EROS

in Greek religion, god of love. In the Theogony of Hesiod (fl. 700 BC), Eros was a primeval god, son of Chaos, the original primeval emptiness of the universe; but later tradition made him the son of Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love and beauty, by either Zeus (the king of the gods), Ares (god of war and of battle), or Hermes (divine messenger of the gods). Eros was god not simply of passion but also of fertility. His brother was Anteros, the god of mutual love, who was sometimes described as his opponent. The chief associates of Eros were Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire). Later writers assumed the existence of a number of Eroses (like the several versions of the Roman Amor). In Alexandrian poetry he degenerated into a mischievous child. In archaic art he was represented as a beautiful winged youth but tended to be made younger and younger until, by the Hellenistic period, he was an infant. His chief cult centre was at Thespiae in Boeotia, where the Erotidia were celebrated. He also shared a sanctuary with Aphrodite on the north wall of the Acropolis at Athens. See also Cupid. first asteroid found to travel mainly inside the orbit of Mars. It was discovered August 13, 1898, by Gustav Witt at the Urania Observatory in Berlin. An elongated body about 33 13 13 km (21 8 8 miles), Eros has a rotation period of 5 hours 17 minutes, it displays large variations in brightness, and its period of revolution is 642 days. Because Eros can approach Earth as closely as 22 million km (14 million miles), scientists were able to observe it (before the development of radar methods) and thereby determine by parallax the distance of Earth from the Sun. Study of its approaches to Mercury and Venus was helpful in calculating the masses of those planets.