Sleep and Dreams in Early Greek Thought

Presocratic and Hippocratic Approaches

Stephanie Holton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367209162
• eBook ISBN: 9780429559198
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This book examines how sleep and dreams were approached in early Greek thought, highlighting the theories of the Presocratic and Hippocratic writers on both phenomena as more varied, complex, and substantial than is usually credited.

It explores how the Presocratic natural philosophers and early Hippocratic medical writers developed theories which drew from wider investigations into physiology and psychology, the natural world and the self, while also engaging with wider literary depictions and established cultural beliefs. Although the focus is predominantly on Presocratic and Hippocratic ideas, this is not exclusive: attention is devoted from the outset to sleep and dreams in Homer and the mythic tradition, as well as to depictions across lyric, drama, and historiography.

Sleep and Dreams in Early Greek Thought provides a fascinating study of this topic which will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient medicine and the history of science, Greek philosophy, and classical culture more broadly. It is accessible to students with or without knowledge of the classical languages, and also to anyone with a general interest in the beliefs of the classical world.

1Sleep and Dreams in Context

DOI: 10.4324/9780429264160-2

1.1 Personifications: Hypnos and Oneiros

Sleep and dream are personified early in the mythic tradition as the figures Hypnos and Oneiros respectively. Children of Nyx (Night), herself the progeny of Chaos, Hypnos and Oneiros are therefore brothers. They have a range of siblings who reflect other personified aspects of the human condition – of these, Thanatos (Death) is Hypnos’ twin brother, reflecting on a mythic level the perceived similarities between the states of sleeping and being dead, which will be seen as a repeating motif across poetic, philosophical, and artistic works.¹

While the personification of Oneiros varies – sometimes appearing as a singular figure, sometimes a pluralised group – Hypnos is a standard mythological character in literature and art who engages with both gods and mortals in his own role as the god of sleep. His earliest appearance is in Iliad 14: here, he is visited by Hera on the island of Lemnos. She delivers a flattering address – prefacing her request to Hypnos that he lull Zeus to sleep – in which she calls upon Hypnos as ‘lord (ἄναξ) of all immortals and mortals’.² As ἄναξ, Hypnos is able to exert power not only over mortals, but also over other gods; in their highly anthropomorphised conceptualisations, even the gods, too, are affected by sleep. Hypnos reflects an established personification of a state which is experientially shared by men and gods alike. Through reference to the extent of this power over both immortals and mortals, Hera is not just attempting to flatter Hypnos into agreeing to her subsequent request, but she is also underscoring the power Hypnos has specifically over almighty Zeus himself – a power which elevates him even beyond his twin brother Thanatos, for, while death cannot remove the immortal gods, sleep is a means by which they can be temporarily subdued.³ Hypnos is initially reluctant to assist Hera, and comments that he’d prefer to put the River Oceanus to sleep before he came close to Zeus – at once emphasising his disinclination to help along with the extent of his power (Il. 14.245–248). He reminds Hera that he has once before lulled Zeus to sleep to assist her in a previous plot against Heracles, and he only avoided punishment from an angry Zeus thanks to the intervention of Nyx (Il. 14.249–262). But it is worth noting that the power to wilfully induce sleep on mortals is not exclusive to Hypnos alone. In Homeric epic, sleep is also linked with Hermes: he is described as being able to lull to sleep those he wishes with his golden staff, while others he rouses out of sleep – in the Odyssey this develops into the ability to ‘wake’ the ghosts of the suitors to lead them to the Underworld.⁴ Similarly, Poseidon and Athena are able to send mortals to sleep; Athena in particular uses it as a way to ease temporarily the sufferings of Penelope and Odysseus.⁵ While the Olympian gods are able to easily exert this influence over mortals, they do not seem to be able to directly send another immortal to sleep – though there are some exceptions via alternative divine, albeit indirect, methods: Pindar, for example, praises the golden lyre of Apollo and the Muses for its ability to send Ares, as well as the eagle of Zeus, to sleep.⁶ However, when it comes to subduing Zeus into a deep sleep, Hypnos seems to hold this power alone in early poetry. His ability to influence the immortal gods is comparable to those of other primordial deities whose identities are drawn from the personification of various human emotions and experiences – Eros, for example, also wields power over Zeus.⁷

The close association between sleep and death is further reflected in the duties Hypnos carries out with Thanatos: together, they transport the corpse of Sarpedon away from the battlefield at Troy back to Lycia, and are often also associated with the transport of Memnon’s corpse.⁸ This activity seems to have been wholly separate to Hermes’ role as psychopompos in that the pair deal only with the removal of the physical corpse rather than the soul; the former being taken to a geographical homeland, the latter conveyed to the Underworld. The transportation scene appears on vase paintings at the end of the Archaic period; the winged figures of Hypnos and Thanatos, dressed in armour and Corinthian helmets, lean down to lift the despoiled corpse. Their positioning at the legs or shoulders alternates between depictions, but the overall composition of the scene between these three figures – Hypnos, Thanatos, and Sarpedon/Memnon – remains otherwise consistent during this period. In an artistic deviation from the textual evidence, Hermes is often also in attendance.⁹ Overseeing their actions, his figure further highlights the eschatological context of the scene, and affirms that the figure being lifted is indeed deceased rather than merely resting.¹⁰

As funerary customs changed and developed during the Classical period, white-ground lekythoi became a characteristic fifth-century funerary offering in Attica.¹¹ These were decorated with explicitly funerary motifs which were often more personal to the deceased; among these designs are depictions of Hypnos and Thanatos, now carrying the corpses of ordinary Greek men and women.¹² Out of their epic-heroic context, the two figures are dressed more casually: instead of armour, they now wear loose-flowing chitons, and appear barefoot. Both retain their wings, a means of visually differentiating them from mortal figures and a symbolism of the transportation and thus transition between life and death.¹³

In the artistic tradition, Hypnos also appears without his twin: he makes several appearances without Thanatos in an interesting group of Attic vases from the turn of the fifth century BC. These vases show the hero Heracles sneaking up on the sleeping giant Alcyoneus – a relatively unknown scene from the Heracles cycle.¹⁴ Hypnos appears in the scene as a winged miniature crouching on Alcyoneus’ chest, and sometimes is shown as sleeping himself, presumably there to indicate Alcyoneus is sleeping and not deceased.¹⁵ There is no mention of Hypnos in the literary sources for the story, and the figure seems to be employed to emphasise that Alcyoneus is in fact asleep: a vulnerable state to be in, as we will see later in the chapter. Hypnos also appears without his twin on a fourth-century Apulian funerary loutrophoros, as an aide in Zeus’ seduction of Leda. His clearly labelled figure stands behind Leda, and he raises his staff over her head as she clasps the swan (Zeus) with both arms – the seduction by the god potentially a consolatory metaphor for death, linking Hypnos with his brother’s sphere nonetheless.¹⁶

Hypnos continues to appear in his personified form in Hellenistic and Roman art, becoming more stylised in depiction: beautiful wings now always sprout from his temples or curled hair rather than his back. Notably, his age is still changeable: often he appears youthful, but in a few cases he is shown as an older male.¹⁷ Pausanias describes a scene from the chest of Kypselos in the Temple of Hera at Olympia, in which Hypnos is depicted once again alongside his brother Thanatos, but this time as small children – one white (Hypnos, who is asleep) and one black (Thanatos, who notably only looks like he’s asleep) – held in their mother’s arms.¹⁸ They are so easily recognisable, even with the differing depictions in age, that Pausanias himself comments that their identification was evident even without the accompanying inscription. The consistent clarity in the personification of Hypnos, across literature and art from the Archaic into Classical period suggests that Hypnos was an established figure in the older mythic tradition before Homer; his consistent ‘stock’ depiction alongside Thanatos in the transportation of corpses in particular has been seen as indicative of a prefigured image existing before their Iliadic appearance.¹⁹

The earliest appearance of a dream figure is also in the Iliad. Here, notably, there is not a clearly defined mythological ‘Oneiros’ character, but a rather more generic and featureless figure representing a personified state. As with Hypnos, the initial appearance of the dream figure involves deception: Zeus summons the dream and sends it directly to Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces at Troy, to persuade him to launch a new attack upon the Trojans without Achilles’ help – a deliberately damaging course of action for the Greeks. Zeus speaks to the dream directly, issuing brusque imperatives:

καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·

βάσκ᾿ ἴθι, οὖλε ὄνειρε, θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν·

ἐλθὼν ἐς κλισίην Ἀγαμέμνονος Ἀτρεΐδαο

πάντα μάλ᾿ ἀτρεκέως ἀγορευέμεν ὡς ἐπιτέλλω·²⁰

He addressed it the dream, and spoke in winged words:

Hurry away, go on, destructive oneiros, to the swift ships of the Achaeans!

When you reach the hut of Atreus’ son Agamemnon,

Repeat everything to him, exactly as I command you …

The dream immediately sets off to fulfil this duty. Taking the form of Nestor, he positions himself in a standard Homeric spot – by the sleeping Agamemnon’s head – del...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Sleep and Dreams in Context
• 2 Sleep, Dreams, and Heraclitus
• 3 Sleep, Dreams, and the Body
• 4 Sleep, Dreams, and the Soul
• 5 Interpretation of Dreams
• 6 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index