Your ancient rite will be performed, Nox Lemuria here will be offerings to the mute dead.” Ovid wrote in his work “Fasti”: “May 9, Lemuria Nefastus. Roman authors mentioned cult practices and wrote hymns in her honor. The Spartans even had a cult devoted to Sleep and Death, conceived of as twins.Ĭult titles composed of compounds of the root word ‘nyx-‘ were attached to several deities, most notably Dionysus Nyktelios “nocturnal” and Aphrodite Philopannyx “who loves the whole night” (from the Orphic Hymn). More often, Nyx was worshipped in the background of other cults for example, there was a statue called Night in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The satellite was named after the Greek goddess of the night but her name was slightly altered so that it would not be confused with an asteroid with the same name. Pausanias writes: “When you have ascended the citadel (of Megara), which even at the present day is called Karia (Caria) from Kar (Car), son of Phoroneus, you see a temple of Dionysos Nyktelios (Nyctelius, Nocturnal), a sanctuary built to Aphrodite Epistrophia (She who turns men to love), an oracle called that of Nyx (Night) and a temple of Zeus Konios (Cronius, Dusty) without a roof.” Nix (Nyx), a small moon of the dwarf planet Pluto. According to the Greek historian and writer Pausanias, who lived in the second century AD, she had an oracle on the acropolis at Megara. However, statues are known to have been created to represent the ancient Greek goddess of the night, and several cult practices of her are mentioned by authors. Strangely, much like her sister deity Eos, the goddess of the dawn, there are no known temples dedicated to Nyx in Greece (although the Roman poet Ovid mentioned that there may have been at least two temples dedicated to Eos in antiquity, none have survived into recorded time). This depiction stems from the Orphic hymns. In some accounts, the goddess of witchcraft, Hecate, was also called the daughter of Night, along with Nyx. Credit: Sailko/ CC BY-SA 3.0 Goddess of the Night worshiped in context of other cults Roman-era bronze statuette of Nyx, the ancient Greek goddess of the Night in Greek mythology. The classical scholar Walter Burkert has speculated that the house of the goddess to which the philosopher is transported is the palace of Nyx this hypothesis has yet to be proven, however. The theme of Nyx’s cave, or mansion, beyond the ocean (as in Hesiod) or somewhere at the edge of the cosmos (as in later Orphism) may be echoed in the philosophical poem of Parmenides, according to scholars. Here, she is also the mother of Eros, the god of love. The Greek goddess of the night is also the first principal voice in the opening chorus of Aristophanes’ The Birds, which may be Orphic in inspiration. Phanes, the strange, monstrous, hermaphrodite Orphic demiurge, according to some sources, was the child, or father, of Nyx. Outside the cave, Adrasteia clashes cymbals and beats upon her tympanon, moving the entire universe in an ecstatic dance to the rhythm of Nyx’s chanting. Cronus, who is chained within, asleep and drunk on honey wine, dreams and prophesies. Nyx occupies a cave or adyton, from which she issues oracles. In these, Nyx, rather than Chaos, is the first principle being from which all creation emerges.
![nyx and hemera nyx and hemera](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/aa/87/9b/aa879ba487e50d2eb9291d661b65545d.jpg)
Nyx took on an even more important role in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus. Here, she also wears her dark shroud, or veil, above her, as seen in antiquity. Nyx, the Ancient Greek goddess of the Night, is portrayed in the 10th-century Paris Psalter, or book of Psalms, at the side of the Prophet Isaiah. He disturbed Zeus only a few times after that, always fearing Zeus and running back to his mother, Nyx, who would have confronted Zeus with a maternal fury. Homer goes on to say that Zeus, fearing to anger Nyx, held his fury at bay and in this way Hypnos escaped the wrath of Zeus by appealing to his powerful mother. Zeus was furious and would have driven Hypnos into the sea if he had not fled to Nyx - his mother - in fear. He had once before put Zeus to sleep at the bidding of Hera, allowing her to cause Heracles (who was returning by sea from Laomedon’s Troy) great misfortune. In Homer’s Iliad, from 14.249–61, Hypnos, the minor deity of sleep, reminds Hera of an old favor after she asks him to put Zeus to sleep. This interestingly mirrors the portrayal of Ratri (night) in the Rigveda of India, in which she works in close cooperation - but also tension with her sister Ushas (Dawn), who is represented as Eos in Greek mythology.