Selene
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Selene is the goddess and personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene, she is traditionally the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun god Helios and the dawn goddess Eos. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, her brother Helios and the mortal Endymion. In post-classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate and all three were regarded as moon and lunar goddesses, but only Selene was regarded as the personification of the Moon itself.
Her equivalent in Roman religion and mythology is the goddess Luna.
Etymology and origins
Names
The name "Selene" is derived from the Greek noun selas, meaning "light, brightness, gleam". In the Doric and Aeolic dialects, her name was also spelled Σελάνα and Σελάννα respectively.Selene was also called Mene. The Greek word mene, meant the moon, and the lunar month. The masculine form of mene was also the name of the Phrygian moon-god Men. Mene and Men both derive from Proto-Hellenic *méns, itself from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s, which probably comes from the root *meh₁-, and is cognate with the English words "Moon" and "month". The Greek Stoic philosopher Chrysippus interpreted Selene and Men as, respectively, the female and male aspects of the same god.
Although no clear attestation for Selene herself has been discovered, in Mycenaean Greek the word for month 'men' has been found in Linear B spelled as .
Just as Helios, from his identification with Apollo, is called Phoebus, Selene, from her identification with Artemis, is also called Phoebe. Also from Artemis, Selene was sometimes called "Cynthia", meaning "she of Mount Cynthus".File:Sarcophagus Selene Endymion Met 47.100.4ab n03.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Detail of a sarcophagus depicting Endymion and Selene, shown with her characteristic attributes of lunate crown, billowing veil and heavenly chariot, from 3rd century AD, Roman Empire period.
Origin
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.The original PIE moon deity has been reconstructed as *Meh₁not, and it appears that it was a male god. The Greek offshoot of this deity however is female. The ancient Greek language had three grammatical genders, so when a god or a goddess personified an object or a concept, they inherited the gender of the corresponding noun; selene, the Greek noun for 'Moon', is a feminine one, so the deity embodying it is also by necessity female. In PIE mythology, the Moon, which is a male figure, was seen as forming a pair—usually wedlock—with the Sun, which is a female figure, and which in Greek mythology is recognized in the male deity and Selene's brother Helios. It seems however that unlike the Dawn and the Sun, the Moon had very little importance in PIE mythology.
Although attempts have been made to connect Selene to Helen of Troy due to the similarity of their names, in two early dedications to Helen from Laconia her name is spelled with a digamma, ruling out any possible connection between them. 'Helen' is more likely related to 'Helios' instead, and it seems that the two figures stem from a common Proto-Indo-European ancestor, the Sun Maiden.
Descriptions
Surviving descriptions of Selene's physical appearance and character, apart from those which would apply to the Moon itself, are scant. There is no mention of Selene as a goddess in either the Iliad or the Odyssey of Homer, while her only mention in Hesiod's Theogony is as the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, and sister of Helios and Eos. She was, however, the subject of one of the thirty-three Homeric Hymns, which gives the following description:Two other sources also mention her hair. The Homeric Hymn to Helios uses the same epithet εὐπλόκαμος, used in the above Hymn to Selene, while Epimenides uses the epithet ἠυκόμοιο.
In late accounts, Selene is often described as having horns. The Orphic Hymn to Selene addresses her as "O bull-horned Moon", and further describes her as "torch-bearing,... feminine and masculine,... lover of horses," and grantor of "fulfillment and favor". Empedocles, Euripides and Nonnus all describe her as γλαυκῶπις while in a fragment from a poem, possibly written by Pamprepius, she is called κυανῶπις. Mesomedes of Crete calls her γλαυκὰ.
Family
Parents
The usual account of Selene's origin is given by Hesiod in his Theogony, where the sun-god Hyperion espoused his sister Theia, who gave birth to "great Helios and clear Selene and Eos who shines upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless Gods who live in the wide heaven". The Homeric Hymn to Helios follows this tradition: "Hyperion wedded glorious Euryphaëssa, his own sister, who bare him lovely children, rosy-armed Eos and rich-tressed Selene and tireless Helios", with Euryphaëssa probably being an epithet of Theia. However, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes has Selene as the daughter of Pallas, the son of an otherwise unknown Megamedes. 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. Other accounts give still other parents for Selene: Euripides has Selene as the daughter of Helios, while an Aeschylus fragment possibly has Selene as the daughter of Leto, as does a scholium on Euripides's play The Phoenician Women which adds Zeus as the father. Furthermore, in Virgil's Aeneid, when Nisus calls upon Selene/the Moon, he addresses her as "daughter of Latona."Offspring
According to the Homeric Hymn to Selene, the goddess bore Zeus a daughter, Pandia, "exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods". The 7th century BC Greek poet Alcman makes Ersa the daughter of Selene and Zeus. Selene and Zeus were also said to be the parents of Nemea, the eponymous nymph of Nemea, where Heracles slew the Nemean Lion, and where the Nemean Games were held.From Pausanias we hear that Selene was supposed to have had fifty daughters, by her lover Endymion, often assumed to represent the fifty lunar months of the Olympiad. Nonnus has Selene and Endymion as the parents of the beautiful Narcissus, although in other accounts, including Ovid's Metamorphoses, Narcissus was the son of Cephissus and Liriope.
Quintus Smyrnaeus makes Selene, by her brother Helios, the mother of the Horae, goddesses and personifications of the four seasons; Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Quintus describes them as the four handmaidens of Hera, but in most other accounts their number is three; Eirene, Eunomia, and Dike, and their parents are Zeus and Themis instead.
Lastly, Selene was said to be the mother of the legendary Greek poet Musaeus, with, according to Philochorus, the father being the legendary seer Eumolpus.
Mythology
Goddess of the Moon
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. There are no mentions of Selene's chariot in either Homer or Hesiod, but the Homeric Hymn to Selene gives the following description:The earliest known depiction of Selene driving a chariot adorns the inside of an early 5th century BC red-figure cup attributed to the Brygos Painter, showing Selene plunging her chariot, drawn by two winged horses, into the sea. The geographer Pausanias, reports seeing a relief of Selene driving a single horse, as it seemed to him, or as some said, a mule, on the pedestal of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. While the sun chariot has four horses, Selene's usually has two, described as "snow-white" by Ovid. In some later accounts the chariot was drawn by oxen or bulls. Though the moon chariot is often described as being silver, for Pindar it was golden.
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. References to this magical trick, variously referred to as καθαιρεῖν, are scattered throughout ancient literature, whereas eclipses of both the Sun and the Moon were called kathaireseis by the Greek populace. A famous example of that is Aglaonice of Thessaly, an ancient Greek astronomer, who was regarded as a sorceress for her ability to make the Moon disappear from the sky. This claim has been taken–by Plutarch at first, and subsequently by modern astronomers–to mean that she could predict the time and general area where an eclipse of the Moon would occur. Those who brought down the Moon were thought to bring ill fortune upon themselves, as evidenced by the proverb ἐπὶ σαυτῷ τὴν σελήνην καθαιρεῖς said for those who caused self-inflicted evils; some witches supposedly avoided this fate by sacrificing their children or their eyeballs.
In popular and common belief, Selene as the Moon came to be associated with physical growth, menstruation and sickness, the latter particularly in the context of demonic possession or even epilepsy. Owing to her role as the moon goddess, she was sometimes called Nyctimedusa, meaning "queen of the night".
Endymion
Selene is best known for her affair with the beautiful mortal Endymion. The late 7th-century – early 6th-century BC poet Sappho apparently mentioned Selene and Endymion. 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:The eternally sleeping Endymion was proverbial, but exactly how this eternal sleep came about and what role, if any, Selene may have had in it is unclear. According to the Catalogue of Women, Endymion was the son of Aethlius, and Zeus granted him the right to choose when he would die. A scholiast on Apollonius says that, according to Epimenides, Endymion fell in love with Hera, and Zeus punished him with eternal sleep. However, Apollodorus says that because of Endymion's "surpassing beauty, the Moon fell in love with him, and Zeus allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to sleep for ever, remaining deathless and ageless". Theocritus portrays Endymion's sleep as enviable because of Selene's love for him. Cicero seems to make Selene responsible for Endymion's sleep, so that "she might kiss him while sleeping". The Roman playwright Seneca, has Selene abandoned the night sky for Endymion's sake having entrusted her "shining" moon chariot to her brother Helios to drive. The Greek satirist Lucian's dialogue between Selene and the love goddess Aphrodite has the two goddesses commiserate about their love affairs with Endymion and Adonis, and suggests that Selene has fallen in love with Endymion while watching him sleep each night. In his dialogue between Aphrodite and Eros, Lucian also has Aphrodite admonish her son Eros for bringing Selene "down from the sky". While Quintus Smyrnaeus wrote that, while Endymion slept in his cave beside his cattle:
Lucian also records an otherwise unattested myth where a pretty young girl called Muia becomes Selene's rival for Endymion's affections; the chatty maiden would endlessly talk to him while he slept, causing him to wake up. This irritated Endymion, and enraged Selene, who transforms the girl into a fly. In memory of the beautiful Endymion, the fly still grudges all sleepers their rest and annoys them.
Philologist Max Müller's interpretation of solar mythology as it related to Selene and Endymion concluded that the myth was a narrativized version of linguistic terminology. Because the Greek endyein meant "to dive," the name Endymion at first simply described the process of the setting sun "diving" into the sea. In this case, the story of Selene embracing Endymion, or Moon embraces Diver, refers to the sun setting and the moon rising.