The Erōtes or Amores is a Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 dialogue, an example of contest literature, comparing the love of women and the love of boys, and concluding that the latter was preferable. The dialogue was transmitted among the works of Lucian

Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

. Most modern scholars believe that the style of the dialogue puts into question its authorship. The work is normally cited under the name of Pseudo-Lucian. The Erōtes is also famous for its vivid description of the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles

Praxiteles

Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue...

.

The same subject is treated in the Amatorius of Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, but with the opposite conclusion.

Translations

• Amores (English only, Loeb version)
• Erotes (Greek original and Danish translation)