Thanatos

In Greek mythology, Thanatos (UK: /ˈθænətɒs/; Ancient Greek: Θᾰ́νᾰτος, Thánatos, pronounced in Ancient Greek: [tʰánatos] "Death", from θνῄσκω thnēskō "(I) die, am dying") was the personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person.

His name is transliterated in Latin as Thanatus, but his counterpart in Roman mythology is Mors or Letum.

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).

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.

Then [Apollo] 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.

Counted among Thanatos' siblings were other negative personifications such as Geras (Old Age), Oizys (Suffering), Moros (Doom), Apate (Deception), Momus (Blame), Eris (Strife), and Nemesis (Retribution). 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. He is also, at times, specified as being exclusive to a peaceful death, while the bloodthirsty Keres embodied violent death. His duties as a Guide of the Dead were sometimes superseded by Hermes Psychopompos.^{[citation needed]}

The god's character is established by Hesiod in the following passage of the Theogony:

And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roam peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods.