In Greek mythology, Nyx is the goddess and personification of the night. 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 even Zeus fears to displease her.
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.
Nyx depicted in the Paris Psalter, a 10th-century Greek manuscript, National Library of France
Roman-era bronze statuette of Nyx velificans or Selene (Getty Villa)
The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed c. 730–700 BC. It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology.
Fourteenth-century Greek manuscript of Hesiod's Theogony with scholia written in the margins
The nine muses on a Roman sarcophagus (second century AD)—Louvre, Paris
The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn: fresco by Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi, c. 1560(Sala di Cosimo I, Palazzo Vecchio)
The Fall of the Titans by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1596–1598)
