So she is a sure token and a sign to mortal men. Most famous classical poets describe her beauty as so intriguing that gods and mortals alike could not resist her godly charms. Though Selene almost never appears in modern adaptations of Greek mythology, she is nonetheless present in pop culture as the personification of the moon. Selene is a Titan goddess in Greek mythology. Obbink, Dirk (2002), "'All Gods are True' in Epicurus" in, Obbink, Dirk (2011) "56. [27], In late accounts, Selene (like the moon itself) is often described as having horns. Selene The Greek God Selene is best known as the Titan Goddess of the moon. The cave in Anatolia where Endymion was said to sleep became a holy place for Selene. In antiquity, Selene would also often be depicted either riding upon a bull, or upon a silvery chariot drawn by two winged horses. The light that humans saw from earth emanate from them, a legacy of their lustrous father. At night he drove below the edge of the world in the west, circling below Gaia to reappear on the eastern horizon by morning. By all accounts, Selene seemed to have played a major role in this war. Hesiod, Catalogue of Women frag. Helius, Selene, Eos, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Nike, Boreas, Zephyrus, Astra) GREEK VASE PAINTINGS GALLERY 8 (83 IMAGES) And along with Selene, the moon moved as well. And if Selene and Helios did not work together, as the personifications of the moon and the sun, there would be absolute chaos in the world. Oil lamp fragment with the head of Selene, early classical period, Muse de Die. In her Full Moon state, she is Panselene or . Greek months began with the first new moon and were organized into three ten-day weeks that roughly followed the progression of the lunar cycle. Selene personified the moon and was one of the Greek goddesses of the night. 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. That haunted cave [on Mount Latmos] of fair-haired Nymphai (Nymphs) where, as Endymion slept beside his kine, divine Selene watched him from on high, and slid from heaven to earth; for passionate love drew down the immortal stainless queen of night. Hill, D. E. "THE THESSALIAN TRICK." The goddess Selene was the daughter of Titius Hyperion and Theia. Selene goddess of the moon, Athenian red-figure kylix C5th B.C., Antikensammlung Berlin. 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. [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. [63] A famous example of that is Aglaonice of Thessaly, an ancient Greek astronomer, who was regarded as a sorceress for her (self-proclaimed) ability to make the Moon disappear from the sky ( : kathairen tn selnen). 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. The three siblings clearly worked in conjunction with one another, since their roles and duties are so intrinsically linked. [35] However, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes has Selene as the daughter of Pallas, the son of an otherwise unknown Megamedes. Secretive and shy, she enjoys flitting silently through the night with a pearl-white or silvery chariot. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. [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]. 3. 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. She was known for being the only Greek moon goddess portrayed as the embodiment of the moon by the ancient poets. Their daughter Eos was the first to appear each day. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [7] The Greek word mene, meant the moon, and the lunar month. Selenes role in this war was not only to fight against the giants. Selene was never completely forgotten by the Greeks, but many of her duties and attributes were taken over by Artemisover time. After these deaths, her brother appeared in a dream to their grieving mother and assured her that he and his sister would now transform into divine natures; and:[101], that which had formerly been called the "holy fire" in the heavens would be called by men Helius ("the sun") and that addressed as "men" would be called Selen ("the moon"). 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. The Greeks recognized several goddesses as having a connection to the moon, but none was as closely associated with it as Selene. [96] Pseudo-Plutarch's On Rivers has Hera collaborating with Selene, "employing magical incantations" to create the Nemean Lion from a chest filled with foam. 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]. [88], Ampelus was a very beautiful satyr youth, loved by the god Dionysus. As Luna, she had temples at Rome on the Aventine and Palatine hills. In later times, Selene was often associated with Artemis in the same way that her brother Helios was associated with Artemis brother Apollo. The Moirai In some traditions the Fates were seen as three aspects of the lunar goddess. The scientist Jons Jacob Berzelius named it such since the element was very similar in nature to tellurium, which was named after the Earth, whose Greek name is Tellus. Francoise Gury, Selene/Luna, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich: Artemis, 1994), 7:70615. What are Hades Powers that are Really Scary? In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Selene (/slini/; Greek: pronounced[seln], meaning "Moon"[2]) is the personification of the Moon. [93] Aelian states: "They say that the Lion of Nemea fell from the moon", and quotes Epimenides as saying:[94], For I am sprung from fair-tressed Selene the Moon, who in a fearful shudder shook off the savage lion in Nemea, and brought him forth at the bidding of Queen Hera. If you thought Artemis was the Greek goddess of the moon, you are only partially right. Without Selene giving way to Eos, Helios could not bring the sun back to the world. She is pale, beautiful and indefinably alluring. Hail, white-armed goddess, bright Selene, mild, bright-tressed queen! Even though she, along with her siblings, was a Titan goddess because of her parentage, the three of them became quite central to the Greek pantheon and were accepted as Greek gods themselves after the fall of the great Titans. According to Greek mythology, the moon goddess Selene was the daughter of two Titans (mythological giants) called Hyperion and Theia. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. [37] Other accounts give still other parents for Selene: Euripides has Selene as the daughter of Helios (rather than sister),[38] while an Aeschylus fragment possibly has Selene as the daughter of Leto,[39] as does a scholium on Euripides's play The Phoenician Women which adds Zeus as the father. [1], Selene was often identified with other goddesses, including Men (also spelled Mene), the divine personification of the lunar month; Bendis, a goddess of Thracian origin; Hecate, a goddess of witchcraft; and (especially in later antiquity) Artemis, the goddess of hunting and wild things. Way). That was a basic unit of how the Greeks measured time in the old days. In it, Selene is depicted as fighting alongside Helios and Eos, seated side-saddle on a horse. Divine Selene watched over the earth from the sky for three days and the night lingered so that day would not dawn. While there were many goddesses associated with the moon and lunar powers, Selene personified the moon and its light. [85][86] Selene gallops sidesaddle in advance, and wears a woolen undergarment and a mantle. According to the Homeric Hymn 32, Selene and Zeus together had a daughter named Pandia. The goddess of the moon does not seem to have been the object of much ritual worship in the early Greek period. Each day she drives her two-horse chariot, heralding the breaking of the new day and her brother's arrival. "From the panteon of the gods to the Pantheon of Rome" in, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 02:32. Both Theocritus in his second Idyll and Pindar write about how young women would pray to or invoke spells in the name of the moon goddess for help with their love lives. She walked as quietly as possible to avoid frightening Endymion as he slept. 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. Described by Pausanias, it contained statues of Pasipha and Helios. Selene was represented on the pedestal of the throne of Zeus at Olympia, riding on a horse or a mule; 12 and at Elis there was a statue of her with two horns. Selene's Role She was the goddess of the moon, which she drove every night across the skies. Greek Gods / Helios. Selene was the Greek goddess of the moon. Selene had a relationship with the god Pan, according to Virgil. 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. Their daughter Eos was the first to appear each day. While her husbands team of horses usually consisted of four animals, Selenes chariot, like her light, was less powerful. Selene has a minor planet named after her, called 580 Selene. Helios was married to Perse, but he had quite a few extramarital affairs, and a number of children . Zeus heard of that, and ordered Selene as well as her siblings Helios (Sun) and Eos (Dawn) not to shine, and harvested all of that plant for himself. 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. These were Eiar, Theros, Cheimon, and Phthinoporon, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. [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. Kapach, A. Only a handful of religious centers of Selene are known from the ancient world. [90], When Zeus desired to sleep with the mortal queen Alcmene and sire Heracles, he made the night last three days, and ordered Selene via Hermes to dawdle in the sky during that time. 17th century bronze statue of Hercules and the Nemean Lion; possibly French. Virgil, Georgics 3.391ff; Servius on Virgils Georgics 3.391 (citing the second-century BCE poet Nicander as the original source). Selene, (Greek: "Moon") Latin Luna, in Greek and Roman religion, the personification of the moon as a goddess. The sky was dark at night and the sun more lethargic than usual. The goddess of the hunt became associated with the moon and lunar cycles. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.54ff; Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.1.4; Apollodorus, Library 1.7.5; cf. 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