{{Short description|Ancient Greek personification of time}} {{Greek deities (primordial)}} {{Distinguish|text=Cronus, the Titan father of Zeus}} {{other uses}} [[File:Pierre Mignard (1610-1695) - Time Clipping Cupid's Wings (1694).jpg|thumb|''Time Clipping Cupid's Wings'' (1694), by Pierre Mignard]] '''Chronos''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|r|oʊ|n|ɒ|s|,_|-|oʊ|s}}; {{Langx|grc|Χρόνος|translit=Khronos|lit=Time}}; {{IPA|el|kʰrónos|}}, <small>Modern Greek:</small> {{IPA|el|'xronos|}}), also spelled '''Chronus''', is a personification of time in Greek mythology, who is also discussed in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature.<ref>''LSJ'' s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*kro%2Fnos Κρόνος].</ref> His consort is the goddess Ananke.

Chronos is frequently confused with, or perhaps consciously identified with, the Titan Cronus in antiquity, due to the similarity in names.<ref>''LSJ'' s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*kro%2Fnos Κρόνος]; Meisner, p. 145.</ref> The identification became more widespread during the Renaissance, giving rise to the iconography of Father Time wielding the harvesting scythe.<ref>Macey, [https://books.google.com/books?id=waRlAgAAQBAJ&q=site%3A+edu+cronus+as+renaissance+father+of+time&pg=PA209 p. 209].</ref>

Greco-Roman mosaics depicted Chronos as a man turning the zodiac wheel.<ref>Delaere, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ypdoE4w2P1gC&q=Greco-Roman+mosaics+as+a+man+turning+the+Zodiac+Wheel&pg=PA97 p. 97].</ref> He is comparable to the deity Aion as a symbol of cyclical time.<ref>Levi, p. 274.</ref> He is usually portrayed as an old, callous man with a thick grey beard, personifying the destructive and stifling aspects of time.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Marcus Tullius |first=Cicero |title=De Natura Deorum, § 2.64 |url=https://topostext.org/work.php?work_id=137}}</ref>

==Name== [[File:Romanelli Chronos and his child.jpg|thumb|200px|''Chronos and His Child'' by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, National Museum in Warsaw, a 17th-century depiction of Chronos as Father Time, wielding a harvesting scythe]]

During antiquity, Chronos was occasionally interpreted as Cronus.<ref>''LSJ'' s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*kro%2Fnos Κρόνος].</ref> According to Plutarch, the Greeks believed that Cronus was an allegorical name for Chronos.<ref>Plutarch, ''On Isis and Osiris'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plutarch-moralia_isis_osiris/1936/pb_LCL306.77.xml 32].</ref>

==Mythology== In the Orphic tradition, the unaging Chronos was "engendered" by "earth and water", and produced Aether, Chaos, and an egg.<ref>West, p. 178.</ref> 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 {{Lang|grc-Latn|Heptamychos}} ("''The seven recesses"''), around 6th century BC, claimed that there were three eternal principles: ''Chronos'', ''Zas'' (Zeus) and ''Chthonie'' (the chthonic). The semen of Chronos was placed in the recesses of the Earth and produced the first generation of gods.<ref>Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=kFpd86J8PLsC&pg=PA24 24], [https://books.google.com/books?id=kFpd86J8PLsC&pg=PA56 56].</ref>

==See also== * Kairos * Father Time

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

==References== * Delaere, Mark, ''Unfolding Time: Studies in Temporality in Twentieth-century Music'', Leuven University Press, 2009. {{ISBN|9789058677358}}. * 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). {{ISBN|0521274559}}. * Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott. ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=E61EDD48E4F1A22F839AA4DC149C0955?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.04.0057 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library]. * Levi, Doro, "Aion," ''Hesperia'' 13.4 (1944). * Macey, Samuel L., ''Encyclopedia of Time'', Routledge. {{ISBN|9781136508905}}. * Meisner, Dwayne A., ''Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods'', Oxford University Press, 2018. {{ISBN|978-0-190-66352-0}}. [https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190663520.001.0001/oso-9780190663520 Online version at Oxford University Press]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wgJfDwAAQBAJ Google Books]. * 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 No. 306. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936. {{ISBN|978-0-674-99337-2}}. [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL306/1936/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press]. * West, M. L. (1983), ''The Orphic Poems'', Clarendon Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-814854-8}}.

==External links== {{Spoken Wikipedia|date=2023-12-4|En-Chronos-article.ogg}}

{{Commons category}} {{Ancient Greek personifications}} {{Time in religion and mythology}} {{Greek mythology (deities)}} {{Authority control}}

Category:Greek gods Category:Greek primordial deities Category:Personifications in Greek mythology Category:Personifications Category:Time and fate gods