Amores (Lucian)

The Erōtes (Greek: Ἔρωτες; "Loves", or "The two kinds of love"), also known as the Amores or Affairs of the Heart, is a dialogue written in the Roman Empire in Ancient Greek. It is an example of contest literature, comparing the love of women and the love of boys, and concluding that the latter is preferable over the former. The dialogue is traditionally attributed to the satirist Lucian and was transmitted as part of the corpus of his writings. Beginning in the early 20th century, some modern scholars have stated that the dialogue was probably not written by Lucian on account of its style, but others—including among those who do not vouch for its authenticity—have posited that the style resembles that of Lucian.^[1] As such, the work is normally cited under the name of Pseudo-Lucian, but acceptance of its authenticity has increased in the 2010s.^[2] The Erōtes is also famous for its vivid description of the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles.

The same subject is treated in the Amatorius of Plutarch and Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius, but with the opposite conclusion in the former and with the latter reaching no verdict. In terms of structure, the dialogue may be considered similar to Plato's works, in which Socrates is often in contest with another man.