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Hymn 8. The serpent form of Chronos may have its origins in Egyptian fantasy, but in Orphic poetry it took on a symbolic significance which justified its retention and elaboration. Chronos was represented, we are told, as a winged serpent with additional heads of a bull and a lion, and between them the face of a god. How is this to be imagined? If the couple are mainly anthropomorphic above the waist and snakelike below, they are reminiscent of Echidna Hes.
Zeus and Typhoeus akin to the Orphic Chronos—minus two heads. West sees a common Indo-European origin to these myths shared by Indian, Egyptian, and Greek sources. He speculates:. The snake was an ancient and natural symbol of eternity because of its habit of sloughing its skin off and so renewing its youth.
It may also be relevant that the serpent with human head and arms is the regular shape of river-gods. The idea of Time as a river is present in at least one passage of tragedy Critias 43 F 3. River-gods are not usually fitted with wings, of course, and would have no use for them. But they are a natural adjunct for a cosmic serpent with no earth to glide upon. In a wider context, wings are freely bestowed by archaic artists upon all manner of divine beings, and fabulous monsters such as sphinxes and griffins are also winged; the type of the winged Typhoeus has its place with them.
That Time should be winged is something in which it is easy to find symbolic meaning. Plutarch, though, continues to speak of a more figurative allegory known in the Orphic cults and to the Greeks in general:. And they are those that tell us that, as the Greeks are used to allegorize Kronos or Saturn into chronos time , and Hera or Juno into aer air and also to resolve the generation of Vulcan into the change of air into fire, so also among the Egyptians, Osiris is the river Nile, who accompanies with Isis, which is the earth; and Typhon is the sea, into which the Nile falling is thereby destroyed and scattered, excepting only that part of it which the earth receives and drinks up, by means whereof she becomes prolific.
Kronos was not the only one to be allegorized into chronos, however. Athenagoras and Damascius both record that the winged serpent Chronos was also called Heracles. What was there about Heracles that enabled him to be identified with a creature of such physical monstrosity and such cosmic importance? Only one plausible answer has so far been suggested. In the legendary cycle of twelve labours, in the course of which Heracles overcame a lion, a bull, and various other dangerous fauna, some allegorical interpreters saw the victorious march of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Time is measured by the sun and the solar year. By the same token, it may be argued, the Orphic Chronos, Time himself, might be identified with Heracles, the indomitable animal-tamer of the zodiac. However, there is another possibility. The early Stoics derived from this their doctrine of the Great Year, at the end of which the cosmos is totally dissolved into fire.
They defined time as the dimension of cosmic movement. Time was therefore coextensive with the Great Year, and could be considered to pause in the ecpyrosis. The allusion is on the one hand to the Stoic ecpyrosis, on the other to the pyre on the summit of Mount Oeta in which Heracles was cremated and achieved apotheosis after completing his labours.
In this Stoic allegorization of the Heracles myth, then, the cycle of labours corresponds to the totality of divine activity in the course of the Great Year. This is admittedly rather speculative. It is noteworthy, however, because it links Chronos to one of two Greek cults that thrived heavily under Rome, those of Herakles and Dionysus.
The movement from the literal to the figurative is not the only direction. The process works in reverse as well. What subsequently happens is a combining and recombining in which incompatible features are freely merged and tossed away. In none of these ancient representations do we find the hourglass, the scythe or sickle, the crutches, or any signs of a particularly advanced age.
Kronos has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Kronos instantly transports himself, along with any chosen creatures within feet, to his domain.
A spherical plane in the middle of a strange warped void, time in this domain goes by much quicker; 3 months pass each round of combat, and creatures age faster. This cannot be reversed by a greater restoration. The plane collapses if Kronos dies, sending back every still living creature to where they entered.
Actions Being Beyond Time recharge Kronos makes a deafening, time-rending scream. Every creature within 60 feet of Kronos has to make a DC 26 Constitution saving throw or instantly age 16 3d10 years, if a creature is pushed 10 years beyond its life expectancy, it falls unconscious until a spell like greater restoration is cast.
If no restoration spell is cast, the creature dies an hour later. Kronos makes 1 Sickle attack , 1 Bite or Devour attack , and 1 Stomp attack. Giant Rock. If the target is a creature, it is grappled escape DC
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