Thanatos: The Greek God of Death

Across the 24 books of Homer’s Iliad, the epic account of Achilles’ wrath at the siege of Troy, there are 240 battlefield deaths. Whether by sword or spear, an average of ten combatants perish per book. What then, of the god responsible for leading these men to the underworld? While many are familiar with Hades, the ruler of the underworld, the Greek god of death itself, Thanatos, is much less well-known. From Homer to Hesiod, and from the ancient stage to the modern canvas, there is a rich mythology to this morbid and minor deity.

Perhaps Thanatos’ lack of wider cultural familiarity stems from his lacking the mythological aristocracy of Hades, the other deity associated with the dead. The latter was the brother of Zeus, the ruler of the skies and lord of the gods, and of Poseidon, the god of the seas. He was also the oldest of these three sons of the Titans, Cronus and Rhea. His status as the eldest meant that he had the misfortune of being the last to be regurgitated by their murderous father.

In contrast, Thanatos had no father. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, a poem from the 8th century BCE that outlines ancient Greek cosmology and the genealogies of the gods and goddesses, Thanatos was the son of Nyx, the goddess or personification of Night. His brother was the god of Sleep, Hypnos.

Thanatos’ other siblings included several negative personifications, including Geras (Old Age), Oizys (Suffering), Nemesis (Retribution), and Moros (Doom). In Hesiod, he is also closely associated with the Three Fates, as they are also the daughters of Nyx and technically siblings. Of these three deities, he is most closely associated with Atropos, who was also a goddess of death.

Despite his apparent immovable character and merciless spirit, there are episodes throughout Greek mythology where the wiliest characters—both human and immortal—were able, for a brief time, to trick the god of death. The most famous of these was the notoriously cunning King of Corinth, Sisyphus, who actually managed the feat twice! In the first instance, Thanatos had been sent to take Sisyphus to the underworld, where he would be chained up in Tartarus. This was to be the king of Corninth’s punishment for betraying the confidence of Aegina to her father, the river god Asopus, who rewarded Sisyphus by causing a spring to flow from the Corinthian Acropolis.

Thanatos then fell for the oldest trick in the book, though, to his credit, it was perhaps less old at this time. Sisyphus asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains in Tartarus worked and so trapped the god of death in his place. Soon, there was chaos on earth. While death being unable to fulfill his duty would have been good news for the mortals, Ares, the god of war, was sent into a rage; the battles he orchestrated were now futile. Releasing Thanatos from his embarrassing bind, he turned Sisyphus over to the god of death once more.

Not content with foiling Thanatos once, Sisyphus would have a second opportunity. Again, the Corinthian king escaped the underworld, but this time, he convinced Persephone, the wife of Hades, that he had not received a proper burial from his wife. Released from the underworld, he returned to his wife and scolded her for her lack of respect. Again, however, Sisyphus refused to return to the realm of the dead. Hermes, the messenger god, was compelled to retrieve Sisyphus and drag him back to the underworld. There, he was consigned to his eternal torture. Sisyphus was ordered to roll an enormous boulder to the top of a steep hill in Tartarus. However, upon reaching the summit, the boulder, bewitched by Hades, would roll back to the bottom once more. Sisyphus’ labor would begin once again, and go on forever and ever.

The account of Thanatos being deceived by Sisyphus is known from a fragment of a poem by Alcaeus, which was composed in the 6th century BCE. Along with this fragment and Hesiod’s Theogony, the god of death also appears elsewhere in ancient Greek literature. This includes Homer’s Iliad. Although Thanatos is less prominent than perhaps might be expected in a work in which so many warriors are killed, he does feature once. The god of death and his brother Hypnos are charged by Zeus in book 16 to deliver the fallen hero Sarpedon to his homeland in Lycia.

Perhaps the other most famous encounter with Thanatos in Greek literature occurs in the Alecestis. Written by the Athenian playwright Euripides, the play defies easy categorization as tragedy or comedy and was first performed at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BCE. The crux of the play is Admetus, the king of Pherai (Thessaly), and his quest to cheat death. His wife, Alcestis, offers up her life so that her husband can go on living.

During the play, Admetus is visited by Herakles, who is received as an honored guest in the king’s palace. In recompense for the king’s hospitality, Herakles offers to confront death on behalf of his host, thus sparing not only the king but also winning back Alcestis. Sure enough, when Thanatos emerges from Hades to claim the king’s wife, he is seized by Herakles and overpowered. Alecestis is returned and, embarrassed and empty-handed, Thanatos flees.

Etymology is the study of the origin of words. Often, especially in European languages, the roots of many words can be found in the ancient world, including the Greek and Latin languages. The myths from these ancient cultures have also supplied modern societies with a host of words, phrases, and idioms. This includes Thanatos. From the same ancient Greek root verb, Thnesko (meaning “I die”) that the name Thanatos derives, there is the term “Thanatosis.” Also referred to as “apparent death” or perhaps more commonly as “playing dead,” thanatosis refers to the behavior in the animal kingdom where an animal will take on the appearance of being dead, often to confuse or put off a potential predator. However, some creatures will use thantosis with more devious intentions in mind, such as to lure potential prey even closer.

Perhaps the most well-known example of thantosis in the animal kingdom is that of the opossum. These mammals, native to North America, will resort to playing dead to avoid predators and other threats. However, this can often backfire when they adopt this strategy in the face of oncoming traffic. The behavior of thanatosis is so commonly associated with opossums that it has actually spawned the idiomatic phrase “to play possum,” meaning to play dead.

Thanatos in Modern Culture: Greek God of Death Re-imagined

Despite his relatively minor role in ancient Greek mythology, Thanatos has enjoyed a rich and varied afterlife in modern cultures. Even in antiquity, the god featured on the reverse of coins minted in Thrace and Moesia in the Roman Empire. Suitably, the god of death was paired with rather bloodthirsty emperors, including Caracalla.

Extending beyond the etymological developments and the behaviors of animals, the ancient Greek god of death has been incorporated into psychology. Although not named explicitly as such by Sigmund Freud, in the psychologist’s theories, “Thanatos” is the name given to the human “death drive.” This is the counterweight to the “life instinct,” which is similarly named after a figure from Classical mythology: Eros, the god of love. The death drive, in this psychological conceptualization, is the part of the human mind that drives people into risky, self-destructive acts.

Thanatos has also been reimagined on canvases and other artistic media throughout the centuries. The idea of the god of death has been presented in a variety of styles, from more abstract compositions to those that are more obviously rooted in the Classical tradition. This includes the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse.

Notable for his works depicting scenes of Greek mythology and Arthurian legend, the British painter of the 19th century produced Sleep and His Half-Brother Death in 1874. The oil on canvas work shows the two Greek gods side-by-side, resting. The figure in the foreground, Hypnos, is shown in light, while his brother, Thanatos, is somewhat obscured by the shade. The use of light here reflects the attitudes to the two deities that had been enshrined since antiquity. Waterhouse’s choice of subject was perhaps motivated by personal tragedy. Prior to the exhibition of this painting, his younger brothers had both died of tuberculosis.

Beyond psychology classes and museums, modern audiences are perhaps most familiar with Thanatos from the big screen. The ancient Greek god of death, through his incorporation into Freudian psychology, became the inspiration for the Marvel Comics villain, Thanos. Debuting in 1973, the villain’s most famous story arc concerns his attempts to woo “Mistress Death” (the goddess of death in the Marvel universe) by collecting all six infinity stones and using them to kill half of the universe’s population.

The journey from Hesiod to Marvel is perhaps a surprising one, but, to paraphrase the comic book villain, it was inevitable. Thanatos, the ancient Greek god of death, will continue to be re-imagined and remain culturally relevant, despite his macabre destiny.