roman deities of death
From Wikipedia
Mors:
In Roman mythology, Mors is the personification of death and equivalent to the Greek Thanatos. He is the son of the goddess of night, Nox, and is the brother of the personification of sleep, Somnus. Mors should not be confused with Mars, the god of war, Pluto, the god of the underworld, or Orcus, god of death and punisher of perjurers.
Mors is also the Latin word for death and is grammatically a feminine gender noun.
In one story, Herculeus (in Greek, Heracles) fought Mors in order to save his friend's wife. In other stories, Mors is shown as a servant to Pluto, ending the life of a person after the thread of their life has been cut by the Fates, and Mercury, the messenger to the gods, escorts the dead persons soul, or shade, down to the underworld's gate.
Morta:
In Roman mythology, Morta was the immortal being of death. She is one of the Parcae, related to the Roman conception of the Fates in Greek mythology, the Moirae. Her father is the god of night and her mother the goddess of darkness, Nox. Sometimes when she was mad, she ate people. She was a cannibal. Contrary to common belief, the Fates are not godesses. They are simply immortal beings that grab measure and cut life.
Notes on the Parcae:
The Parcae, in Roman mythology, were the personifications of destiny (often called The Fates in English). Their Greek equivalent were the Moirae. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death. Even the gods feared the Parcae. Jupiter also was subject to their power.
The names of the three Parcae were:
Nona - spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Greek equivalent was Clotho;
Decima - measured the thread of life with her rod. Her Greek equivalent was Lachesis;
Morta - was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of a person's death. Her Greek equivalent was Atropos.
Nox:
In Greek mythology, Nyx (Νύξ, Nox in Roman translation) was the primordial goddess of the night. A shadowy figure, Night stood at or near the beginning of creation, and was the mother of personified gods such as Sleep and Death. Her appearances in mythology are sparse, but reveal her as a figure of exceptional power, and extreme beauty.
Somnus:
In Greek mythology, Hypnos (Ὕπνος) was the personification of sleep; the Roman equivalent was known as Somnus. His twin was Thanatos ("death"); their mother was the goddess Nyx ("night"). His palace was a dark cave where the sun never shines. At the entrance were a number of poppies and other hypnogogic plants.
Hypnos's three sons or brothers represented things that occur in dreams (the Oneiroi). Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos appear in the dreams of kings. According to one story, Hypnos lived in a cave underneath a Greek island; through this cave flowed Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.
Endymion, sentenced by Zeus to eternal sleep, received the power to sleep with his eyes open from Hypnos in order to constantly watch his beloved Selene. But according to the poet Licymnius of Chios, Hypnos, in awe of Endymion's beauty, causes him to sleep with his eyes open, so he can fully admire his face.
In art, Hypnos was portrayed as a naked youthful man, sometimes with a beard, and wings attached to his head. He is sometimes shown as a man asleep on a bed of feathers with black curtains about him. Morpheus is his chief minister and prevents noises from waking him. In Sparta, the image of Hypnos was always put near that of death.
Morpheus:
Morpheus (Greek: Μορφέας, Μορφεύς, "he who forms, shapes, moulds", from the Greek morphe) is the Greek god of dreams.
Morpheus has the ability to take any human's form and appear in dreams. He is the son or brother of Somnus, the god of sleep. Nyx (the goddess of night) is his mother/grandmother. The brothers (According to Hesiod) or sons (according to Ovid) of Hypnos - the Oneiroi - are rulers of visions, and also include Phobetor (also known as Icelus), and Phantasos.
Morpheus is spoken of in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. It is also believed that in the Iliad he is spoken of as "Dream." He is also referred to in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590). He sleeps on an ebony bed in a dimly lit cave, surrounded by poppy flowers. According to Ovid, Morpheus concentrated on the human elements of dreams, his brothers Phobetor and Phantasos being responsible for animals and inanimate objects, respectively.
Morpheus sends images of humans in dreams or visions, and is responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shape to the beings which inhabit dreams. Phobetor made fearsome dreams (etymologically related to "phobia" from the Greek φόβος "fear"). Phantasos produced tricky and unreal dreams (hence "fantasy", "phantasmagoria", etc.). Together these attendants of Hypnos rule the realm of dreams. Morpheus also had special responsibility for the dreams of kings and heroes. For these reasons Morpheus is often referred to as "Morpheus the Greek god of dreams" in superiority to his brothers.