Nyx

Nyx (Greek Νύξ ) In Greek mythology, the goddess and personification of night. According to Homer, Zeus feared even before night. The Nyx corresponds to the Roman Nox.

Myth

In Hesiod's Theogony, Nyx emerges as one of the first gods of chaos. Her siblings are Gaia, Tartarus, Eros and Erebus.

In the cosmogony of the Orphic Phanes is the origin of Nyx. The rule of the world goes on by Phanes on Nyx, then Cronus and Zeus, and finally to Dionysus. From a parody of the altorphische cosmogony of Aristophanes shows that in the early Orphists Phanes was not the first God, but Chronos had created an egg for Aether. Nyx gave birth to the egg from which then the creator god Eros was born. According to Aristotle, which relies probably on older cosmogonic ideas, Nyx existed also before Phanes.

According to the Theogony went from the combination of Nyx and Erebus Aether, the personalized air, and Hemera, the personified day out. For herself, she brought further forward with the night -associated phenomena: Hypnos, sleep, Oneiroi the dream, Thanatos, the ( peaceful ) death and Philotes that affection. But also a number of personalized evil that characterize the human condition: Ker, the consummation, and Moros, doom, momos, the criticism Oizys, the worries, Nemesis, vengeance, Apate, the deceit, Geras, age, Eris, the dispute and the Hesperides, the Keren and the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.

In Homer's Iliad Nyx is the mother of Hypnos and Thanatos. In the archaic lyric are in Bacchylides as descendants of Hecate and called along with Chronos Hemera. The tragedian Aeschylus in The Eumenides called the Fates and the Furies. Lycophron Alexandra mentioned in the Furies as children of Nyx.

In the texts of the Orphic emerge from her Uranus and the Astra Planeta -called gods of the planets. In a parody of the altorphische cosmogony of Aristophanes are mentioned as descendants of Eros and Aether.

The Roman poet Virgil and Ovid call the Furies as descendants of Nyx. In Seneca it is called as the mother of Hypnos and Thanatos.

In Cicero's De natura deorum it is of Erebus, the mother of Cupid, Aether and Hemera and Dolus, Metus, laboratory, Invidentia, Fatum, Senectus, Mors, the Tenebrae, Miseria, cross- Ella, Gratia, Fraus, Obstinacia, the Fates, the Hesperides and Somnia.

In Hyginus are the descendants of Nyx and Erebus of fate, Senectus, Mors, Letum, continentia, Somnus, Somnia, Cupid, Epiphron, Porphyrion, Epaphos, Discordia, Miseria, Petulantia, Nemesis, Euphrosyne, Amicitia, Misericordia, Styx, the Fates and the Hesperides.

The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions as a descendant of Nyx 's nemesis, the late antique writers Quintus of Smyrna called Eos Hemera and John Tzetzes she is with Chronos the mother of the Fates.

Cult

Nyx barely had cultic significance. Is reported only by two oracles, one in Delphi and the other in Megara at the Temple of Dionysus Nyktelios. Chance is also spoken by victims, but many have never run, but purely poetic nature. In Virgil's Aeneid it is a black sheep sacrificed in Ovid's Fasti and a black chicken.

Others

After the goddess Nyx, the asteroid ( 3908 ) Nyx and the Pluto moon Nix were named.