Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 25

 Happy New Year
or
The Story of Chronos

The image of the old year, or Father Time, being replaced by the baby new year has been around for a while.  We see it above on this 1911 cover of the Saturday Evening Post by the great gay artist J.C. Leyendecker.  But did you ever wonder why the old year is always carrying a scythe?  The answer goes back to Greek mythology, and it involves castration, cannibalism, and confusion.

Originally, Chronos (above) was the Greek god of time, especially cycles of time, like the zodiac or the cycle of the year.

Now bear with me.  According to the ancient Greek writer Hesiod, before the gods of Mt. Olympus such as Zeus existed, the primeval god was Uranus (Ouranos).  He was the son and husband of the primeval earth goddess Gaia.  He fathered 12 gods called Titans, including one called Cronus (or Kronos – there are several variant spellings, but we'll go with Cronus).

Now, Gaia had gotten fed up with her son/husband Uranus, and she made a sickle out of adamant and asked Cronus to castrate Uranus, which he did (above).  Cronus then became the head god, replacing Uranus, who disappears from the story.  Apparently you can't be the head god if you don't have any balls.

Even in ancient times, people confused Chronos (the god of time) with Cronus (the Titan), so Cronus got associated with time as well.

Above: Castration of Uranus by Caravaggio, c. 1530.

By the way, according to Hesiod, Cronus threw Uranus' testicles into the sea, and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus) arose from them.  Above, I have slightly modified Botticelli's famous painting The Birth of Venus to reflect this myth.

But wait, there's more!  The Roman god Saturn was originally a god of agriculture, hence the scythe that he carries for harvesting grain.  Saturnalia was a Roman harvest festival.

Above, Saturn by Bernard Picart, Amsterdam, 1734.

When the Romans conquered Greece, they identified the Greek gods with corresponding Roman gods.  For example, Aphrodite was identified with Venus.  The Titan Cronus was also a harvest god, so Cronus was identified with Saturn.  Above is a section of the strange painting The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn by Giorgio Vasari in the 1500s.  If you were going to castrate someone, you certainly wouldn't reach for a scythe, but Saturn was associated with the scythe, so we get this strange mixture of Cronus and Saturn.

In the Greek myth, Cronus was warned that he would be overthrown by his own child.  His wife was Rhea, another Titan.  Every time Rhea gave birth, Cronus ate the new baby god.  Above is the gruesome Saturn Devouring His Son by the Spanish painter Goya, c. 1820.

Rhea didn't like her husband devouring all of her children, so when the next baby god, Zeus, was born, she hid him and substituted a stone in swaddling clothes, which she gave to Cronus and he ate, as depicted on this vase c. 460-450 BC.  Of course, Zeus later overthrew his father Cronus and became the head god.

So, putting it all together, the god of time got confused with the god who castrated his father and ate his children, who got confused with an agricultural god carrying a scythe.

The 17th century painting above, Chronos and His Child by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, exemplifies this by calling him Chronos (the time god) but giving him the attributes of Cronus (who killed his children) and Saturn (who had a scythe).  Yet, in a way, this painting is the direct ancestor of our image of the Old Year and the baby New Year.

And that's why the old year carries a scythe.

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My blog is now two years old.  Happy New Year to all of you!