Although other extended stories are not told about him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as "Love conquers all" and the retaliatory punishment or torture of Cupid.

Cupid continued to be a popular figure in the Middle Ages, when under Christian influence he often had a dual nature as Heavenly and Earthly love.

In contemporary popular culture, Cupid is shown drawing his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentine's Day.

[3] The Romans reinterpreted myths and concepts pertaining to the Greek Eros for Cupid in their own literature and art, and medieval and Renaissance mythographers conflate the two freely.

[5] At the same time, the Eros who was pictured as a boy or slim youth was regarded as the child of a divine couple, the identity of whom varied by source.

The influential Renaissance mythographer Natale Conti began his chapter on Cupid/Eros by declaring that the Greeks themselves were unsure about his parentage: Heaven and Earth,[6] Ares and Aphrodite,[7] Night and Ether,[8] or the Rainbow and Zephyr.

[14] The duality between the primordial and the sexually conceived Eros accommodated philosophical concepts of Heavenly and Earthly Love even in the Christian era.

[18] In Botticelli's Allegory of Spring (1482), also known by its Italian title La Primavera, Cupid is shown blindfolded while shooting his arrow, positioned above the central figure of Venus.

[19] Particularly in ancient Roman art, cupids may also carry or be surrounded by fruits, animals, or attributes of the Seasons or the wine-god Dionysus, symbolizing the earth's generative capacity.

[23] A variation is found in The Kingis Quair, a 15th-century poem attributed to James I of Scotland, in which Cupid has three arrows: gold, for a gentle "smiting" that is easily cured; the more compelling silver; and steel, for a love-wound that never heals.

The theme brought the Amoretti poetry cycle (1595) of Edmund Spenser to a conclusion,[27] and furnished subject matter for at least twenty works by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop.

[28] The German poet and classicist Karl Philipp Conz (1762–1827) framed the tale as Schadenfreude ("taking pleasure in someone else's pain") in a poem by the same title.

[39] The innovative Theodulf of Orleans, who wrote during the reign of Charlemagne, reinterpreted Cupid as a seductive but malicious figure who exploits desire to draw people into an allegorical underworld of vice.

[40] To Theodulf, Cupid's quiver symbolized his depraved mind, his bow trickery, his arrows poison, and his torch burning passion.

[42] The ancient type was known at the time through descriptions in classical literature, and at least one extant example had been displayed in the sculpture garden of Lorenzo de' Medici since 1488.

[43] In the 1st century AD, Pliny had described two marble versions of a Cupid (Eros), one at Thespiae and a nude at Parium, where it was the stained object of erotic fascination.

At the request of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, his patron, he increased its value by deliberately making it look "antique",[45] thus creating "his most notorious fake".

A catalogue of works from antiquity collected by the Mattei family, patrons of Caravaggio, included sketches of sleeping cupids based on sculpture from the Temple of Venus Erycina in Rome.

Caravaggio, whose works Murtola is known for describing, took up the challenge with his 1608 Sleeping Cupid, a disturbing depiction of an unhealthy, immobilized child with "jaundiced skin, flushed cheeks, bluish lips and ears, the emaciated chest and swollen belly, the wasted muscles and inflamed joints".

His collection of Eclogues concludes with what might be his most famous line:[51]Omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori.Love conquers all, and so let us surrender ourselves to Love.

[14] A Cupid might appear among the several statuettes for private devotion in a household shrine,[54] but there is no clear distinction between figures for veneration and those displayed as art or decoration.

[56] Roman temples often served a secondary purpose as art museums, and Cicero mentions a statue of "Cupid" (Eros) by Praxiteles that was consecrated at a sacrarium and received religious veneration jointly with Hercules.

After the Battle of Actium, when Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, Cupid transferring the weapons of Mars to his mother Venus became a motif of Augustan imagery.

Augustus, Caesar's heir, commemorated a beloved great-grandson who died as a child by having him portrayed as Cupid, dedicating one such statue at the Temple of Venus on the Capitoline Hill, and keeping one in his bedroom where he kissed it at night.

[68] In Lucretius' physics of sex, cupido can represent human lust and an animal instinct to mate, but also the impulse of atoms to bond and form matter.

[71] Cupid is also at odds with Apollo, the archer-brother of Diana and patron of poetic inspiration whose love affairs almost always end disastrously.

The story's Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations,[73] and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, Märchen or fairy tale, and myth.

[74] Often presented as an allegory of love overcoming death, the story was a frequent source of imagery for Roman sarcophagi and other extant art of antiquity.

[79] On gems and other surviving pieces, Cupid is usually shown amusing himself with adult play, sometimes driving a hoop, throwing darts, catching a butterfly, or flirting with a nymph.

Traditionally, Cupid was portrayed nude in the style of Classical art, but more modern depictions show him wearing a diaper, sash, and/or wings.