The coins of several Roman emperors bear an allegory of eternity
depicted in the figure of a girl holding the sun and the moon in her hands. And, in
alchemy, there are comparable images, alluding to the opus as a ‘conjunction’ or a
‘marriage of opposites’, which illustrate the essential principle that the eternal
order can be achieved only with the abolition of antithesis, separateness and
change. Eternity has also been represented as infinite time, both in the ‘Mithraic
Cronos’ and in the Ouroboros (the serpent or dragon which bites its own tail).
The phoenix is another symbol of eternity (8).