Phanes, called Protogonos ('Firstborn') and by the cult-names Erikepaios, Metis and Eros, is the shining bisexual deity who breaks forth from the silver cosmic egg at the beginning of the Orphic theogonies. Iconography assigns him golden wings, four eyes, and the heads of ram, bull, serpent and lion; from him proceed Night and the first shaping of heaven and earth. In the Rhapsodic sequence of divine kings he holds the primal scepter before passing it to Night. His cosmic role culminates when Zeus swallows him whole, absorbing the entire created order into himself so that all things may be born a second time from within the king of the gods. Sources differ on his precise parentage: the Hieronyman theogony makes him the offspring of Chronos and the world-egg, while other accounts foreground his emergence from Night, and the god is repeatedly identified with Eros, Metis and Dionysos across the tradition.