Chronos (; grc-gre, Χρόνος, , "time"), also spelled Khronos or Chronus, is a

personification Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...

of time in

pre-Socratic philosophy Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...

and later literature. Chronos is frequently confused with, or perhaps consciously identified with, the

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

Cronus In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or , from el, Κρόνος, ''Krónos'') was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia (Mother Earth) and ...

in antiquity due to the similarity in names. The identification became more widespread during the Renaissance, giving rise to the iconography of Father Time wielding the harvesting scythe. Greco-Roman mosaics depicted Chronos as a man turning the

zodiac wheel The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

. He is comparable to the deity Aion as a symbol of cyclical time. He is usually portrayed as an old callous man with a thick grey beard, personifying the destructive and stifling aspects of time.

Name

During antiquity, Chronos was occasionally interpreted as

. According to Plutarch, the Greeks believed that Cronus was an allegorical name for Chronos.

Mythology

In the Orphic tradition, the unaging Chronos was "engendered" by "earth and water", and produced

Aether Aether, æther or ether may refer to: Metaphysics and mythology * Aether (classical element), the material supposed to fill the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere * Aether (mythology), the personification of the "upper sky", sp ...

, Chaos, and an egg. The egg produced the hermaphroditic god Phanes who gave birth to the first generation of gods and is the ultimate creator of the cosmos. Pherecydes of Syros in his lost ("''The seven recesses"''), around 6th century BC, claimed that there were three eternal principles: ''Chronos'', ''Zas'' ( Zeus) and ''Chthonie'' (the

chthonic The word chthonic (), or chthonian, is derived from the Ancient Greek word ''χθών, "khthon"'', meaning earth or soil. It translates more directly from χθόνιος or "in, under, or beneath the earth" which can be differentiated from Γῆ ...

). The semen of Chronos was placed in the recesses of the Earth and produced the first generation of gods.Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, pp
2456

Notes

References

* Beekes, S. P., ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2009. * Delaere, Mark, ''Unfolding Time: Studies in Temporality in Twentieth-century Music'', Leuven University Press, 2009. . * Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, M. Schofield. ''The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts''. Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (February 24, 1984). . * Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott. ''

A Greek-English Lexicon A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

'', revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Levi, Doro, "Aion," '' Hesperia'' 13.4 (1944). * Macey, Samuel L., ''Encyclopedia of Time'', Routledge. . * Plutarch, ''Moralia, Volume V: Isis and Osiris. The E at Delphi. The Oracles at Delphi No Longer Given in Verse. The Obsolescence of Oracles''. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and L ...

No. 306. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.
Online version at Harvard University Press
* West, M. L. (1983), ''The Orphic Poems'', Clarendon Press. . {{Authority control Greek gods Greek primordial deities Personifications in Greek mythology Personifications Time and fate gods