Chronos, unaging Time, stands at the head of the Hieronyman and Rhapsodic Orphic theogonies as a self-existent first principle. Damascius describes him as a winged serpent bearing the heads of a bull and a lion with a god's face between, coiled together with Necessity and given the further name Herakles. From him proceed moist Aither, gaping Chaos and misty Erebos, and within these he fashions the silver world-egg from which the firstborn god Phanes bursts. The tradition deliberately exploits the near-homophony of Chronos ('Time') and Kronos the Titan, a wordplay already probed in the fifth-century commentary preserved in the Derveni papyrus. Sources differ on whether Time is truly the absolute beginning or is itself preceded by Water and unformed Matter, as one variant reported by Damascius maintains.