According to Hesiod she was the daughter of primordial Nyx (Night), and the mother of a long list of undesirable personified abstractions, such as Ponos (Toil), Limos (Famine), Algae (Pains) and Ate (Delusion).
Eris initiated a quarrel between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, which led to the Judgement of Paris and ultimately the Trojan War.
R. S. P. Beekes sees no strong evidence for this relation and excludes the derivation from ἐρείδω ereídō "to prop, to support" due to the name's original ι- stem.
[3] The name gave several derivatives in Ancient Greek, including ἐρίζω erízō "to fight" and ἔρισμα érisma "object of a quarrel".
These siblings of Eris include personifications—like Eris—of several "loathsome" (στυγερός) things, such as Moros ("Doom"), Thanatos ("Death"), the Moirai ("Fates"), Nemesis ("Indignation"), Apate ("Deceit"), and Geras ("Old Age").
[70] The fifth-century BC playwright Euripides, describes the Judgement of Paris several times with no mention of either Eris, or an apple.
2nd century AD) tells us that Eris's apple was "solid gold" and that it was inscribed: "For the queen of Beauty" (ἡ καλὴ λαβέτω).
For the one fosters evil war and conflict—cruel one, no mortal loves that one, but it is by necessity that they honor the oppressive Strife, by the plans of the immortals.
But the other one gloomy Night bore first; and Cronus’ high-throned son, who dwells in the aether, set it in the roots of the earth, and it is much better for men.
For a man who is not working but who looks at some other man, a rich one who is hastening to plow and plant and set his house in order, he envies him, one neighbor envying his neighbor who is hastening toward wealth: and this Strife is good for mortals.Antoninus Liberalis, in his Metamorphoses, involves Eris in the story of Polytechnus and Aedon, who claimed to love each other more than Hera and Zeus.
[88] Eris is mentioned many times in Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica, which covers the period between the end of the Iliad and the beginning of his Odyssey.
[95] Her earliest appearances (mid-sixth-century BC) are found on the Chest of Cypselus and in the tondo of a black-figure cup (Berlin F1775).
[96] The geographer Pausanias describes seeing Eris depicted on the Chest, as a "most repulsive" [aischistê] woman standing between Ajax and Hector fighting.
[99] The classic fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" references what appears to be Eris's role in the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
[100][101] Eris is the principal figure of worship in the modern Discordian religion invented as an "absurdist joke" in 1957 by two school friends Gregory Hill and Kerry Wendell Thornley.