Angels-CUPID

Cupid is the Roman god of love, commonly identified with the Greek
Eros, and son of Venus (Aphrodite), the love goddess. He is frequently
depicted as a beautiful winged boy with bow and arrows, which
arouse love in those they strike. Like love itself, he is described as
erratic and mischievous.
Eros is certainly one of the oldest gods of Greece, though Homer
does not mention him. The first traces of him are found in Hesiod,
according to whom he is one of the three primal beings out of which
the world was formed: Gaea, Chaos, and Eros—that is, Mother Earth,
Primordial Matter, and Love.
Homer had no use for Cupid as he could not be fitted into the
great family of gods. This difficulty proved a problem to a greater or
lesser extent throughout Greek and Roman mythological poetry.Sometimes Aphrodite/Venus is named as his mother, sometimes
Artemis/Diana. Ares/Mars and Hermes/Mercury are both suggested as
his father.
In the classical period Cupid is given human shape, and all later
artists show him as a youth just attaining puberty. From the very beginning
he is almost invariably represented with wings. This indicates that
he belongs to the category of beings called demons, who fly between the
world and the sky, the lower and the upper regions, connecting what is
above with that below (the defining characteristic of angels).
From the very earliest times the Greek Eros dominated gods and
men, not with normal weapons but with a flower or a lyre held in his
hand. Throughout the ages, fertility symbols, such as the hare, the
duck, and the goose, were added to his figure. The great dramatist
Euripides was the first to put a bow and arrow, the weapons of Diana,
his putative mother, in his hands. But he always uses them to orchestrate
romance, not for war.
Cupid, or Amor, the Roman counterpart of Eros, has strongly
marked human characteristics, owing to the influence of the Alexan-drian poets and artists. He is less of a god and more of a mischievous
child. His name means desire. Apuleius describes him as “that very
wicked boy, with neither manners nor respect for the decencies.” In
earlier times, however, he was a more powerful god. It was believed
that his influence extended not only over the heavens and the sea but
even to the underworld. He was widely venerated, and prayers and
sacrifices were offered to him daily.
According to some authorities, there were two Cupids, one of
whom, the son of Jupiter and Venus, was a lively and pleasant youth,
while the other, the offspring of Night and Erebus, was given to
debauchery and riotous living. Cicero mentions three Cupids, their
parentage ascribed to Mercury and Diana, Mercury and Venus, and
Mars and Venus. In common with other immortals, Cupid had the
power to change his shape at will: in Virgil’s Aeneid he assumes the
form of Ascanius at the request of his mother, Venus, and goes to the
court of Dido, where he inspires the queen with love. Like Eros, Cupid
is vain and cruel, and the Roman poet Ovid speaks of his “savage
spite.” It is in the legend of Cupid and Psyche, as told by Apuleius,
that Cupid is shown at his most tender and humane, since, for once,
he is made to experience the suffering that he has inflicted on others.
The god of love in his manifold shapes soon began to be conceived
of in the plural and to be called erotes-amorini and later amoretti
instead of Eros-Amor. In late antiquity the erotes (the plural of eros)
accompanied men and gods throughout their lives and even into the
underworld. This idea corresponded to the Roman concept of the
genii, male guardian spirits who were supposed to accompany the soul
entrusted to them throughout life. The early Christians had no difficulty
accepting figures like these literally, for they shared with the
world of antiquity the belief in guardian spirits that accompanied people
throughout life and led the soul to the next world after death. The
early Christians also gave the shape of children to the spirits, thus
bestowing an ancient symbol of eternal youth on these lofty angels,
who, according to the word of Christ, gaze forever on the face of the
heavenly Father.