is merely an ordinary household tale, with nothing but the names to connect it with the recognised Greek mythology. Here Cupid is merely the invisible bridegroom of scores of stories the world over, with the added name and attributes of the winged son of Aphrodite. See a study of the myth by Andrew Lang, in the introduction to his reprint (1887) of Adlington's translation (1566) of the story as told by Apuleius.