Perry, Walter Copland: Greek and Roman sculpture: a popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture (London, 1882)

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times represented with a /ion's head {Leontocephalus), as in the statue
in the Chiaramonti Gallery (567) of the Vatican.

Aeon. The worship of this god was introduced with that of
Mithras. He appears to have been a composite deity, invested with
the symbols of various qualities—the Lion's head indicating strength;
the Wings swiftness; the Serpent, the faculty of reproduction ; the
Staff, moderation ; the Key, mystery; Grapes, fertility ; the Cock,
watchfulness ; the Hammer and Tongs, labour. It is curious to
observe how art, in the weakness and confusion of mind which
mark its second childhood, has recourse to the same symbolical
mode of expressing its ideas as it employed in the first infancy of
its undeveloped powers.