She was said to represent the full moon. This is a relatively late text. Like her brother Helios, the Sun god, who drives his sun chariot across the sky each day, Selene is also said to drive a chariot across the heavens. Thou wouldst say far off that this was milk indeed, which is a well-spring of white water: if thou draw a little nigher, lo, the stream is fringed as though with ice, for white stone rims it round. Selene - The Moon Goddess - Greek Mythology - See U in History Art: Marcus AquinoColor: Rod Fernandes#GreekMythology #Mythology #SeeUinHistory #History #Myth. Selenes role in this war was not only to fight against the giants. . Who was Vesta, the Goddess of the Hearth? My name is Mike and for as long as I can remember (too long!) Greek Gods / Helios. [2], Selene was also called Mene. Even now, this moon goddess of the ancient world has not quite gone out of our lives and her presence can be felt in small but subtle reminders. Selene was the ancient Greek Titan goddess of the moon. Interestingly, this version of the myth does not involve Selene. Cf. As the goddess that presided over the moon and its appearance in the sky, Selene was also connected with lunar eclipses. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 12.1ff (who names Helios as the father of the Horae but does not name the mother). [116] Pausanias also reports seeing stone images of Helios, and Selene, in the market-place at Elea, with rays projecting from the head of Helios, and horns from the head of Selene. This is at times accompanied by stars to depict the night sky, but the crescent moon was perhaps the most recognizable of Selenes symbols. If your web page requires an HTML link, please insert this code: . "Not I alone then stray to the Latmian cave, nor do I alone burn with love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to thee. The Greeks followed a lunar calendar, making Selene one of the most important deities in the passage of time. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. According to Hesiod's Theogony, her parents were the Titans Hyperion and Theia; her brother was Helios, the sun god (sometimes called her father); her sister was Eos (Dawn). [100], Diodorus Siculus recorded an unorthodox version of the myth, in which Basileia, who had succeeded her father Uranus to his royal throne, married her brother Hyperion, and had two children, a son Helios and a daughter Selene, "admired for both their beauty and their chastity". What are Pan God Powers in Greek Mythology? And a memorial of her couch abides still neath the oaks; for mid the copses round was poured out milk of kine; and still do men marvelling behold its whiteness. Selene, daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, was the personification of the moon. But in the case of her daughters with Endymion, it is widely known that Selene gave birth to the fifty daughters known as the Menai. Many of these old communities followed the lunar calendar and that made the moon a center of their faith and worship in many ways. At night he drove below the edge of the world in the west, circling below Gaia to reappear on the eastern horizon by morning. She asks Menippus to report her grievances to Zeus, with the request that Zeus wipes all these natural philosophers from the face of the earth. Sometimes these were winged horses, although some later accounts had the chariot drawn by bulls. 200 (cited in the scholia on Aristophanes Frogs 1033); Orphica frag. the crescent moon, full moon, and dark moon, as delinted by the divisions of the calendar month).[154]. [61], In antiquity, the lunar eclipse phenomena were thought to be caused by witches, particularly the ones from Thessaly, who brought the Moon/Selene down with spells and invocations of magic. While the Maenids of Dionysus were driven mad by the frenzy of their worship, however, the madness brought about by Selene could be used as a targeted punishment. Hesiod, Catalogue of Women frag. 527532; Shear, pp. When Selene spied him sleeping in a cave, she immediately fell in love and asked Zeus to extend his sleep for all eternity. This irritated Endymion, and enraged Selene, who transforms the girl into a fly (Ancient Greek: , romanized:mua). The pair could also have been the parents of the beautiful and vain Narcissus, for whom the Narcissus flower is named, according to Nonnus, the Greek epic poet of the Roman era. Lunacy takes its name from Selenes Roman counterpart, Luna. Endymion However, Selene was not one of them. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). One of the names given for Selene, and occasionally for an independent personification, was Mene. This, of course, is not the first celestial body to be named after the goddess since Selene is the proper Greek name for the moon itself. There are a number of stories about the moon goddess Selene in Greek mythology, in association with the other Greek gods, especially Zeus. [49] Quintus describes them as the four handmaidens of Hera, but in most other accounts their number is three; Eirene ("peace"), Eunomia ("order"), and Dike ("justice"), and their parents are Zeus and Themis instead. Because the Greek endyein meant "to dive," the name Endymion ("Diver") at first simply described the process of the setting sun "diving" into the sea. Selene and Endymion, in the mural above the stage of the Friedrich von Thiersch Saal in the Wiesbaden Kurhaus. [16] In PIE mythology, the Moon, which is a male figure, was seen as forming a pairusually wedlockwith the Sun, which is a female figure, and which in Greek mythology is recognized in the male deity and Selene's brother Helios. While Selenes best known consort may have been Endymion and the mythic romance between the moon goddess and the mortal has been documented in many places, he was not the only person that she was involved with. This was the mythological explanation for the movement of the moon across the sky. Selene was one of the three children of Hyperionand Theia, two of the original twelve Titans. This might have had a role in the later identification of Selene with Hecate, who was, after all, the goddess of witchcraft and spells. There were still several goddesses who shared Selenes lunar domain, however. [97] Hyginus says that Selene had "nourished" the lion in a "two-mouthed cave". Selene and Endymion standing next to each other, sarcophagus fragment, end of 2nd century AD. H. G. Evelyn-White. Those that do exist are somewhat generic (like the previously mentioned epithets). Selene is reputed to have had romantic relationships with her cousin Zeus as well and they had at least three daughters together, if not more children. A womans fertility was said to be influenced by the cycles of the moon, a belief that gave English the word menses, and under Selenes influence women were said to have an easier time in childbirth than they did during the day. [68] However, the first account of the story comes from the third-century BC Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, which tells of Selene's "mad passion" and her visiting the "fair Endymion" in a cave on Mount Latmus:[69], And the Titanian goddess, the moon, rising from a far land, beheld her [Medea] as she fled distraught, and fiercely exulted over her, and thus spake to her own heart: The altars to Selene were few and far between. [34] She also had a sacred statue (which stood alongside one of her brother Helios) in the public market of Elis.[35]. Often she was shown in a chariot drawn by a team of horses or oxen, but other times there was no chariot, and Selene would instead appear on the back of a horse or mule. Attributes to the Byrgos Painter, ca. The counterpart to her brother, she traveled by night. Selene was one of the daughters of the Titan gods Hyperion and Theia and the sister of the sun god Helios and the goddess of the dawn Eos. In Greek, the name Endymion means one who dives and Max Muller thought that the myth was a symbolic representation of how the sun set by diving into the sea and then the moon arose. The concept of Selene as the lunar goddess also made her an important goddess of childbirth and female fertility. In other words, Selene was the moon (similar to the Roman Luna or even the Norse Mni). 13 In later times Selene was identified with Artemis, and the worship of the two became amalgamated. Lastly, Selene was said to be the mother of the legendary Greek poet Musaeus,[50] with, according to Philochorus, the father being the legendary seer Eumolpus.[51]. Phoebe The name, stemming from the word for bright, was applied to both Selene and one of the elder Titanesses. In post-classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. [140] Nonnus also identified Selene with Eileithyia. But on nights the moon could not be seen, there was a very good reason for her absence. "From the panteon of the gods to the Pantheon of Rome" in, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 02:32. Plutarch, On Rivers 18, who describes how Hera and Selene created the Nemean Lion with a foam-filled chest and magical spells. Her name was spelt differently in the different dialects of the Greeks but the meaning was the same. In some versions, Zeus cursed Endymion because he fell in love with Queen Hera, wife of Zeus. Selene was not the only goddess the Greeks associated with the moon. [106], According to pseudo-Plutarch, Lilaeus was an Indian shepherd who only worshipped Selene among the gods and performed her rituals and mysteries at night. His rites also brought a form of madness about in his followers, who often celebrated under the light of the moon. Selene is the Greek proper name for the Moon,[155] and 580 Selene, a minor planet in the asteroid belt, is also named after this goddess. The months had their own personifications as well, who were all born from Selene. This article was most recently revised and updated by, From Athena to Zeus: Basics of Greek Mythology, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Selene-Greek-and-Roman-mythology, Ancient Origins - Celestial Goddess Selene: The Ancient Greek Goddess of the Moon. Francoise Gury, Selene/Luna, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich: Artemis, 1994), 7:70615. According to Hesiods Theogony, Selene was born of Hyperion and Theia. Grapevines then rose from Ampelus corpse, from which the heartbroken Dionysus made wine for the first time. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Festivals and feasts were determined by the lunar calendar, giving Selene as Mene an important role in the worship of all the gods and goddesses. But unlike other night goddesseslike Nyx, Hecate, and sometimes even ArtemisSelene represented the moon itself. Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 10.336ff; cf. This claim has been takenby Plutarch at first, and subsequently by modern astronomersto mean that she could predict the time and general area where an eclipse of the Moon would occur. [102], Plutarch recorded a fable-like story in which Selene asked her mother to weave her a garment to fit her measure, and her mother replied that she was unable to do so, as she kept changing shape and size, sometimes full, then crescent-shaped and others yet half her size. Not only was she the goddess of the moon, but she was considered a personification of the moon itself and that was how she was portrayed by many of the old poets and writers. [29] Empedocles, Euripides and Nonnus all describe her as (glaukpis, "bright-eyed", a common epithet of the goddess Athena)[30] while in a fragment from a poem, possibly written by Pamprepius, she is called (kyanpis, "dark-eyed"). [35] However, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes has Selene as the daughter of Pallas, the son of an otherwise unknown Megamedes. However, her greatest love was a lowly mortal named Endymion. These two goddesses have additional association with Hecate. [117] Selene also appears on horseback as part of the Gigantomachy frieze of the Pergamon Altar. There are a few different versions of the myth. Learn more about our mission. For centuries, those affected by mental illness were referred to as lunatics.. https://mythopedia.com/topics/selene, Avi Kapach is a writer, scholar, and educator who received his PhD in Classics from Brown University. Selene was the Greek goddess of the moon. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. [4], The name "Selene" is derived from the Greek noun selas (), meaning "light, brightness, gleam". fr. She was the goddess of the dawn and brought new light to the world every morning. 7 (all cited in the scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 4.57); Sappho, frag. Selene is probably most famous for her love of Endymion, a handsome young man from Asia Minor (though some said that he was from Elis). [52] There are no mentions of Selene's chariot in either Homer or Hesiod,[53] but the Homeric Hymn to Selene, gives the following description: The air, unlit before, glows with the light of her golden crown, and her rays beam clear, whensoever bright Selene having bathed her lovely body in the waters of Ocean, and donned her far-gleaming raiment, and yoked her strong-necked, shining team, drives on her long-maned horses at full speed, at eventime in the mid-month: then her great orbit is full and then her beams shine brightest as she increases. The air, unlit before, glows with the light of her golden crown, and her rays beam clear, whensoever bright Selene having bathed her lovely body in the waters of Ocean, and donned her far-gleaming raiment, and yoked her strong-necked, shining team, drives on her long-maned horses at full speed, at eventime in the mid-month: then her great orbit is full and then her beams shine brightest as she increases. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [8], Selene began appearing in the visual arts around the early fifth century BCE. The other gods, angered, sent him two lions to tear him apart. One of the most important sources of this myth is in the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosatas Dialogues of the Gods, where Aphrodite and Selene talk about the latters love for Endymion. [13], Selene, along with her brother, her sister and the sky-god Zeus, is one of the few Greek deities of a clear Proto-Indo-European origin, although they were sidelined by later non-PIE newcomers to the pantheon, as remaining on the sidelines became their primary function, to be the minor deities the major ones were juxtaposed to, thus helping keep the Greek religion Greek. Selene was the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. [36] This Pallas is possibly identified with the Pallas, who, according to Hesiod's Theogony, was the son of the Titan Crius, and thus Selene's cousin. It did not take long for Zeus to notice something was amiss. From her immortal head a radiance is shown from heaven and embraces earth; and great is the beauty that ariseth from her shining light. The moon goddess and Artemis were occasionally shown as companions. Though Selene had many consorts, the most famous of them was Endymion, a handsome young mortal. There are three different ways you can cite this article. A third version of the story had Endymion himself choose an ageless sleep as opposed to living a mortal life. (Also, the name of the Titan Goddess Phoebe and an epithet of Artemis.). The lunar goddess was also important for her influence over female fertility cycles and childbirth. As Luna, she had temples at Rome on the Aventine and Palatine hills. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. Selene goddess of the moon, Athenian red-figure kylix C5th B.C., Antikensammlung Berlin. Does the sculpted girl speak to women too?" [108], In antiquity, artistic representations of Selene/Luna included sculptural reliefs, vase paintings, coins, and gems. [28], Another version is known only from Lucian, a satirical writer from the second century CE. The goddess Selene was the daughter of Titius Hyperion and Theia. The goddess of the moon does not seem to have been the object of much ritual worship in the early Greek period. [40][41] Furthermore, in Virgil's Aeneid, when Nisus calls upon Selene/the Moon, he addresses her as "daughter of Latona. [87], According to the late account of Nonnus, when the gigantic monster Typhon laid siege against the heavens, he attacked Selene as well by hurling bulls at her, though she managed to stay in her course, and rushed at her hissing like a viper. How old is the United States of America? Selene fought back the giant, locking horns with Typhon; afterwards, she carried many scars on her orb, reminiscent of their battle. 1999, Mark P. O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology, page 43, Balancing Arria is the union of Selene and Endymion. Every evening, Selene ushered in nightfall and then drove her chariot through the night before giving way to dawn. Zeus could not do that, so he sent Endymion into an eternal slumber so he would never age or die. Same thing happened with Helius and Apollo. Their daughter Eos was the first to appear each day. [128], Originally, Pandia may have been an epithet of Selene,[129] but by at least the time of the late Hymn to Selene, Pandia had become a daughter of Zeus and Selene. 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