Phobetor

Phobetor

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Phobetor, so called by humans, or Icelus/Icelos, so called by the gods, is one of the thousand sons of Somnus (Sleep, the Roman counterpart of Hypnos). He appeared in dreams "in the form of beast or bird or the long serpent". According to Ovid, two of his brothers were Morpheus, who appeared in dreams in human form, and Phantasos ('Fantasy'), who appears in dreams in the form of inanimate objects. The three brothers‘ names are found nowhere earlier than Ovid, which leads some scholars to believe that they were originally invented by him. One example of these scholars is Tripp, who calls the three figures "literary, not mythical concepts"