Why does the theta function appear in the study of complex tori?

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Let $L$ be a lattice and $X = \mathbb{C}/L$ a complex tori.

To obtain a meromorphic function $f$ on $X$, it is standard to consider ratios of products of (translated) theta-functions, and in fact, any meromorphic function on $X$ has this form.

Question. Why do theta functions appear in this context? I do not quite understand the intuition of using them here in the first place.