Editing Charon (section)

==Genealogy==
[[File:Relief from the grave enclosure of Lysimachides. Ca. 320 B.C.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Charon and his boat on a funerary relief, ca 320s BC, [[Kerameikos Archaeological Museum|KAMA]].]]

No ancient source provides a [[genealogy]] for Charon,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hansen |first1=William F. |title=Handbook of classical mythology |date=2004 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |isbn=9781576072264 |pages=136–137}}</ref> except for one reference making him a son of {{ill|Akmon (father of Uranus)|de|Akmon (Vater des Uranos)}}, found in the entry "Akmonides" in the lexicon of [[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], which is dubious and the text may be corrupt.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sourvinou-Inwood |first1=Christiane |title="Reading" Greek death: to the end of the classical period |date=2006 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780198150695 |page=308 |edition=Reprinted |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WBmyTsFEHEUC&dq=%22Charon+almost+entirely+lacks+genealogical%22&pg=RA1-PA308}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hard |first1=Robin |last2=Rose |first2=Herbert J. |title=The Routledge handbook of Greek mythology: based on H.J. Rose's Handbook of Greek mythology |date=2008 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=9780415186360 |page=113 |edition=1. publ. in paperback}}</ref> Neither [[Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft|Pauly-Wissowa]] nor [[Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines|Daremberg and Saglio]] offer a genealogy for Charon.

In ''[[Genealogia Deorum Gentilium]]'', the [[Renaissance_humanism|Italian Renaissance]] writer [[Giovanni Boccaccio]] wrote that Charon, who he identified as the god of time, was a son of [[Erebus]] and [[Nyx|Night]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boccaccio |first1=Giovanni |last2=Solomon |first2=Jon |title=Genealogy of the Pagan Gods. Volume 1: Books I-V |date=2011 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. London, England |isbn=9780674057104 |pages=166–167}}</ref> The idea appears to have originated from the similarity between the names "Charon" and "[[Chronos]]" (a connection already made by earlier writers such as [[Fabius Planciades Fulgentius|Fulgentius]]), the fact that both are said to be very old, and that the [[Geras|god of old age]] is said to be the child of Erebus and Night according to [[Cicero]]'s ''[[De natura deorum]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boccaccio |first1=Giovanni |last2=Papio |first2=Michael |title=Boccaccio's expositions on Dante's Comedy |date=2009 |publisher=Univ. of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=9780802099754 |page=630}}</ref>