Geras: Old Age, Child of Night (Hesiod)

Catalogue ID: 01-cosmogony-theogony/044-geras-old-age-nyx-hesiodic

Cycle: Cosmogony / Theogony — Night’s brood / personified old age

Version line: Hesiodic — Geras among Nyx’s children

Sources: Hesiod, *Theogony* 211–225; cf. Homeric epithets of γῆρας; later vase and literary personifications

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/01-cosmogony-theogony/044-geras-old-age-nyx-hesiodic.md

Characters

Geras — Old Age; child of Nyx
Ker — related Night-powers of death (distinct)
Mortals — those Geras wastes
Nemesis, Apate, Philotes, Eris — siblings in the same Hesiodic stretch
Nyx — mother

Places

Night’s realm — generative seat
World of mortals — where old age takes hold

Themes

None detected.

Narrative

Hesiod names Geras (Old Age) among the children Night bears without a husband—listed with Nemesis, Apate, Philotes, and hard-hearted Eris near the close of Night’s primary brood. Geras is not a narrative actor in the *Theogony*; he is a genealogical statement: old age belongs to Night’s dark gifts, kin to death, blame, deceit, and strife. Greek epic and lyric treat γῆρας as the hated companion of mortals—hateful even when Eos could not keep Tithonus from its wasting—while art sometimes shows Heracles or gods confronting a bent, shriveled Geras. Hesiod’s point remains cosmogonic: before stories of heroes fighting age, Old Age is already a child of Night, built into the structure of mortal life.