"Erebos (from ἐρήνη, night), in Mythology, a term denoting darkness. According to Hesiod, Erebus was the son of Chaos and Night, and the father of the day. This was also the name of part of the infernal regions among the ancients; and a peculiar expiation was provided for those who were detained in Erebus.

Erebus was properly the gloomy region, and distinguished both from Tartarus the place of torment, and Elysium the region of bliss. According to the account given of it by Virgil, it forms the third grand division of the invisible world beyond the Styx; and comprehends several particular districts, as the Limbus infantum, or the receptacle for infants; the Limbus for those who had destroyed themselves; the fields of mourning, full of dark groves and woods, inhabited by those who died of love; and beyond these, an open campaign country for the accommodation of departed warriors.