Kronia

Overview

Kronia is celebrated on the 12 of Hekatombaion, one of the three festivals of this month. Kronos, who this festival is named after, calls to a version of the god that is older than the father of Zeus who we are familiar with. Instead, Kronos is believed to have been a god of harvesting grain with his reaping hook. It was believed the month of Hekatombaion was once Kronion but the only element of the holiday that persisted into classical Athens was slaves and their masters dined together. Parke believes perhaps this was originally a harvest supper or celebration. The annual sacrifice to Kronos was believed to be in his sanctuary near the temple of Zeus (Parke 29-30).

Is Kronos and Chronos the same god?

According to Plutarch, Kronos is an allegorical name for Chronos (Plutarch, Moralia 363d). In the Theogony, Kronos is the son of Gaia and Ouranos. After overthrowing his father, Kronos becomes the King of the Titans and later the father of the Olympians. For the Orphics, Chronos is the personification of time who created the Cosmic Egg in the Aether.

By the time of Cicero, Kronos and Chronos are taken as the same god: “By Saturn they mean that which comprehends the course and revolution of times and seasons; the Greek name for which Deity implies as much, for he is called Κρόνος (Kronos), which is the same with Χρόνος (Chronos), that is, a “space of time.” But he is called Saturn, because he is filled (saturatur) with years; and he is usually feigned to have devoured his children, because time, ever insatiable, consumes the rolling years” (De Natura Deorum 2.64)

However you choose to view Kronos, I invite today to celebrate him and the harvest season.

Sources: Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Natura Deorum; Academica. Translated by H. Rackham, Harvard UP, 1933. Loeb Classical Library 268. Hesiod. Theogony. Translated by M. L. West, Oxford UP, 1988. Parke, H. W. Festivals of the Athenians. Cornell UP, 1977. Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride (On Isis and Osiris). Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt, Harvard UP, 1936. ToposText, work 274, section 32, topostext.org/work/274. Accessed 21 July 2026.