![]() Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. Damascius, Dubitationes et solutiones de primis principiis, 1889, vol 1, p.381.Karlsruhe - fragments of red-figured Attic ware This mosaic dates from the 3rd century A.D.ģ.2. There are only three images of Aion with a name attached. Here are some of the monuments of the lion-headed god. The first of these is a mosaic uncovered in 1939 at Antioch on the Orontes, and depicts the head of an old man whose hand rests on what seems to be a circle or loop. 3 However there are only two monuments in which a figure is labelled as "Aion", both badly damaged. It was Zoega who first suggested that the figure should be called Aion. Some scholars have favoured the identification with Aion, the personification of eternal time. Nonnus, a similarly late source, mentions Aion holding keys: 2īut Time the maniform, holding the key of generation, spread his white shock of hair over the knees of Zeus, let fall the flowing mass of his beard in supplication. However this is a very late source indeed, and may not refer to anything known in the Roman world five centuries earlier. and in the middle the countenance of a god, and it has wings on its shoulders, and the same god is called Ageless Time, and Heracles. This identification is based on a passage in Damascius Diodochos, the 6th century philosopher, in which he recounts some Orphic teachings and describes Chronos as having the head of a lion or a bull: 1īut as for the third principle after the two, it arose from these, I mean from water and earth, and it is a serpent with the heads of a lion and a bull grown upon it. Scholars have tended to refer to this figure as a personification of time, either Chronos or Aion. This appears to be "Areimanius", but this may be the name of the donor of the monument. Only one of the statues, CIMRM 833 has a fragmentary name on it. There are no painted depictions of this figure, and it is not referred to in the literary sources. Often it carries keys in both hands, which it presents in front of it. ![]() In a great number of cases it is a male figure with the head of a lion (sometimes instead with a human head but the lion's head on its breast), wings, and with the body of a serpent twined around it. The iconography of this figure is not always consistent. In a significant number of mithraeums, there is a statue of a bizarre figure, whom it is difficult to identify. These include Mithras, and his associates Cautes and Cautopates and also sometimes other standard deities like Mercury. In the mithraeums excavated so far, we find statues of a number of figures.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |