Eros makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence. The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a very original god, but not quite primordial, since he was the child of Night (Nyx). Aristophanes (c. 400 BC), influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros: In later myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares: it is the Eros of these later myths who is one of the erotes. Eros was associated with athleticism, with statues erected in "gymnasia", and "was often regarded as the protector of homosexual love between men." Eros was depicted
Ancient Greek eros a symbolic rite had to abduct his future wife before the official ceremony, while she had her hair cut short and dressed in boy's clothes. The ideal outcome of marital eros in Sparta was the birth of a healthy boy. According to modern studies, pedagogic pederasty (Eros paidikos, παιδικός ἔρως) is thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the 5th century BC, after the middle of the Archaic period, myths about love relationships between male gods and male heroes become more and more frequent, while poets had assigned at least one eromenos to every important