Selene

The Moon in Her Chariot

Selene is the moon itself, imagined as a goddess who bathes in Ocean and drives her horses across the sky at night. Hesiod places her with Helios and Eos among the children of Hyperion and Theia. The Homeric Hymn to Selene describes the radiance from her head filling the air and calls her full moon a sign and token to mortals, since the month was counted by her phases.

Endymion

Her best-known myth is her love for Endymion, a beautiful young man cast into endless sleep. Sources disagree on the details: in some he is a king of Elis, in others a shepherd on Mount Latmus in Caria, and the sleep is sometimes Zeus's gift and sometimes Selene's wish. The story became a favorite subject of Roman sarcophagi, where Selene descends from her chariot toward the sleeper.

Selene and Artemis

Selene is distinct from Artemis in early poetry. From the Classical period on, writers increasingly identified the moon with Artemis (as they identified the sun with Apollo), and in Roman art Luna and Diana overlap. Selene herself received little formal cult; she belongs more to poetry, astronomy, and magic than to temple worship.