In the center of the main panel Selene descends from her chariot, whose horses are held by a nymph, to join Endymion, who lies to the right. Homeric Hymn 4.99100. Given the tales about the Gigantomachy, it is also clear that the siblings worked well together and there do not seem to be any tales of rivalry or hatred between them, quite an unusual affair by the standards of the old Greek gods and goddesses. Selene herself most often wore a crown of gleaming silver, which matched her silver chariot. Every evening, Selene ushered in nightfall and then drove her chariot through the night before giving way to dawn. Ceto - Goddess of the Water. She was unique, however, in her relationship with the orb itself. [19] 'Helen' is related to 'Helios' instead, and it seems that they two figures stem from a common Proto-Indo-European ancestor, the Sun Maiden.[20][21]. 245 M-W; Pherecydes, FHG 1 frag. Helius, Selene, Eos, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Nike, Boreas, Zephyrus, Astra) GREEK VASE PAINTINGS GALLERY 8 (83 IMAGES) Selene also has several other names. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Updates? [134], Selene was sometimes associated with childbirth, for it was believed that during the full moon women had the easiest labours; this helped in her identification with the goddess Artemis,[138] as well as other goddesses connected to women's labours. Does the sculpted girl speak to women too?" In many cases it rested on her brow or jutted out on either side of her head like a crown or horns. [76] 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. 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. Her father was the Titan god of heavenly light, while her mother represented the blue color of the sky. The sky was dark at night and the sun more lethargic than usual. The Moirai In some traditions the Fates were seen as three aspects of the lunar goddess. [95], Anaxagoras also reports that the Nemean lion was said to have fallen from the moon. In the Homeric Hymn to Selene, she bears the beautiful Pandeic to Zeus, while Alcman says they are the parents of Herse, the dew. She was depicted as a woman riding sidesaddle on a horse or driving a chariot drawn by a pair of winged steeds. 2022 Wasai LLC. According to Hesiods 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). She was the goddess of the dawn and brought new light to the world every morning. Selene, the goddess of the moon, has two siblings: Eos, the goddess of the dawn, and Helios, the sun god. She was the Greek goddess of the Moon and her sisters were the Eos and Helios. Her fifty daughters with Endymion marked the fifty lunar months that passed between celebrations of the Olympiad. 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. When Selene spied him sleeping in a cave, she immediately fell in love and asked Zeus to extend his sleep for all eternity. Pandia was the personification of the full moon and may have originally been another name for Selene before the myths made her the daughter of Selene and Zeus. Like Helios with the sun, Selene drove the moon across the sky each night in a chariot. Selene (Greek mythology) The goddess of the Moon. By the 5th century bc Selene was sometimes identified with Artemis, or Phoebe, the bright one. She was usually represented as a woman with the moon (often in crescent form) on her head and driving a two-horse chariot. [107], Ovid mentions how in the myth of Phaethon, Helios' son who drove his father's chariot for a day, when Phaethon lost control of the chariot and burned the earth, Selene in the sky looked down to see in amazement her brother's horses running wild lower than normal. In ancient Greek mythology, Selene, is the Titan goddess of the moon and is said to drive her glowing chariot powered by beautiful white horses across the sky each night. [63][66], Selene is best known for her affair with the beautiful mortal Endymion. [89] One day, in Nonnus' account, Ampelus rode on a bull, and proceeded to compare himself to Selene, saying that he was her equal, having horns and riding bulls just like her. What Were the Hamadryads in Greek Mythology? 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. In Greek mythology, Ceto was a goddess of the water. Selene does not appear in modern adaptations of Greek myths, since she is not exactly one of the major Greek gods like Zeus or Aphrodite. [81], Philologist Max Mller's interpretation of solar mythology as it related to Selene and Endymion concluded that the myth was a narrativized version of linguistic terminology. According to early Greek myths, Selene used to be a Titan goddess of the moon and Artemis used to be a goddess of hunting and animals. Nyx is the goddess of the night and is thus associated with the new moon. Selene was, while not worshiped openly, apparently the object of many spells and invocations addressed to her by young women. Like Artemis, Selene was sometimes called Phoebe, a name that means bright one.. Virgil, Georgics 3.391ff; Servius on Virgils Georgics 3.391 (citing the second-century BCE poet Nicander as the original source). Two of the original twelve Titans descended from Uranus and Gaia, Hyperion was the Titan god of heavenly light while Theia was the Titan goddess of vision and the aether. [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. Both of these Goddesses are also associated with Hecate. The fifty daughters of Selene and Endymion mark the fifty lunar months of the four year Olympiad Cycle. Although Zeus had taken many mortal lovers, the goddess of the moon had been abandoning her duties and could cause chaos if she continued. Indeed, it reflects the fascinating way the Greeks observed the . Selene, one of the younger generation of Titans, was also the Greek goddess of the moon. 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. Selene and Endymion, in the mural above the stage of the Friedrich von Thiersch Saal in the Wiesbaden Kurhaus. 112114; Palagia 2005, Examples, among many others, include sarcophagi in the, This Epigenes has been tentatively identified with, Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in, Online version at Demonax | Hellenic Library, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, "Kaguya Another Chapter for the Lunar Saga", Online version at Harvard University Press, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library (Latin), Classical mythology in western art and literature, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Selene&oldid=1142206020, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Articles having different image on Wikidata and Wikipedia, Pages using sidebar with the child parameter, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Cohen, Beth, "Outline as a Special Technique in Black- and Red-figure Vase-painting", in. [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: [75] Cicero seems to make Selene responsible for Endymion's sleep, so that "she might kiss him while sleeping". [54], 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 (Berlin Antikensammlung F 2293). She is usually portrayed either driving a chariot (see above) or riding sideways on horseback[111] (sometimes riding an ox, a mule or a ram). But unlike other night goddesseslike Nyx, Hecate, and sometimes even ArtemisSelene represented the moon itself. Her Roman equivalent is Luna. The Theoi Project galleries contain more than 1,200 images of ancient Greek and Roman art. Like every celestial goddess , there was a yin to Selene's yang; In this case, there were two yins. Different sources vary as to whether the chariot was golden or silver, but a silver chariot would seem to fit better with the goddess of the moon. [112], Selene was often paired with her brother Helios. She was the personification of the moon, but was also associated with lunar elements such as tides, months, and even lunacy. Selene is the daughter of Titans Hyperion and Theia. [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. Greek mythology, body of stories concerning the gods, heroes, and rituals of the ancient Greeks. The Story of Selene. [122] As frequently depicted on Roman sarcophagi, Selene, holding a billowing veil forming a crescent over her head, descends from her chariot to join her lover, who slumbers at her feet. [64][65] Those who brought down the Moon were thought to bring ill fortune upon themselves, as evidenced by the proverb ("you are bringing down the Moon on yourself") said for those who caused self-inflicted evils; some witches supposedly avoided this fate by sacrificing their children or their eyeballs. Some nymphs in Greek mythology were famous, but others were only known in a certain time Apollo: The God of Music, Poetry, and Light, Hecate Greek Goddess of Witchcraft : The Complete Guide. They were even called by their names, Phoebe and Phoebus respectively, in some sources. Selene had a relationship with the god Pan, according to Virgil. But on nights the moon could not be seen, there was a very good reason for her absence. The chemical element Selenium was named after Selene by Jns Jacob Berzelius, because of the element's similarity to the element tellurium, named for the Earth (Tellus).[156][157]. Francoise Gury, Selene/Luna, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich: Artemis, 1994), 7:70615. The idea that Selene would also give easy labours to women paved way for identification with Hera and the Roman Juno and Lucina, three other childbirth goddesses; Plutarch calls Selene "Hera in material form. Mene, a name that she was also commonly known by, meant the moon or the lunar month, from the root mens which meant month. This is an attribute that she shares with her Roman equivalent Luna, where the latin luna also means moon.. -Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 10. Many of Selenes epithetsincluding (agl, gleaming), (pasiph, all-shining), and (tanyspteros, long-winged)reflected her lunar qualities and other distinctive attributes. 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