Aion is a Hellenistic deity associated with time, the orb or circle encompassing the universe, and the zodiac.
The "time" which Aion represents is perpetual, unbounded, ritual, and cyclic: The future is a returning version of the past, later called aevum.
This kind of time contrasts with empirical, linear, progressive, and historical time that Chronos represented, which divides into past, present, and future.
Aion depicted as a young man with wings attached to his temples, standing in the circle of the zodiac, with Terra and four putti (representing the seasons) nearby, Roman mosaic, Sentinum, c. 200–300 AD
Detail from the Parabiago plate depicting Aion; Ajax is shown holding up the zodiac from below, and Tellus (not shown) appears on the plate outside of this image, just past the bottom left of the picture, reclining among her children by Aion.
Chronos, also spelled Khronos or Chronus, is a personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature.
Time Clipping Cupid's Wings (1694), by Pierre Mignard
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
