Let us now look at the word αἰών (aiōn, whence ‘æon’), which is associated with ψυχή. On the assumption that its nearest cognates are ἀεί and aevum it is generally agreed that the fundamental meaning for Homer and later is ‘period of existence’ and so, from the meaning ‘lifetime’, that of ‘life’ is derived. But the passages, from which this is inferred for Homer, can be put thus: ‘If I go home, my αἰών will exist for a long time’ (ἐπὶ δηρὸν…ἔσσεται. Homer elsewhere uses εῖναι for ‘to live, survive’) and ‘Briefly-lasting was (μινυνθάδιος ἔπλετο) his αἰών for him vanquished beneath the spear of Aias’. Here the time is expressed by the other words. Usually the person himself is described as μινυνθάδιος. And elsewhere in Homer αἰών clearly is not a period of time but a ‘thing’ of some kind like ψυχή persisting through time, life itself or a vital substance necessary to living. At death ‘ψυχή and αἰών leave’ a man, or we are told merely that ‘αἰών leaves’ him or that he ‘is deprived’ of it or of it and ψυχή. ‘I fear’, says Achilles, ‘lest meanwhile flies enter into the stalwart son of Menoitios by the bronze-dealt wounds and breed worms therein and defile his body—for the αἰών is slain therefrom—and so it should rot in all its flesh.’