(from ἐραστής, I love), in Mythology, the name of one of the nine muses, who presided over love-poetry. To this muse some have ascribed the invention of the lyre and lute; and she is represented with a garland of myrtles and roses, holding a lyre in one hand and a bow in the other, and at her side a Cupid with his torch. There is also a Nereid of the same name.

ERATOSTHENES, a Cyrenean philosopher, historian, and poet; called for his learning Plato Minor. He was keeper of the famous library at Alexandria; and was greatly in favour with Ptolemy Euergetes, by whose order he wrote a history of the Theban kings of Egypt, which succession was entirely omitted by Manetho. He thus fixed the Egyptian chronology, and his authority is by many preferred to that of Manetho. He wrote many other things, a catalogue of which is to be seen in Fabricius, Vossius, &c., but his only piece now remaining entire is a description and fabulous account of the stars. He starved himself in old age through grief for the dimness of his sight, about the 10th or 12th year of Ptolemy Epiphanes, 194 B.C.