Eros, naked and male, is not to be confused with other winged beings or naked youths.
For example, there are winged female figures like NIKE, here on a coin from Nicopolis ad Istrum (Moesia).
On this coin of Gordian III from Phaselis (Lycia) the figures holding the veil of the cult figure of Aphrodite are clothed, not nude, and therefore Nikai rather than Erotes (RPC VII, 2, 2365).
This winged figure is NEMESIS, on the reverse of a coin from Tripolis in Lydia
or as an unattributed provincial countermark (= Howgego, GIC 283).
Naked boys or youths are not necessarily Erotes, though determining their actual identity is not always easy.
For example, the mysterious youth holding a bird in his outstretched hand on coins of Pergamon (Mysia), with obverse type of helmeted head of Athena, was identified by Imhoof-Blumer in 1908 (Zur griechischen und römischen Münzkunde, 2) as one of the MINOR GODS OF HEALING associated with Asclepius. These included Telesphorus, normally represented as a little cloaked figure, however, rather than as a naked youth, and Euamerion. Two reverses are shown here, of coins struck by Ioulios Pollion in the time of Hadrian (l.) and by Diodoros in the time of Commodus (r.).
There are similar nude boys depicted on the reverse of Hadrianic coins from Hierocaesareia in Lydia (photo courtesy of Numismatik Naumann GmbH), but these too are not winged.
Another mysterious reverse type comes from Serdica (Thracia) and shows a naked young god with a serpent-staff; by his side is a small figure, reaching up towards him. The two figures are not Aesclupius and Eros, but Apollo the Healer and, possibly, his son Aesculapius; alternatively, Telesphorus (as
Patricia Lawrence has pointed out, the identification is difficult
because of the lack of attributes; see the discussion of Aesculapius,
Telesphorus, and Co. in Hans-Joachim Hoeft’s Münzen und antike Mythologie,
2011, pp.279 ff. and 289 ff.). Here are two variants: on the left
(photo courtesy of Lübke & Wiedemann KG) the tiny figure is naked,
while on the right (photo courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., www.cngcoins.com)
he is wearing a chlamys over his shoulders, which might easily be
mistaken for wings on a worn specimen of the coin. There is also a coin
showing the same pair within a tetrastyle shrine (Varbanov 2456).
If the BOY ON A DOLPHIN isn’t winged, he may not be Eros. On this coin, from Tarentum in Italy, it is Taras.
Here is another Taras, from Brundusium. For other dolphin-riders, see Type 21.
It is the infant HERACLES (and not Eros) who is portrayed carrying the
club and lionskin on a coin of Heracleia Pontica in Bithynia (SNG von
Aulock 423), or fighting, on a coin from Serdica (Thracia), with the serpents sent to kill him by the jealous Hera.
Nor should his son TELEPHUS, shown here with Heracles on another coin from Serdica (photo courtesy of Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger), be mistaken for Eros. Compare the pose of Telephus on this coin with that of the child (Eros?) on the coin of Nicomedia (Type 42), who seems to be floating in front of Heracles rather than squatting on his arm.
But the child most easily mistaken for Eros is DIONYSUS, shown here on a coin of Geta from Nicaea (photo by courtesy of Münzen & Medaillen GmbH), riding on a panther.
Dionysus is also represented as a child in an improvised cradle, actually a corn-sieve for separating wheat from chaff, here on a coin of Septimius Severus from Nicaea in Bithynia (photo by courtesy of Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger).
On other coins he is shown being looked after by various helpers, including Silenus, on an extremely rare coin of Sardes, illustrated on p.295 of Hans-Joachim Hoeft’s Münzen und antike Mythologie, or by Hermes, here on an extremely rare coin of Septimius Severus from Philippopolis in Thracia, misread by Varbanov (1252) as “Naked Apollo stg. r., resting on column and holding bow (?)”, but reproducing the famous statue by Praxiteles at Olympia, of which the Philippopolitans presumably had a nice copy. There is a similar coin (of Marcus Aurelius Caesar) from Anchialus (AMNG 427), also exceptionally rare.
On charming coins of Marcus Aurelius at Philippopolis (Thracia), Dionysus (or a Baccchic child) is shown dancing, holding a thyrsus and a cantharus (from a private collection, photo by permission); there is a cruder version of a similar type for Commodus at Nicopolis ad Istrum (Moesia), although the figure on that coin probably represents Pan.
This coin of Antiocheia in Pisidia was sold as a coin of Gordian III with reverse of seated Aphrodite with Eros! The seller must have been thinking of Type 28. The figures on the reverse are Roma and a CROUCHING CAPTIVE, and the coin was struck under Volusian (RPC IX, 1278).
Here is another Lycian coin of Gordian III, from Patara. The strange figure on the reverse is a WINGED CREATURE holding a branch and a fillet (?) (RPC VII, 2, 21508*). Winged deities featured on various earlier (pre-Roman) coins of the southern seaboard of Asia Minor (Caria, Lycia, Cilicia). Or this might even be a kind of gryllos, a hybrid ctreature (Mischwesen) often found on gemstones and tesserae.
This figure on the reverse of a coin of Marcus Aurelius from Colybrassus in Cilicia has been identified as a possible Eros, but that seems highly unlikely to me. He has no wings, wears drapery and a radiate crown, and is lightly bearded. HELIOS perhaps?
On rare coins of Caracalla from Pessinus in Galatia there is a bearded winged figure in a short chiton rushing r. and holding a smaller winged figure on his extended l. hand—a group identified by Imhoof-Blumer (Griechische Münzen, p.754) as representing DAEDALUS AND ICARUS.
On ancient coins, it is not always easy to distinguish between Erotes and winged genii, although the context in which the image appears and its probable function should help.
Here is a modern example of a torchbearing, naked, winged boy who is not Eros but a WINGED GENIUS. On this silvered plaquette by the renowned medallist Louis-Oscar Roty, issued to commemorate the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris, a youthful genius representing the new millennium is taking a torch from the grasp of a fainting woman who represents the old.
The idea of a torch relay, resurrected for the preliminaries of the modern Olympic Games, derives from the torch relays that were a feature of ancient festivals like the Panathenaic Games, though not the Olympics.
There are rare representations of the naked HERMAPHRODITE on provincial coins, including the famous statuary type of the Sleeping Hermaphrodite (there are many surviving Roman copies of this risqué statue), on a coin of Augusta Trajana in Thracia (Varbanov 847, misread as “Dancing maenad (Genius?) naked, stg. facing, hd. r., holding veil in raised r. hand”, and 854 f., “River-god swimming r.”),
and a remarkable coin of Septimius Severus from Hadrianopolis in Thracia (Varbanov 3392, though wrongly described) that shows Hermaphrodite dancing with Pan (photo courtesy of Peter G. Burbules).
Finally, a curious Roman coin, of Constantine I, mint of Rome, that seems to refer to Eros. The mintmark in the exergue reads R EPOC P. The word Eros is written in Greek (ερωc), with the letters epsilon, rho and omega in a ligature. Was a pun intended? Eros = Amor, and Amor is an anagram (and a palindrome) for Roma. The wordplay is well attested in ancient Rome. In Virgil’s Aeneid (4.347) Aeneas says to Dido that the Lycian oracle commands him to go to the land of his “amor”. This land is of course Roma. And there is the inscription from Aquincum with the palindrome Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor (For by my labours thou shalt soon reach Rome, the object of thy wishes), attributed to Sidonius Apollinaris (430-480). Amor was the “secret name” of Rome. Could this issue even have something to do with resistance from the (pagan) elite of Rome to Constantine's programme of Christianisation?
