Oneiros was also, according to one Greek Grammarian named
Photius, the name of one of the sons of
Achilles with
Deidamia.[2]
Sources
For the ancient Greeks, dreams were not generally personified.[3] However, a few instances of the personification of dreams, some perhaps solely poetic, can be found in ancient Greek sources.
In
Homer's Iliad,
Zeus decides to send a "baleful dream" to
Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army during the
Trojan 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 of
Nestor, a trusted counselor to Agamemnon, the Oneiros speaks to Agamemnon, as Zeus had instructed him.[4]
The Odyssey locates a "
land of dreams" past the streams of
Oceanus, close to
Asphodel Meadows, where the spirits of the dead reside.[5] In another passage of the Odyssey, truthful dreams are said to come through a gate made of horn, while deceitful dreams come through a gate made of ivory (see
Gates of horn and ivory).[6]
Hesiod in his genealogical poem the Theogony, makes the "tribe of Dreams" (φῦλον Ὀνείρων), among the many offspring of
Nyx (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.[7]
Euripides, in his play
Hecuba has Hecuba call "lady Earth" the "mother of black-winged dreams".[8] The second-century AD geographer
Pausanias mentions seeing statues of an Oneiros and Hypnos lulling a lion to sleep. He writes that the statue was surnamed
Epidotes.[9]
Related figures
Related figures are the Somnia (Dreams), the thousand sons that the
Latin poet
Ovid gave to
Somnus (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, and
Phantasos, who appears as inanimate objects.[10]
Son of Achilles
Oneiros was also, according to some myths, the name of one of the sons of Achilles with Deidamia. His brother was
Neoptolemus. He was killed by Orestes, who didn't recognize him, while fighting with him in
Phocis for a place to pitch a tent.[2]
^Hesiod, Theogony211–225. The translations of the names used are those given by Caldwell, p. 6, table 5. Compare with
Hyginus, FabulaeTheogony 1, which makes Dreams the offspring of Night and Darkness.
Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' 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.