Nyx

Born from Chaos

Nyx is Night, thought of as a goddess. The early Greek poet Hesiod tells her story near the start of his Theogony, a poem on the origins of the gods. She comes before the Titans and before Zeus.

Chaos comes first. From Chaos come Erebus, the darkness, and black Night. Nyx then joins with Erebus and bears Aether, the bright upper air, and Day. So darkness and light are not set against each other as evil and good. Night helps to produce the brightness that follows her. Hesiod tells this as a family tree. Darkness, upper air and day belong to one family, and each change from night to day becomes a change of divine generations.

Nyx’s later children are different. Hesiod says she bears them alone, with no other god as partner. The list begins with Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep and the Dreams. It goes on through Blame, Misery, the Hesperides, the Fates, Nemesis, Deceit, Friendship, Old Age and Strife. Not all of these are punishments. They are the conditions around mortal life, from rest and friendship to loss, ageing and death.

A power Zeus will not offend

In the Iliad, Homer’s poem of the war at Troy, Sleep explains to the goddess Hera why he does not want to trick Zeus a second time. Once before, Hera had used Sleep against Zeus while she drove the hero Heracles off course. Zeus woke up angry and searched for Sleep. Sleep fled to Nyx for protection.

Zeus stopped. Homer says he held Night in awe and would do nothing to displease her. The scene is short, but it gives Nyx a standing that a family tree alone cannot show. She does not fight Zeus or try to take his throne. Her protection is enough to make him give up the chase.

Sleep’s story also joins two ideas that Hesiod keeps close. In the Theogony Nyx is his mother. In the Iliad she is the older power he can run to when the king of the gods is angry. Night shelters Sleep both by nature and as family.

Night with Sleep and Death at Olympia

The travel writer Pausanias saw this family shown in art at Olympia, the sanctuary of Zeus. It appeared on the Chest of Cypselus, a chest in the temple of Hera, decorated with several bands of figures from myth. In the second band, a woman held two sleeping children. One child was white and the other black, and their feet pointed in different directions. Inscriptions named the children as Sleep and Death, and the woman as Night, nurse to them both.

The picture does not match Hesiod word for word. Hesiod calls Sleep and Death the sons of Nyx. Pausanias describes her as their nurse. The chest gives the bond a physical form: the two children rest in the arms of the power they come from.

Pausanias describes an object he saw, not one that survives at Olympia today. The chest itself is lost. His account keeps its setting, figures and inscriptions, and that is enough to tie this image of Nyx to the sanctuary.

More than darkness

Ancient poems often treat night as an ordinary part of the day. Nyx is more than the hours without daylight. Hesiod gives her a place in a family tree. Homer makes her a protector whom Zeus respects. The makers of the chest give her a human form, with children in her arms.

These sources do not add up to one fixed picture. Hesiod’s Night is the mother of Day and of a long line of forces that shape life. Homer’s Night has authority without needing to fight. At Olympia, Night appears in the close act of holding Sleep and Death.

The contrast between the two children on the chest is exact, but nobody explains it. Pausanias reports their colours and crossed feet and draws no lesson from them. What he can name is the family. Night carries the two states that bring human activity to an end, one for a while and one for good.