The god's character is established by Hesiod in the following passage of the Theogony:Īnd there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. Conversely, Thanatos may have originated as a mere aspect of Hermes before later becoming distinct from him. His duties as a Guide of the Dead were sometimes superseded by Hermes Psychopompos.

He is also, at times, specified as being exclusive to a peaceful death, while the bloodthirsty Keres embodied violent death. Thanatos was loosely associated with the three Moirai (for Hesiod, also daughters of Night), particularly Atropos, who was a goddess of death in her own right. Ĭounted among Thanatos' siblings were other negative personifications such as Geras (Old Age), Oizys (Suffering), Moros (Doom), Apate (Deception), Momus (Blame), Eris (Strife), Nemesis (Retribution) and the Acherousian/ Stygian boatman Charon. Then gave him (Sarpedon) into the charge of swift messengers to carry him, of Hypnos and Thanatos, who are twin brothers, and these two presently laid him down within the rich countryside of broad Lycia. Homer earlier described Hypnos and Thanatos as twin brothers in his epic poem, the Iliad, where they were charged by Zeus via Apollo with the swift delivery of the slain hero Sarpedon to his homeland of Lycia. The Greek poet Hesiod established in his Theogony that Thánatos has no father, but is the son of Nyx (Night) and brother of Hypnos (Sleep). His name is transliterated in Latin as Thanatus, but his counterpart in Roman mythology is Mors or Letum. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person. In Greek mythology, Thanatos ( / ˈ θ æ n ə t ɒ s/ Ancient Greek: Θάνατος, pronounced in Ancient Greek: ' Death', from θνῄσκω thnēskō '(I) die, am dying' ) was the personification of death.

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