At that time, he did not wish for the sun to rise for three days and sent instructions to Selene via Hermes so it should be so. Selene leaving her chariot, Roman mosaic, Andalusia. Selenes role in this war was not only to fight against the giants. It did not take long for Zeus to notice something was amiss. Selene - Mythology. Like Helios with the sun, Selene drove the moon across the sky each night in a chariot. Hesiod, Catalogue of Women frag. Her brother Helios shone as the sun, while her sister Eos was the goddess of the dawn. Plutarch, On the Face in the Moon 30, On Isis and Osiris 52; Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 10.337; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 10.214, 44.70. Selene was more than just a lunar goddess, she was the embodiment of the moon and its light. [59] Though the moon chariot is often described as being silver,[60] for Pindar it was golden. Francoise Gury, Selene/Luna, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich: Artemis, 1994), 7:70615. [95], Anaxagoras also reports that the Nemean lion was said to have fallen from the moon. [97] Hyginus says that Selene had "nourished" the lion in a "two-mouthed cave". Both of these Goddesses are also associated with Hecate. I have been in love with all things related to Mythology. Eos represented the warm light that could be seen coming up above the horizon before the sun appeared in full. Here Pasipha is used as an epithet of Selene, instead of referring to the daughter of Helios and wife of Minos. If you thought Artemis was the Greek goddess of the moon, you are only partially right. Attic red-figure kylix showing Selene riding the chariot of the moon, drawn by two winged horses. [72] A scholiast on Apollonius says that, according to Epimenides, Endymion fell in love with Hera, and Zeus punished him with eternal sleep. 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. Their names differed from the other triads of Horae and they were considered to be the personifications of the four seasons itself. The lunar goddess was also important for her influence over female fertility cycles and childbirth. Selene fought back the giant, locking horns with Typhon; afterwards, she carried many scars on her orb, reminiscent of their battle. The fifty daughters of Selene and Endymion mark the fifty lunar months of the four year Olympiad Cycle. Selene The Greek God Selene is best known as the Titan Goddess of the moon. This is a relatively late text. the crescent moon, full moon, and dark moon, as delinted by the divisions of the calendar month).[154]. [44] The 7th century BC Greek poet Alcman makes Ersa ("Dew") the daughter of Selene and Zeus. This irritated Endymion, and enraged Selene, who transforms the girl into a fly (Ancient Greek: , romanized:mua). She was the Greek goddess of the Moon and her sisters were the Eos and Helios. 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. While other goddesses were associated with the night in more general terms, Selene was believed to be the embodiment of the moon herself. [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. However, her greatest love was a lowly mortal named Endymion. 68 A75 D-K). Selene is the goddess of the moon. Selene then turned Lilaeus into a mountain, Mt. 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. These two goddesses have additional association with Hecate. 500450 BCE. [8] The masculine form of mene (men) was also the name of the Phrygian moon-god Men. The goddess of the hunt became associated with the moon and lunar cycles. [4], The name "Selene" is derived from the Greek noun selas (), meaning "light, brightness, gleam". One of the names given for Selene, and occasionally for an independent personification, was Mene. Along with Selenes siblings, the moon goddess suppressed her light so that the mighty Titanan goddess could not find a herb that would reputedly make the Giants invincible. In some cases, it is debated whether she indeed was the mother. 116, no. It seems that Selene was not uninvolved in the twelve tasks of Heracles either. "[139] Roman philosopher Cicero connected Selene's Roman counterpart Luna's name to childbirth goddess Lucina's, both deriving from "light" (thus bringing the unborn child into the light). 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. [148] Records show that a type of cake called (bos, "ox") decorated with horns to represent the full moon or an ox was offered to her and other divinities like Hecate, Artemis and Apollo. Many of Selenes epithetsincluding (agl, gleaming), (pasiph, all-shining), and (tanyspteros, long-winged)reflected her lunar qualities and other distinctive attributes. 3 Most Important Characters in Greek Mythology, 5 Awesome Greek Mythology Fiction Books for Kids, Aphrodite Facts: Awesome Facts about the Goddess of Love and Beauty. Like every celestial goddess , there was a yin to Selene's yang; In this case, there were two yins. The second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft following was named SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) after Selene, and was also known as Kaguya in Japan. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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). That leaves Artemis and Selene. However, in the science fiction book The First Men on the Moon by H.G. 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. This was known as the Gigantomachy. While there were many goddesses associated with the moon and lunar powers, Selene personified the moon and its light. While Selene was known for pulling the moon across the sky in her silver . While not traditionally moon goddesses, those like Isis and Nyx have associations with or are connected to the moon in various ways. According to Lucian, Selene had a rival for Endymions love named Myia. [8], Selene began appearing in the visual arts around the early fifth century BCE. Sometimes these were winged horses, although some later accounts had the chariot drawn by bulls. 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. The most important of Selenes symbols was her moon chariot. Most mythologists assumed that Selene was an older moon goddess that was replaced later by Artemis in myth. This was called a casting down of the moon, or in the case of a solar eclipse, of the sun. [2] She was often associated with cycles of growth and agriculture, female menstruation, and mysterious diseases like epilepsy and demonic possession. Hecate and her followers, for example, asked Selene for her cooperation in their magic. 127 ff (trans. Pan, the god of the wild, supposedly seduced Selene while dressed in a sheepskin. Selene is a Goddess in herself, but she is often associated with Artemis, the archer Goddess. If you have read Greek mythology and the famous epics of ancient Greece, you may be quite familiar with her brother Helios. They included: The lunar goddesses sometimes worked together. The ancient Greeks saw her as the actual representation of the moon. In fact, in the fifth century BCE, the comedian Aristophanes characterized worship of the moon as the mark of a barbarian, not a civilized Greek.[33]. Selene visited the sleeping Endymion where he lay alone in a cave everyday and had fifty daughters with him, the Menai, the personification of the Greek lunar months. [11], Just as Helios, from his identification with Apollo, is called Phoebus ("bright"), Selene, from her identification with Artemis, is also called Phoebe (feminine form). [73] 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". 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). Monday, which the ancient Greeks named after the moon in honor of the moon goddess Selene, is still called that today, even though we might have forgotten the origins. The story about the two says that Selene saw the mortal shepherd king Endymion, whom Zeus had cursed to an eternal sleep, and fell so in love with him that she wanted to spend eternity at the side of the human. [7] The Greek word mene, meant the moon, and the lunar month. 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. Although Zeus had taken many mortal lovers, the goddess of the moon had been abandoning her duties and could cause chaos if she continued. My name is Mike and for as long as I can remember (too long!) She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios, and Eos, goddess of the dawn. . She was also well known for her many affairs with men and her love that possibly . [28] 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". Secretive and shy, she enjoys flitting silently through the night with a pearl-white or silvery chariot. Artemis is also a Goddess of the moon. Selene, one of the younger generation of Titans, was also the Greek goddess of the moon. Her request granted, Selene visited him regularly; some sources even reported that they had children together (see above).[27]. But while there, he committed some transgression (usually, he was said to have fallen in love with Zeus wife Hera). Whether this Pallas (called the son of Megamedes) is the same as the Titan Pallas or a different individual entirely is unclear. Though Hesiod made the Nemean Lion the child of Echidna, other authors wrote that Selene gave birth to it or brought it up at Heras request. ", Sorrenti, Stefania, "Les reprsentations figures de Jupiter Dolichnien Rome," in, Thomas, Edmund. Please like and share this article if you found it useful. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. This story seems to have made its way into Roman mythology as well since many of the greatest Roman scholars, from Cicero to Seneca, have written about it. [146], Her and her brother's worship is also attested in Gytheum, a town in Laconia near Sparta, via an inscription (C.I.G. He soon discovered the source of Selenes distraction. What are Hades Powers that are Really Scary? 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