For the ancient Greeks, dreams were not generally personified.[2] However, a few instances of the personification of dreams, some perhaps solely poetic, can be found in ancient Greek sources.
InHomer'sIliad,Zeus decides to send a "baleful dream" toAgamemnon, the commander of the Greek army during theTrojan War. An Oneiros is summoned by Zeus, and ordered to go to the camp of the Greeks at Troy and deliver a message from Zeus urging him to battle. The Oneiros goes quickly to Agamemnon's tent, and finding him asleep, stands above Agamemnon's head; taking the shape ofNestor, a trusted counselor to Agamemnon, the Oneiros speaks to Agamemnon, as Zeus had instructed him.[3]
TheOdyssey locates a "land of dreams" past the streams ofOceanus, close toAsphodel Meadows, where the spirits of the dead reside.[4] In another passage of theOdyssey, truthful dreams are said to come through a gate made of horn, while deceitful dreams come through a gate made of ivory (seeGates of horn and ivory).[5]
Hesiod, in his genealogical poem theTheogony, makes the "tribe of Dreams" (φῦλον Ὀνείρων), among the many offspring ofNyx (Night), without a father. Their siblings include:Moros (Doom),Ker (Destiny),Thanatos (Death),Hypnos (Sleep),Momus (Blame),Oizys (Pain),Keres (Destinies),Nemesis (Retribution),Eris (Discord), and other abstract personifications.[6]
Euripides, in his playHecuba, has Hecuba call "lady Earth" the "mother of black-winged dreams".[7] The second-century AD geographerPausanias mentions seeing statues of an Oneiros and Hypnos lulling a lion to sleep. He writes that the statue was surnamedEpidotes.[8]
Related figures are theSomnia (Dreams), the thousand sons that theLatin poetOvid gave toSomnus (Sleep), who appear in dreams. Ovid named three of the sons of Somnus:Morpheus, who appears in human guise,Phobetor, called Icelos by the gods, who appears as beasts, andPhantasos, who appears as inanimate objects.[9]
^Hesiod,Theogony211–225. The translations of the names used are those given by Caldwell, p. 6, table 5. Compare withHyginus,FabulaeTheogony 1, which makes Dreams the offspring of Night and Darkness.
Hyginus, Gaius Julius,Fabulae inApollodorus'Library and Hyginus'Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007.ISBN978-0-87220-821-6.
Pausanias,Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
