Thanatos is the god of death. In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the god who personified death. He appears in the Theogony of Hesiod as the son of Nyx (Night). The Greek poet Hesiod therefore claims that Thanatos is the brother of Hypnos, the god of Sleep. Indeed, the two gods together play a role in Homer's Iliad. In one poignant scene of the epic, Thanatos and Hypnos join forces to remove the hero Sarpedon's body from the battle field. Thanatos also had a small but significant part in the story of the Greek heroine Alcestis. According to the play by Euripides, in order for the hero Herakles to rescue Alcestis, he had first to wrestle - and defeat - the god of death. Euripides describes Thanatos as "the dark-robed lord of the dead" in this tale. But in this version of the myth valiant Herakles overcomes his daunting opponent, andThanatos loses Alcestis.