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
433 Eros 433 Eros Eros ( ; minor planet designation: 433 Eros), provisional designation , is a stony and elongated asteroid of the Amor group and the first discovered and second-largest near-Earth object with a mean-diameter of approximately 16.8 kilometers. Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, it became the first asteroid ever studied from orbit. The eccentric asteroid was discovered by German astronomer Carl Gustav Witt at the Berlin Urania Observatory on 13 August 1898, and later named after Eros, a god from Greek mythology. Eros was discovered on 13 August 1898, by Carl Gustav Witt at Berlin Urania