Nyx

For the water spirit Nix, see Nixie (folklore). For the suffix "-nyx", meaning "claw", see List of commonly used taxonomic affixes. For other uses, see Nyx (disambiguation).
Nyx
Personification of Night
Nyx is shown driving to the left in a chariot pulled by two horses. To the right of her is Helios, who ascends into the sky in his quadriga at the start of the new day. Attic terracotta lekythos, attributed to the Sappho Painter, c. 500 BC.[1]
Genealogy
ParentsChaos
SiblingsErebus
ConsortErebus
ChildrenAether, Hemera, Moros, Ker, Thanatos, Hypnos, the Oneiroi, Momus, Oizys, the Hesperides, the Moirai, the Keres, Nemesis, Apate, Philotes, Geras, Eris
Equivalents
RomanNox
Greek deities
series
Primordial deities

In Greek mythology, Nyx (/nɪks/ NIX;[2] Ancient Greek: Νύξ Nýx, [nýks], "Night")[3] is the goddess and personification of the night.[4] In Hesiod's Theogony, she is the offspring of Chaos, and the mother of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Erebus (Darkness). By herself, she produces a brood of children which are personifications of primarily negative forces. She features in a number of early cosmogonies, which place her as one of the first deities to exist. In the works of poets and playwrights, she lives at the ends of the Earth, and is often described as a black-robed goddess who drives through the sky in a chariot pulled by horses. In the Iliad, Homer relates that "she is greater than all the gods together"[5] and even Zeus fears to displease her.

Night is a prominent figure in several theogonies of Orphic literature, in which she is often described as the mother of Uranus and Gaia. In the earliest Orphic cosmogonies, she is the first deity to exist, while in the later Orphic Rhapsodies, she is the daughter and consort of Phanes, and the second ruler of the gods. She delivers prophecies to Zeus from an adyton, and is described as the nurse of the gods. In the Rhapsodies, there may have been three separate figures named Night.

In ancient Greek art, Nyx often appears alongside other celestial deities such as Selene, Helios and Eos, as a winged figure driving a horse-pulled chariot. Though of little cultic importance, she was also associated with several oracles. The name of her Roman equivalent is Nox.[6]

  1. ^ Ferrari, p. 40; Metropolitan Museum of Art 41.162.29.
  2. ^ Tripp, p. 624.
  3. ^ LSJ s.v. νύξ.
  4. ^ Grimal, s.v. Nyx, p. 314.
  5. ^ Book 14, Illiad, Homer
  6. ^ Tripp, s.v. Nyx, p. 399; Peck, s.v. Nyx.