Aion (deity)

The "time" which Aion represents is perpetual, unbounded, ritual, and cyclic: The future is a returning version of the past, later called aevum (see Vedic Sanskrit Ṛtú).

In the Dionysiaca, Nonnus associates Aion with the Horae and says that he: The imagery of the twining serpent is connected to the hoop or wheel through the ouroboros, a ring formed by a snake holding the tip of its tail in its mouth.

The 4th century CE Latin commentator Servius notes that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature of the year.

[4]: 137 In his highly speculative reconstruction of Mithraic cosmogony, Franz Cumont positioned Aion as Unlimited Time (sometimes represented as Saeculum, Cronus, or Saturn) as the god who emerged from primordial Chaos, and who in turn generated Heaven and Earth.

[10]: 306–307, 311  Quispel (2008) conjectured that the figure resulted from integrating the Orphic Phanes, who like Aion is associated with a coiling serpent, into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city.

[2]: 307–308 Aion was among the virtues and divine personifications that were part of late Hellenic discourse, in which they figure as "creative agents in grand cosmological schemes".

[16] The significance of Aion lies in his malleability: He is a "fluid conception" through which various ideas about time and divinity converge in the Hellenistic era, in the context of syncretic and monotheistic tendencies.

Aion depicted as a young man with wings attached to his temples, standing in the circle of the zodiac, with Terra and four putti (representing the seasons) nearby, Roman mosaic, Sentinum , c. 200–300 AD [ 1 ]
Detail from the Parabiago plate depicting Aion; Ajax is shown holding up the zodiac from below, and Tellus (not shown) appears on the plate outside of this image, just past the bottom left of the picture, reclining among her children by Aion.