The winged boy the one would think is Eros/Cupid is Thanatos/Death, because of the reversed, extinct torch he is leaning on.
The man in the video had written a book, where there was the following photo from a Greek Museum and the label indicated it was a sculpture of Death. However some years after, the label said it was Cupid.
The man had shown how much the perception of Death had changed and this lead to the change of label in order to prove him a liar.
The man in the video had written a book, where there was the following photo from a Greek Museum and the label indicated it was a sculpture of Death. However some years after, the label said it was Cupid.
The man had shown how much the perception of Death had changed and this lead to the change of label in order to prove him a liar.
In later eras, as the transition from life to death in Elysium became a more attractive option, Thanatos came to be seen as a beautiful Ephebe. He became associated more with a gentle passing than a woeful demise. Many Roman sarcophagi depict him as a winged boy, very much akin to Cupid: "Eros with crossed legs and torch reversed became the commonest of all symbols for Death", observes Arthur Bernard Cook.[11]56:10
Thanatos has also been portrayed as a slumbering infant in the arms of his mother Nyx, or as a youth carrying a butterfly (the ancient Greek word "ψυχή" can mean soul or butterfly, or life, amongst other things) or a wreath of poppies (poppies were associated with Hypnos and Thanatos because of their hypnogogic traits and the eventual death engendered by overexposure to them).
