- Looks after
- Eternity, unending time
- Roman name
- Aeternitas
Aion
Αἰών
Aion is the god of unbounded time, from a late age when the Greeks wanted a name for eternity.
Family at a glance
No parents are recorded for this figure in the sources used here.
Aion means an age or an eternity. As a figure he appears in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, when Greek thinking about time was influenced by Egyptian and Persian ideas. He is not in Homer or Hesiod.
Roman mosaics show him as a young man inside the zodiac circle, together with Tellus (earth) and the Seasons. He stands for time as a cycle, as opposed to Chronos, who suggests time as one thing after another.
Little is told of him as a character. He is best read as a late philosophical idea, given the shape of a god.
In later art and language
The English word eon (or aeon) comes straight from Aion.
The ancient evidence for Aion is limited, so this page is short on purpose.
Ancient sources
- Roman and late antique art; Nonnus, Dionysiaca
The family of Aion
Descended from
No parents recorded
Brothers and sisters
None listed on this site
Partners
None recorded
Children
None recorded