Erato

Muse of lyric and erotic poetry in the Hellenistic-Roman canon, named at Hes. *Theog.* 78; her name derives from ἔρως (love). Apollonius Rhodius invokes her specifically at the opening of *Argonautica* 3 as the muse appropriate to the Jason-Medea love story, with a wordplay on her name and ἔρως. Her iconographic attribute is the kithara.

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