| Summary: | Aeon’s supplication to Zeus to save mankind in Dion. 7.1-109 is a mosaic of salvation-traditions. This paper bases the exploration of these traditions on philosophical and religious concepts coevally shared by different dogmas. It highlights the Hesiodic features, probably made use through the Orphic Rhapsodic Theogony. It surveys the linguistic and conceptual indications suggesting that Aeon’s supplication might be indebted to Zeus’ appeal to Cronus in the Rhapsodic Theogony to raise up human race. The paper also introduces the notion of “negative” allusion, the employment of a concept, that is, in such a way so as to raise unsaid associations with its historical (i.e. Christian) evolution. Furthermore, it is shown that joy, wine, Prometheus as a creator of man and failed messianic figure, Pandora’s futile consolation of man by introducing the pleasures of love, sacrifice and even the apotheosis of Dionysus at the end of the poem get involved in a covert dialogue with sometimes controversial Christian notions which shape Nonnus’ spiritual world and enliven his poem not as an antiquarian pedantry but as a historically meaningful creation.
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