Somnus
the personification and god of sleep, the Greek Hypnos, is described by the ancients as a brother of Death (θάνατος), and as a son of Night (Hes. Theog. 211, &c.; Verg. A. 6.277). At Sicyon there was a statue of Sleep surnamed ἐπιδώτης, the giver (Paus. 2.10.2). In works of art Sleep and Death are represented alike as two youths sleeping or holding inverted torches in their hands. (Comp. THANATOS.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.