Thanatos was the son of Nyx, the goddess of night, and the brother of Hypnos, the god of sleep. He appeared to humans to take them to the underworld when the time allotted to them by the Fates had expired. Thanatos was once defeated by the warrior Heracles, who fought to save the life of Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, and was tricked by Sisyphus, the king of Corinth, who wanted a second chance at life.
1. In myth and poetry
The Greek poet Hesiod established in his Theogony that Thanatos is the son of Nyx (Night) and Erebus (Darkness) and the twin of Hypnos (Sleep).
Homer also confirmed Hypnos and Thanatos as twin brothers in his epic poem, the Iliad, where they were accused by Zeus through Apollo of the swift delivery of the slain hero Sarpedon to his homeland, Lycia.
“Then (Apollo) put him in charge of swift messengers to carry him, Hypnos and Thanatos, who are twin brothers, and these two laid him in the rich countryside of wide Lycia.”
Among Thanatos’ brothers were other negative personifications such as Geras (Old Age), Oizys (Suffering), Moros (Doom), Apate (Deception), Momus (Blame), Eris (Conflict), Nemesis (Retribution), and even the ferryman Charon. Thanatos was loosely associated with the three Moirai (for Hesiod, also daughters of Night), particularly with Atropos, who was a goddess of death in her own right.
He is also occasionally specified as exclusive to peaceful death, while the bloodthirsty Keres embodied violent death. His duties as Guide of the Dead were sometimes replaced by Hermes Psychopompos. Conversely, Thanatos may have originated as a mere aspect of Hermes before later differentiating himself from him.
The character of the god in the passage from the Theogony:
And there dwell the children of the dark night, sleep and death, horrible gods. The shining Sun never looks upon them with his rays, neither when he rises in the sky, nor when he descends from the sky. And the first of them wanders peacefully over the earth and the sea, and is kind to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is merciless as bronze; whoever he once takes hold of, he clings to; and he is abhorrent even to the immortal gods.
Thus, Thanatos was considered ruthless and indiscriminate, hated by mortals and gods alike, and hated by them. But in the myths that characterize him, Thanatos could occasionally be mocked, a feat that the cunning king Sisyphus of Corinth achieved twice. When the time came for Sisyphus to die, Zeus ordered Thanatos to chain Sisyphus in Tartarus. Sisyphus tricked death by tricking Thanatos with his own shackles, thus forbidding the death of any mortal while Thanatos was so chained.
Finally, Ares, the bloodthirsty god of war, became frustrated with the battles he incited, as neither side suffered any casualties. He freed Thanatos and handed his captor over to the god. Sisyphus evaded Death a second time by convincing Persephone to allow him to return to his wife, claiming that she had never given him a proper funeral.
This time, Sisyphus was dragged back to the Underworld by Hermes when he refused to accept his death. Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of frustration in Tartarus, where he rolled a rock up a hill and it rolled back down when he reached the top.
A fragment from Alcaeus, a Greek lyric poet:
“King Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, the wisest of men, thought he was the master of Thanatos; but despite his cunning, he crossed Acheron twice by order of fate.” Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, was more than a mortal figure: for mortals, Thanatos usually presents an inexorable fate, but only once was he successfully defeated, by the mythical hero Heracles.
Thanatos was sent to take the soul of Alcestis, who had offered her life in exchange for the life of her husband, King Admetus of Ferai. Heracles was a guest of honor at the House of Admetus at the time, and he offered to repay the king’s hospitality by fighting Death himself for Alcestis’ life. When Thanatos ascended from Hades to claim Alcestis, Heracles pounced on the god and overpowered him, winning the right to revive Alcestis. Thanatos fled, deceiving his prey.
Euripides, in Alcestis:
“Thanatos: Much talk. Talking will get you nowhere. Anyway, the woman is coming with me to Hades’ house. I’m going to take her now and dedicate her with my sword, because all those who have their hair cut in consecration by the edge of this blade are dedicated to the gods below. They rarely appear in person.
His name is transliterated into Latin as Thanatus, but his equivalent in Roman mythology is Mors or Letum. Mors is sometimes mistakenly identified with Orcus, whose Greek equivalent was Horkos, God of the Oath.
2. In art
An Orphic hymn invoking Thanatos, recited here at the end of the 18th century.
To Death, Fumigation of Manna.
Hear me, O Death, whose empire was not found. It extends to mortal tribes of all kinds. On you depends the part of our time, whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends it. Your perpetual sleep breaks the vivid folds by which the soul, drawing the body, holds all, of any sex and age, because nothing escapes your destructive fury.
It is not youth that your mercy can win, vigorous and strong, by your premature death. In you the end of nature’s works is known, in you all judgment is acquitted. No supplicating art controls your terrible wrath, no vow revokes the purpose of your soul. O blessed power, look upon my ardent prayer, and human life at an age of abundant abundance.”
In later times, when the transition from life to death in Elysium became a more attractive option, Thanatos came to be seen as a beautiful Ephebe. He was associated more with a gentle passing than with a lamentable death. Many Roman sarcophagi depict him as a winged child, much like Cupid: “Eros with crossed legs and an inverted torch became the most common symbol of all symbols of Death,” observes Arthur Bernard Cook.
Thanatos has also been portrayed as a child sleeping in the arms of his mother Nyx, or as a young man carrying a butterfly (the ancient Greek word “ψυχή” can mean soul or butterfly, or life, among other things) or a crown of poppies (poppies were associated with Hypnos and Thanatos because of their hypnotic qualities and the eventual death brought on by overexposure to them).
He is often seen carrying an inverted torch, representing an extinguished life. He is usually described as winged and with a sword sheathed in his belt. In Euripides’ Alcestis (438 BC), he is depicted dressed in black and carrying a sword. Thanatos was rarely portrayed in art without his twin brother Hypnos.
