ABSTRACT
Eros is a well-known deity, the personification of love or desire, a putto with golden wings and a bow, or a torch. This image is true, but it holds true only for Hellenistic art, or at the earliest, for the art of the late classical period. The other fact that points to the emergence of the Eros cult in Peisistratus' Athens is its close relationship with the Panathenaea ritual. Pausanias uses a typical cultic myth to justify the establishment of the Athenian cult of Anteros, the mysterious deity, who was considered by some to be a deity of 'Love Avenged'. Erichthonius, the mythic founder of the Panathenaea, has a serpent's tail instead of feet, as also has Cecrops, the father of his unlucky nurses, who were terrified to death by his monstrous form. Erichthonius is worshipped on the Acropolis as the holy serpent of Athena.
