According to Pausanias, there was an altar of Caerus close to the entrance to the stadium at Olympia, for Opportunity is regarded as a divinity and not as a mere allegory.
This indefatigable traveler also tells us that Caerus was regarded as the youngest child of Zeus in a hymn by Ion of Chios (ca.
A. Fairbanks (translator of Callistratus) suggests that the type of the statue of Opportunity was developed out of the form of the Hermes that granted victory in athletic contests.
And like the statue is Opportunity himself, he melts into softness if caught by the forelock, but once he has raced by, he assumes his hard nature and seldom grants a second chance.
According to ancient Greeks, Kairos was the god of the "fleeting moment"; "a favorable opportunity opposing the fate of man".
For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson.This statue was the original model for the various representations of Kairos made in ancient times and Middle Ages as well.
For instance Disticha Catonis II, 26 refer to the Latin concept of Occasio (a female word which can be considered as a literal translation of the Greek Kairos) in these terms: "Rem tibi quam scieris aptam dimittere noli: fronte capillata, post haec occasio calva", which means "Don't let that what you consider good for you escape by; chance has hair over her forehead, but behind she's bald".
In Trogir (the ancient Roman Tragurium), Croatia, in the Convent of the Benedictine Nuns, was displayed a marble bas-relief of Kairos from the 3rd century B.C., as a young man, running.
Carmina Burana 16, a famous poem about Fortune, mentions Kairos in this way: "verum est quod legitur, fronte capillata, sed plerumque sequitur occasio calvata"; which means "As it is read, it is true that that a forehead may have hair, but it is usually followed by the arrival of baldness".
Several representations of Kairos survive; a relief (about AD 160) is kept at the Museum of Antiquities of Turin (Italy); another relief was kept (now lost) at Palazzo Medici in Florence; an onyx gem (originally from the collection of the Duc de Blacas, 1st-2nd century AD) with an incision of the god Tempus with attributes of Kairos is kept now at the British Museum; a marble relief showing Kairos, Bios (the Life), and Metanoia (Afterthought, the female Latin Paenitentia) is in the cathedral of Torcello (11th century); a monochrome fresco by Mantegna at Palazzo Ducale in Mantua (about 1510) shows a female Kairos (most probably Occasio) with a young man trying to catch her and a woman representing Paenitentia.
The novel tells the story of a doomed love affair, set against the backdrop of the collapse of the German Democratic Republic with the two lovers seemingly embodying East Germany's crushed idealism.