Nyx’s Family Tree

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Family

• Apate(child),Geras(child),Hesperides(child),Keres(child),Momos(child),Moros(child),Oizys(child),Oneiroi(child),Philotes(child)

  Nyx bore a dark brood without a father: Moros the doom of death, the Keres who haunt the battlefield, the Oneiroi who slip through the ivory and horn gates of sleep, the Hesperides who tend the golden-apple tree at the world's edge, Momos the spirit of mockery, Oizys the embodiment of misery, Apate who is deceit, Philotes who is tenderness, and Geras the wasting of old age.

  ⚠ Hesiod (Theogony 215) names the Hesperides among Nyx's children; Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 2.5.11) makes them daughters of Atlas and Hesperis instead.

• Chaos(parent),Erebus(sibling),Eros(sibling),Gaia(sibling)— Miraculous

  From Chaos arose the first beings of the cosmos: broad-bosomed Gaia, murky Tartarus beneath the earth, Eros the fairest of the immortals, dark Erebus, and black Nyx.

• Erebus(spouse),Aether(child),Charon(child),Hemera(child)— Consort

  Nyx and Erebus, primordial Night and Darkness, lay together and bore Aether the bright upper air, Hemera the Day, and Charon the ferryman who carries the dead across the rivers of the underworld.

• Hypnos(child),Thanatos(child)

  Nyx bore the twins Hypnos and Thanatos without a father — Sleep and Death, inseparable brothers who share a cave at the western edge of the world where the sun never shines.

  ⚠ Hyginus, Fabulae Preface names Erebus as father alongside Nyx; Hesiod's Theogony 211-212 has Nyx bearing them alone.

• Erinyes(child)

  Nyx bore the Erinyes, the dread goddesses of vengeance who pursue oath-breakers and blood-guilty mortals through the darkness their mother commands.

  ⚠ Aeschylus (Eumenides) names Nyx as their mother; Hesiod (Theogony 185) has them born from the blood of Uranus's castration falling on Gaia.

• Eris(child)

  Nyx bore Eris alone in the darkness, one among her brood of night-born powers that haunt and harry the lives of mortals.

• Moirai(child)

  Nyx bore the Moirai — Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos — the three Fates who spin, measure, and cut the thread of every mortal life. Their authority over destiny exceeds even the Olympians'.

  ⚠ Hesiod names the Moirai as daughters of Nyx (Theogony 217) but also as daughters of Zeus and Themis (Theogony 904). Both genealogies coexist within the same poem.

• Nemesis(child)

  Nyx bore Nemesis without a father. As goddess of retribution, Nemesis ensures the proud are humbled and justice is served — extending her mother's dark authority into the moral realm.

Equivalent to

• Nox(Roman)

  Nyx and Nox are the Greek and Roman names for the same primordial Night, a power so ancient and terrible that even the king of the gods dares not cross her.

Associated with

• Hemera

  Hemera and Nyx pass each other at the great bronze threshold beyond the gates of Tartarus — as one steps out into the world above, the other descends within, and the house never holds them both at once.

• Hypnos

  In the Iliad, Hypnos flees to Nyx after putting Zeus to sleep at Hera's request. Zeus pursues him in fury but halts before Nyx's dwelling, unwilling to offend the goddess of night.

• Underworld

  Nyx dwells beyond the gates of the Underworld in a dark palace wreathed in clouds, where neither sunlight nor starlight penetrates. Her house stands at the threshold between the upper world and the abyss of Tartarus below.

• Zeus

  In the Iliad, Zeus himself refrains from angering Nyx, recalling how she sheltered Hypnos after he put Zeus to sleep at Hera's request. Even the king of the gods feared her power.