- Looks after
- Night
- Roman name
- Nox
- Often shown with
- A dark veil, stars, a chariot.
Nyx
Νύξ
Nyx is Night. She is born from Chaos, and her children include sleep, death and the Fates.
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Nyx came into being from Chaos together with her brother Erebus. Hesiod places her house in Tartarus, where Night and Day greet each other as they cross the great bronze threshold, one going in as the other comes out.
With Erebus she had two children, Aether (the bright upper air) and Hemera (Day). On her own she bore a darker family: Moros (doom), Thanatos (death), Hypnos (sleep) and the Oneiroi (dreams), together with the Moirai (Fates), Nemesis, Eris (strife) and others. Hesiod makes her an ancestor of everything unpleasant that cannot be blamed on a father.
Even Zeus was said to hold Night in awe. In the Iliad he spares Hypnos from his anger because Night was his mother, and does not dare to cross her.
In later art and language
The Orphic poems later gave Night a larger role, making her the first of the gods, which is one reason she is often drawn so grandly.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 123-125, 211-225, 744-757
- Homer, Iliad 14.256-261