Somnus’s Family Tree

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Family

• Nox(parent),Mors(sibling)

  Nox (Night) bore the twin brothers Somnus (Sleep) and Mors (Death). Virgil calls them "consanguinei" — blood-brothers who share dominion over the hours of darkness, one bringing rest and the other bringing the final sleep.

Equivalent to

• Hypnos(Greek)

  Hypnos passed into Roman religion as Somnus, dwelling in a dark cave near the land of the Cimmerians where poppies bloom at the threshold and a river of Lethe flows past the entrance.

Associated with

• Juno

  Juno sent Somnus to put Aeneas's helmsman Palinurus to sleep at the tiller, and the god of sleep appeared disguised as the crewman Phorbas, shook a branch dipped in Lethe's water over Palinurus, and tumbled him overboard to drown.