Jump to content

Chronos

Listen to this article
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected fromChronus)
Chronos
Time Clipping Cupid's Wings(1694), byPierre Mignard
Symbolzodiac wheel
OffspringAether,Phanes,Chaos

Chronos(/ˈkrnɒs,-s/;Ancient Greek:Χρόνος,romanized:Khronos,lit.'Time',[kʰrónos]), also spelledChronus,is apersonificationof time inpre-Socratic philosophyand later literature.[1]

Chronos is frequently confused with, or perhaps consciously identified with, theTitan,Cronus,in antiquity, due to the similarity in names.[2]The identification became more widespread during the Renaissance, giving rise to the iconography ofFather Timewielding the harvesting scythe.[3]

Greco-Roman mosaics depicted Chronos as a man turning thezodiac wheel.[4]He is comparable to thedeity Aionas a symbol of cyclical time.[5]He is usually portrayed as an old callous man with a thick grey beard, personifying the destructive and stifling aspects of time.[6]

Name

[edit]
Chronos and His ChildbyGiovanni Francesco Romanelli,National MuseuminWarsaw,a 17th-century depiction of Chronos as Father Time, wielding a harvesting scythe

During antiquity, Chronos was occasionally interpreted asCronus.[7]According toPlutarch,the Greeks believed that Cronus was an allegorical name for Chronos.[8]

Mythology

[edit]

In theOrphictradition, the unaging Chronos was "engendered" by "earth and water", and producedAether,Chaos,and an egg.[9]The egg produced the hermaphroditic godPhaneswho gave birth to the first generation of gods and is the ultimate creator of thecosmos.

Pherecydes of Syrosin his lostHeptamychos( "The seven recesses "), around 6th century BC, claimed that there were three eternal principles:Chronos,Zas(Zeus) andChthonie(thechthonic). The semen of Chronos was placed in the recesses of the Earth and produced the first generation of gods.[10]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^LSJs.v.Κρόνος.
  2. ^LSJs.v.Κρόνος;Meisner, p. 145.
  3. ^Macey,p. 209.
  4. ^Delaere,p. 97.
  5. ^Levi, p. 274.
  6. ^Marcus Tullius, Cicero."De Natura Deorum, § 2.64".
  7. ^LSJs.v.Κρόνος.
  8. ^Plutarch,On Isis and Osiris,32.
  9. ^West, p. 178.
  10. ^Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, pp.24,56.

References

[edit]
[edit]
Listen to this article(3minutes)
Spoken Wikipedia icon
This audio filewas created from a revision of this article dated 4 December 2023(2023-12-04),and does not reflect subsequent edits.