Anteros

God of Returned Love

Anteros was a Greek god connected with returned or mutual love. His name basically means love in return, which makes him a little different from Eros. Eros represents the powerful feeling of love and desire, while Anteros is about that feeling being answered. Later stories often describe the two as brothers and sons of Aphrodite and Ares. One lovely story says Aphrodite worried because little Eros was not growing. She was told that Love could not grow without Love in Return, so Anteros was born. Whenever the brothers were together, Eros grew stronger. It is a simple story, but I think the message is really clever.

Anteros could also have a more serious side. He was sometimes believed to punish people who treated sincere love cruelly. One old story tells of a man named Timagoras who loved another man called Meles. Meles rejected him in a horribly cruel way and told him to leap from a high rock. Timagoras did it, and Meles later felt such terrible regret that he died too. An altar to Anteros in Athens was connected with the story. It is not exactly a cheerful love story, but it shows that Anteros was about fairness as well as romance. If someone cared for you, the Greeks thought those feelings should not be treated as a joke.

In art, Anteros could look very similar to Eros. He might appear as a winged young god with a bow, which makes the two extremely easy to mix up. There is even a famous example in London. The winged statue above the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus is usually called Eros, but the sculptor intended the figure to represent Anteros and selfless love. I had seen that statue loads of times before discovering this, and now I cannot un-know it! Anteros has far fewer adventures than the major Olympian gods, but his meaning is easy to understand. Love is much happier when people care about each other, and nobody deserves to have genuine feelings mocked or used against them.

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