The name would mean "desired" or "lovely", if derived from the same root as Eros, as Apollonius of Rhodes playfully suggested in the invocation to Erato that begins Book III of his Argonautica.

Since the Renaissance she has mostly been shown with a wreath of myrtle and roses, holding a lyre, or a small kithara, a musical instrument often associated with Apollo.

In Hesiod's genealogy, Erato is the daughter of Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne, and the sister to Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania.

[3] Her father gave Erato to Malus (eponym of Malea), as a bride and by him became the mother of Cleophema who bore Aegle (Coronis) by Phlegyas.

[8] Erato is also invoked at the start of book 7 of Virgil's Aeneid, which marks the beginning of the second half or "Iliadic" section of the poem.