Charon, inGreek mythology, the son of Erebus andNyx (Night), whose duty it was to ferry over the RiversStyx and Acheron those souls of the deceased who had received the rites of burial. In payment he received the coin that was placed in the mouth of the corpse. In art, where he was first depicted in an Attic vase dating from about 500bce,Charon was represented as a morose and grisly old man. Charon appears in Aristophanes’ comedyFrogs (406bce);Virgil portrayed him inAeneid, Book VI (1st centurybce); and he is a common character in thedialogues of Lucian (2nd centuryce). In Etruscan mythology he was known as Charun and appeared as a death demon, armed with a hammer. Eventually he came to be regarded as the image of death and of the world below. As such he survives in Charos, or Charontas, the angel of death in modern Greek folklore.