Phanes and Eros

Some sources claimed that a god often said to be the youngest was actually one of the first primordial gods.

In many versions of Greek mythology, Eros was the youngest of the Olympians. He was the son of Aphrodite and was depicted as a mischievous, child-like god.

Logically, however, there was a problem with Eros being so young.

As the god of love, Eros was responsible for making men and women sexually attracted to one another. Without his influence, none of the gods would have mated with one another before his birth.

Even his own birth would have been impossible. Most people believed that he was the product of Aphrodite's affair with Ares, which would never have happened if love did not yet exist.

For reproduction to have begun, Eros would have needed to have been born before any of the primordial gods paired up. This meant that, at the very least, he would have to be older than the Titans, Himera, and the river gods.

Some people therefore believed that Eros was one of the first primordial gods. He came into being early in creation, either directly from Chaos or as a spontaneously-born child of Nyx.

To reconcile the two beliefs, some claimed that Eros had been born twice. He had been destroyed when Uranus lost power but his essence was contained in and reborn from Aphrodite.

To distinguish between the two incarnations of the god of love, the primordial Eros was sometimes called Eros Protogonos.

In some mystery cults, he was known as Phanes. The story of Phanes presented a much different creation narrative than most of mainstream religion at the time.

Instead of Chaos, some cult initiates believed that creation had begun with a silver egg. The primordial egg contained all the elements needed to set the universe in order.

Phanes was born from this egg and began to assemble the elements around him into primordial forms. This made him the original creator god, while the more traditional Greek cosmology held that the primordial gods emerged more spontaneously.

This story of Phanes and the egg was likely taken from foreign influences, notably the Egyptian creation story. It was used in Greece, however, to elevate the status of Eros and explain the contradictions surrounding his birth.