For example, in one of the myth, the Titan Cronos castrated his father Uranus under the cover of the Nyx (Night). In other words, she was known for facilitating people’s darkest actions. She is often seen as a deity that grants protection and safe passage to fugitives. The above explains why Homer’s Iliad describes Nyx as a primordial deity with an unbridled maternal fury. Not wanting to anger Nyx, Zeus halted his pursuit and apologized to the goddess of the night. Hypnos had fled to the bosom of his mother, seeking her protection from Zeus’ wrath. Upon discovering Hypnos’ treachery, Zeus gave the god of sleep a hot pursuit all the way down to Tartarus. With Zeus out of the way, Hera could proceed to put stumbling blocks in the way of Zeus’ son the demigod Heracles. Hypnos had conspired with Zeus’ jealous wife Hera to make Zeus fall into a deep sleep. One time an angry Zeus was about to strike down Hypnos (Sleep), however upon seeing Nyx, Hypnos’s mother, Zeus stopped. However, all that power of Zeus could not rival the power possessed by Nyx. This was evident when he used them to take down Typhon, the strongest monster in Greek mythology. Zeus was an extremely powerful whose thunderbolts could knock down the fiercest of gods or creatures. There is hardly any entity in the Greek pantheon capable of sending shivers down the spine of Zeus, the chief of the Olympians. This cycle of Nyx and Hemera was perhaps ancient Greece’s first explanation of the cycle of night and day respectively. In the Theogony, Hesiod asserts that Nyx moves in to Tartarus just as her daughter Hemera (Day) leaves the place. Nyx and Tartarusĭue to her father’s association with Tartarus, some ancient Greek authors opined that Nyx and her brother Erebusin Tarturus. She has also been depicted as a winged goddess with a dark halo cloud around her head.īeing a representation of the night, the Greeks did not have a set of definitive characteristics attributed to Nyx, other than that she was an extremely powerful deity. In some cases, she was depicted riding a chariot, a common phenomenon for many Greek deities. Alternatively, she could be seen as a beautiful woman in elegant black dress surrounded by a pitch dark mist. She could be seen as the literal night that surrounds us. This is primarily because they represented abstract constructs. It was quite common for there to be variations in the depictions of many ancient Greek primordial deities. Image: Nyx family tree Depiction and characteristics Nyx and her sibling were the offspring of Chaos, the first of all primordial deities to appear in the cosmos. Nyx also brings forth personified deities like the Keres (bringers of voilent death), Moros (Doom), Apate (Deceit), Nemesis (Retribution), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), Oizys (Pain), Eris (Strife and discord), Momus (Satire/Mockery), the Moirai (Fates), Philotes (Friendship), Geras (Old Age), the Hesperides (the Daughters of the Evening), and the Oneiroi (Bringers of dreams). In the myths, the union between Nyx and Erebus came forth Aether (Brightness) and Hemera (Day). He’s believed to have a huge presence in the underworld and in the deepest part of the earth.Īccording to Latin poet Gaius Julius Hyginus, Chaos also fathered personified primordial deities like Aether (Bright upper sky) and Hemera (Day). In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Erebus (Erebos) was believed to be the personification of darkness and shadows. This means that Erebus is the sibling of Nyx. Siblingsįrom Chaos, out came primordial entities like Erebus (Darkness). Chaos was then followed by Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros. Chaos, according to Hesiod, was the first entity to exist. In the Theogony, Hesiod describes Chaos as a primordial void Chaos is located just beneath Earth but above Tartarus (the deep abyss). Chaos has also been referred to as the gap that exists between the earth ( Gaia) and heaven (Uranus). In describing the origins of Nyx, ancient Greek poet Hesiod stated in the Theogony that the goddess is the child of Chaos, a mythological void that existed before the birth of the universe. It was believed that she emerged at the birth of the universe. Born in the depths of Chaos, a primordial entity, Nyx is portrayed as a shadowy figure that operates quite differently from other Greek gods.
Known in Greek mythology as the personification of the night, Greek goddess Nyx was such an extremely powerful and dangerous deity that even Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, feared and stood in awe of her.
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