Eros fire.” (Nonnus, "Dionysiaca" 48. 470 ff – a Greek epic of the 5th century AD) The story of Eros and Psyche has a longstanding tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in Apuleius' Latin novel, "The Golden Ass". The novel itself is written in a picaresque Roman style, yet Psyche retains her Greek name. Eros and Aphrodite are called by their Latin names (Cupid and Venus), and Cupid is depicted as a young adult, rather than a child. The story tells of the struggle for love and trust between Eros and
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