What do I look like?

October 18, 2012 2:42 PM

Looking for Classical art of the human form of the Ancient Greek primordial deity of darkness Erebos/Erebus/Erberus.

In particular I want to find out what symbols/objects he was associated with which would clearly identify him. I'm aware he's not a deity that was actively worshipped or prominent at all so "there aren't really any" is a valid answer.

My attempts at searching are being overwhelmed by the large number of things named after him.

posted by Erberus to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Best answer: He wasn't personified. He's just darkness itself. Not all Greek gods were anthropomorphic.
posted by empath at 2:50 PM on October 18, 2012

Best answer: A good source for this sort of thing, I've found, is theoi.com , which usually has classical art and the relevant quotations if it exists.

No art for Erebus, but you can read the actual references in the classics. I'm just getting a lot of fog and darkness, personally.
posted by vetala at 3:01 PM on October 18, 2012

You may however think of Nyx, the primordial goddess of the night who was sometimes crowned with an aereole of dark mist. The best known sculpture of Nyx is a wall platter at the V&A in London with night as a callow woman carrying her two daughters, Hypnos and her half-sister Thanatos while floating through air inside a misty air.
posted by parmanparman at 3:18 PM on October 18, 2012

Searches for Erebos, Erebus, and Erberus in ArtSTOR retrieve no results for the classical period.
posted by Boxenmacher at 9:24 AM on October 19, 2012

Response by poster: theoi.com seems to agree he wasn't personified so that's what I'm going with
posted by Erberus at 1:07 PM on November 19, 2012