User:Paul August/Selene

Selene

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Iconography

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Often a crescent moon rests on her brow, or the cusps of a crescent moon protrude, horn-like, from her head, or from behind her head or shoulders.

LIMC 13213 (Selene, Luna 21);

LIMC 13181 (Selene, Luna 4);

LIMC 18206 (Mithras 113);

LIMC 13207 (Selene, Luna 15);

LIMC 13264 (Selene, Luna 34);

LIMC 6780 (Selene, Luna 2);

LIMC 13186 (Selene, Luna 7);

LIMC 13188 (Selene, Luna 9);

LIMC 3076 (Selene, Luna 10);

LIMC 13211 (Selene, Luna 19).

Selene's head is sometimes surrounded by a nimbus, and from the Hellenistic period onwards, she is sometimes pictured with a torch.

LIMC 13213 (Selene, Luna 21);

LIMC 13181 (Selene, Luna 4);

LIMC 18206 (Mithras 113);

LIMC 13207 (Selene, Luna 15);

LIMC 13264 (Selene, Luna 34);

LIMC 6780 (Selene, Luna 2);

LIMC 13186 (Selene, Luna 7);

LIMC 13188 (Selene, Luna 9);

LIMC 3076 (Selene, Luna 10);

LIMC 13211 (Selene, Luna 19).

In later second and third century AD Roman funerary art, the love of Selene for Endymion and his eternal sleep was a popular subject for artists. 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.

• Murray (1892), p. 272

"On the painted vases the more usual representations of Selene show her riding sidewards on horseback,"

• Murray (1903), p. 47

"Returning to the general scheme of the east pediment, we observe that Selene in the right angle has of late been called Night. The argument is that Selene, in the time of Pheidias, had no chariot, but rode on a horse or a mule. On the base of Zeus at Olympia, Pausanias (v. II, 3) speaks of her having only one horse, and on certain contemporary vases she appears riding a horse or mule"

• Hammond, "SELENE", pp. 970–971

"...or she rides on a horse or mule or ox".

• Parisinou, p. 33–34

"The personified form of Selene appears in literature and art no later than that of the sun god, and is always mentioned in connection with her brightness. Her radiance is concentrated in her face in the Homeric Hymn to Selene 3–4 and embraces earth; it is enhanced by her contrast to the dark nocturnal sky. Her golden crown is specifically mentioned in the Hymn (5), together with her white arms (17) and a shining team of horses for her chariot which also appear in art from the early fifth century BC. Alternatively she rides a horse or mule among other celestial divinities such as Helios, Nyx and Eos. The abstract aspect of Selene's brightness is also pronounced in the Hymn (11-12) with regard to her waxing and waning, which are said to be useful signs to mortals (13). It also appears in art as a nimbus-like headdress of the goddess or next to her, while torches are not uncommon attributes of Selene from Hellenistic times onward."

• Parisinou, p. 35

"Horses form part of her [Eos] image in art as in the case of Helios, Nyx and Selene. In this respect, comparison may be made to non-celestial divinities whose image is associated with both light and horses in art and literature. ... The role of the horse in connection with divinities who incarnate or bear light is not clear. Could this be ... Further associations between celestial personifications and animals include bulls, possibly due ..."

• Pausanias, 5.11.8

"[Amongst the illustrations on the throne of Zeus at Olympia ] Selene (the Moon) is driving what I think is a horse. Some have said the that steed of the goddess is a mule and not a horse, and they tell a silly story about the mule."

• Roman, "Selene" p. 434:

"In visual representations, Selene appears with her attribute, the moon, or in company with Eos and Helios. In the Homeric Hymn, Selene is given wings, while in the Orphic Hymn she has horns; in art she is usually depicted with a crescent moon crowning her head but without wings. In antiquity, she appears on various media: reliefs, vase paintings, gems, and coins. Selene also appears on the Pergamon Altar in a scene representing the Gigantomachy. In an Attic red-figure kylix krater [Blacas Krater] from ca. 430 B.C.E. (British Museum, London), Selene is shown in company with her siblings. Here, Helios drives a four-horse chariot, and Eos pursues the hunter Cephalus on foot, while Selene rides on horseback."

Selene altar piece

Selene from an altar piece, flanked possibly by the Dioscuri, or Phosphoros (the Morning Star) and Hesperus (the Evening Star), Louvre.

• de Clarac

p. 340

p. 341

Les bustes de jeunes gens qui accompagnent les têtes de la Lune et qu'on désigne sous les noms de Phosphorus et d'Hesperus, Pétoile du matin et celle du soir, pourraient être aussi les génies de cet astre, comme sur d'autres bas-reliefs on voit ceux du Soleil: l'un, la tête levée et ayant devant lui une torche tournée vers le ciel, indique le lever dela Lune; l'autre, en inclinant la tête, désigne son coucher.

[Google:] The busts of young people who accompany the heads of the Moon and which we designate under the names of Phosphorus and Hesperus, the morning star and the evening star, could also be the geniuses of this star, as on other low - reliefs we see those of the Sun: one, the head raised and having before it a torch turned towards the sky, indicates the rising of the Moon; the other, tilting his head, indicates his bedtime.

Louvre

À la fin du XVIIIe siècle, l'autel servait de base à une statue d'Artémis du type Colonna, dans le petit temple de Diane, dans les jardins de la villa Borghèse. Les reliefs représenteraient Séléné, la déesse de la lune, sur le croissant, Océan, le dieu barbu, en compagnie des Dioscures ou de Phosphoros et Hespéros.

[Google:] At the end of the 18th century, the altar served as the base for a statue of Artemis of the Colonna type, in the small temple of Diana, in the gardens of Villa Borghese. The reliefs would represent Selena, the goddess of the moon, on the crescent, Ocean, the bearded god, in the company of the Dioscuri or Phosphoros and Hesperos.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi?

• Waldstein, (1885a) The Nineteenth Century, Volume 17, p. 671
• Waldstein, (1885b) Essays on the art of Pheidias, p. 176
• Pausanias 10.19.4

Horns

• Cashford, p. 25:

[The moon goddess Inanna] "'Crowned with great horns', she 'flares' in the sky at night. We are to imagine the goddess as the heavens, with the horns of the Crescent Moon as a crown upon her head, ..."

• Cashford, p. 70:

"Hathor, the Egyptian cow goddess with crescent horns, whose great belly was the heavens and whose four legs sttod upon the Earth as the pillars of the universe, was also in her nightly aspect the Moon.⁹

• Cashford, p. 103:

? [Get book page from library!]

• Cashford, p. 104:

"In early thinking, however, the sharp horns of a bull or cow were seen to match the pointed curve of the waxing and waning crescents so exactly that the powers of the one were attributed to the other, each gaining the other's potency as well as their own. ..."

• "She is sometimes portrayed with horns to symbolize the crescent moon." p. 67

• "horns representing the crescent moon" (p. 597)

Endymion Sarcophagus

• Myth Meaning, Memory on Roman Sarcophagi, 4. Endymion's Tale

• Living with Myths: The Imagery of Roman Sarcohagi, p. 96

• Hell and Its Afterlife, pp. 15–18

• Hell and Its Afterlife, p. 16

"The popularity of this myth on sarcophagi is evidenced by the 120 extant examples, as Sorabella notes, p. 70"

• Hell and Its Afterlife p. 18

"On one end of the Endymion sarcophagus, the Sun god Helios drives his chariot over the reclining personification of the Ocean, while on the other end the Moon goddess Selene rides over the female figure of the Earth (both not pictured)."

[Describing The Endymion Sarcophagus] " .. her veil billows over her head like a crescent-shaped moon, which when combined with the drapery of her dress, also forms the outline of the full moon"

• Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion, [2]

To Do

• Add dates to Iconography section?
• Encoporate Brill's New Pauly
• Copy p. 122 to folder
• Add examples of Selene called Mene
• Moon causing dew.
• Find Ruden, pp. 94-95
• Cashford
• Other sources for connection of Selene to selas
• Athanassakis and Wolkow, pp. 11, 89–94
• LSJ s.v. μήνη

A.moon, Il.19.374, Emp.42.3, A.Pr.797, E.Fr.1009: rare in Prose, Pythag. ap. Iamb.Protr.21.ιζ'; as a goddess, h.Hom.32.1, Pi.O.3.20.

• Look at Gury, "Selene, Luna" (LIMC) [in folder]

Old deleted text

Apollonius of Rhodes (4.57ff) refers to Selene, "daughter of Titan", who "madly" loved a mortal, the handsome hunter or shepherd—or, in the version Pausanias knew, a king— of Elis, named Endymion, from Asia Minor. In other Greek references to the myth, he was so handsome that Selene asked Zeus to grant him eternal sleep so that he would stay forever young and thus would never leave her: her asking permission of Zeus reveals itself as an Olympian transformation of an older myth: Cicero (Tusculanae Disputationes) recognized that the moon goddess had acted autonomously. Alternatively, Endymion made the decision to live forever in sleep. Every night, Selene slipped down behind Mount Latmus near Miletus to visit him.

Selene had fifty daughters, the Menae, by Endymion, including Naxos, the nymph of Naxos Island. The sanctuary of Endymion at Heracleia under Latmus on the southern slope of Latmus still exists as a horseshoe-shaped chamber with an entrance hall and pillared forecourt.

Her sister, Eos, is goddess of the dawn. Eos also carried off a human lover, Cephalus, which mirrors a myth of Selene and Endymion.

Amber orb

Add reference to "amber orb" from Orphic Hymn to note on "golden"?

Depictions 2

• Littleton, p. 1277

"Endymion was frequently represented in art, most notably as the subject of a long poem by John Keats (1795–1821) titled Endymion. The myth of Endymion inspired many 19th century artists and is also a popular theme of modern painting and poetry.

Other sources

• Queen of the Night: Rediscovering the Celtic Moon Goddess p. 58
• Greek Mythology Systematized p. 257
• Koortbojian, Michael, Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi University of California Press, 1995 UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004

New text

• Rudin, pp. 94–95?

Sources

Ancient

Aelian

On Animals

12.7

And moreover they say that the Lion of Nemea fell from the moon. At any rate Epimenides also has these words [fr. 2, Diels Vorsok.⁶ 1. 32]:

‘For I am sprung from the fair-tressed [ἠυκόμοιο] Moon, who in a fearful shudder shook off the savage lion in Nemea, and brought him forth at the bidding of Queen Hera.’

Aeschylus

fr. 170 Sommerstein [= fr. 170 Radt, Nauck]

Which neither the flaming orb of the sun looks upon, nor the starlike eye of Leto’s daughter.³

3 This is the earliest known text in which the moon is identified with Artemis (cf. on in which Orpheus apparently identified the sun with Apollo).

Alcman

fr. 57 Campbell [= Plutarch, Moralia, 659 B = fr. 48 Bergk = fr. 43 Diehl]

We observe this happening to the air also: it sheds dew especially at the full moon when it melts, as the lyric poet Alcman says somewhere when he talks in riddling fashion of the dew as daughter of air and moon:

such things as are nurtured by Dew, daughter of Zeus and Selene.

Anaxagoras

fr. A77 Curd [= Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica 1.498]

A77

Scholium on Apollonius of Rhodes 1.498: This same Anaxagoras declares that the moon is a flat broad place, from which, it is supposed, the Nemean lion had fallen.³³

³³ In Plutarch's essay On the Face in the Moon, there is a mention of a lion that fell from the moon onto the Peloponnese (937f).

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

4.54–65

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:

"Not I alone then stray to the Latmian cave, nor do I alone burn with love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to thee. And now thou thyself too hast part in a like mad passion; and some god of affliction has given thee Jason to be thy grievous woe. Well, go on, and steel thy heart, wise though thou be, to take up thy burden of pain, fraught with many sighs."

Apollodorus

1.2.2

Now to the Titans were born offspring: to Ocean and Tethys were born Oceanids, to wit, Asia, Styx, Electra, Doris, Eurynome, Amphitrite, and Metis; to Coeus and Phoebe were born Asteria and Latona; to Hyperion and Thia were born Dawn, Sun, and Moon;³

3 As to the offspring of Hyperion and Thia, see Hes. Th. 371ff.

1.6.1

But Earth, vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the giants, whom she had by Sky. These were matchless in the bulk of their bodies and invincible in their might; terrible of aspect did they appear, with long locks drooping from their head and chin, and with the scales of dragons for feet.2 They were born, as some say, in Phlegrae, but according to others in Pallene. And they darted rocks and burning oaks at the sky. Surpassing all the rest were Porphyrion and Alcyoneus, who was even immortal so long as he fought in the land of his birth. He also drove away the cows of the Sun from Erythia. Now the gods had an oracle that none of the giants could perish at the hand of gods, but that with the help of a mortal they would be made an end of. Learning of this, Earth sought for a simple to prevent the giants from being destroyed even by a mortal. But Zeus forbade the Dawn and the Moon and the Sun to shine, and then, before anybody else could get it, he culled the simple himself, and by means of Athena summoned Hercules to his help.

1.7.5 [= Zenobius 3.76]

Calyce and Aethlius had a son Endymion who led Aeolians from Thessaly and founded Elis. But some say that he was a son of Zeus. As he was of 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.¹

1 As to Endymion and the Moon, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.57ff., with the Scholiast; Paus. 5.1.4; Mythographi Graeci, ed Westermann, pp. 319ff., 324; Hyginus, Fab. 271. The present passage of Apollodorus is quoted almost verbally by Zenobius, Cent. iii.76, but as usual without mention of his authority. The eternal sleep of Endymion was proverbial. See Plat. Phaedo 72c; Macarius, Cent. iii.89; Diogenianus, Cent. iv.40; Cicero, 'De finibus v.20.55; compare Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i.38.92.

2.1.4

... and Danaus fifty daughters.

2.1.5

... When they had got their brides by lot, Danaus made a feast and gave his daughters daggers; and they slew their bridegrooms as they slept, all but Hypermnestra;

2.4.10

Now this Thespius was king of Thespiae, and Hercules went to him when he wished to catch the lion. The king entertained him for fifty days, and each night, as Hercules went forth to the hunt, Thespius bedded one of his daughters with him（ fifty daughters having been borne to him by Megamede, daughter of Arneus）; for he was anxious that all of them should have children by Hercules. Thus Hercules, though he thought that his bed-fellow was always the same, had intercourse with them all.1 And having vanquished the lion, he dressed himself in the skin and wore the scalp2 as a helmet.

Aratus

Phaenomena

733

§ 733 THE WEATHER SIGNS: Markest thou not? Whenever the Moon with slender horns shines forth in the West, she tells of a new month beginning: when first her rays are shed abroad just enough to cast a shadow, she is going to the fourth day: with orb half complete she proclaims eight days: with full face the mid-day of the month; and ever with varying phase she tells the date of the dawn that comes round.

Aristotle

Nicomachean Ethics

10.8.7

Yet nevertheless they have always been conceived as, at all events, living, and therefore living actively, for we cannot suppose they are always asleep like Endymion.

Callimachus

Aetia fr. 110 [Trypanis, Loeb 1973]

110 (The Lock of Berenice)^a

Having examined all the charted (?) sky, and where (the stars) move . . . Conon saw me also in the air, the lock of Berenice, which she dedicated to all the gods

a The Lock of Berenice is mainly known from the translation by Catullus (66). The Diegesis summing up the poem writes: “He (i.e. Callimachus) says that Conon set the lock of Berenice among the stars, which she had promised to dedicate to the gods on (her husband’s) return from the Syrian war.” Berenice was the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, who was the son of Berenice I, wife of Ptolemy I. The Syrian war referred to is the Third Syrian War (247–246 B.C.).

• Callimachus, Musaeus, Aetia, Iambi, Hecale and Other Fragments, Hero and Leander, edited and translated by C. A. Trypanis, T. Gelzer, Cedric H. Whitman, Loeb Classical Library No. 421, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1973. ISBN 978-0-674-99463-8. Online version at Harvard University Press.

Catullus

66.5–6 [Loeb]

how sweet love calls Trivia from her airy circuit, banishing her secretly to the rocky cave of Latmus

Carmina 66.5 [Perseus]

how sweet love with stealth detaining Trivia beneath the Latmian crags draws her away from her airy circuit

• Fowler: Kallim. fr. 110 (Cataullus 66.5-6)

Cicero

Tusculan Disputations

1.38.92 (Yonge, p. 50):

Endymion, indeed, if you listen to fables, slept once on a time on Latmus, a mountain of Caria, and for such a length of time that I imagine he is not as yet awake. Do you think that he is concerned at the Moon's being in difficulties, though it was by her that he was thrown into that sleep, in order that she might kiss him while sleeping."

Claudian

Rape of Prosperine

2.44–54

In it she had worked the birth of the sun from the seed of Hyperion, the birth, too, of the Moon, p323 though diverse was her shape — of sun and moon that bring the dawning and the night. Tethys affords them a cradle and soothes in her bosom their infant sobs; the rosy light of her foster-children irradiates her dark blue plains. On her right shoulder she carried the infant Titan, too young as yet to vex with his light, and his encircling beams not grown; he is pictured as more gentle in those tender years, and from his mouth issues a soft flame that accompanies his infant cries. The Moon, his sister carried on Tethys' left shoulder, sucks the milk of that bright breast, her forehead marked with a little horn.

3.403

and the Moon her bulls.

Diodorus Siculus

3.57.4–8

4 And when there were born to her two children, Helius and Selenê,​21 who were greatly admired for both their beauty and their chastity, the brothers of Basileia, they say, being envious of her because of her happy issue of children and fearing that Hyperion would divert the royal power to himself, committed an utterly impious deed; 5 for entering into a conspiracy among themselves they put Hyperion to the sword, and casting Helius, who was still in years a child, into the Eridanus​²² river, drowned him. When this crime came to light, Selenê, who loved her brother very greatly, threw herself down from the roof, but as for his mother, while seeking his body along the river, her strength left her and falling into a swoon she beheld a vision in which she thought that Helius stood over her and urged her not to mourn the death of her children; for, he said, the Titans would meet the punishment which they deserve, while he and his sister would be transformed, by some divine providence, into immortal natures, since that which had formerly been called the "holy fire" in the heavens would be called by men Helius ("the sun") and that [p. 269] addressed as "menê" would be called Selenê ("the moon"). 6 When she was aroused from the swoon she recounted to the common crowd both the dream and the misfortunes which had befallen her, asking that they render to the dead honours like those accorded to the gods and asserting that no man should thereafter touch her body. 7 And after this she became frenzied, and seizing such of her daughter's playthings as could make a noise, she began to wander over the land, with her hair hanging free, inspired by the noise of the kettledrums and cymbals, so that those who saw her were struck with astonishment. 8 And all men were filled with pity at her misfortune and some were clinging to her body, when there came a mighty storm and continuous crashes of thunder and lightning; and in the midst of this Basileia passed from sight, whereupon the crowds of people, amazed at this reversal of fortune, transferred the names and the honours of Helius and Selenê to the stars of the sky, and as for their mother, they considered her to be a goddess and erected altars to her, and imitating the incidents of her life by the pounding of the kettledrums and the clash of the cymbals they rendered unto her in this way sacrifices and all other honours.

Empedocles

fr. D132 Laks-Most = fr. B42 Diels-Kranz = Plutarch, Moralia 929 C–D (Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon 16)]

D132 (B42) Plut. Fac. orb. lun. 16 929C

D132 (B42) Plutarch, On the Face in the Moon

It [i.e. the lunar body] scattered his [i.e. the sun’s] rays

†All the way to the earth†¹ from above, and it obscured as much

Of the earth as was the breadth of the gray-eyed [γλαυκώπιδος] moon.

Euphorion

fr. 107 Lightfoot [= fr. 84 Powell = fr. 47 Meineke] [= Plutarch, Moralia 677 A]

107 Plut. Mor. 677 A

107 Plutarch, Table-Talk

Euphorion for instance wrote about Melicertes along the following lines:

Lamenting they deposited the youth on pines beside the shore,

Whence they derive a garland in the games.

For not yet had the harsh grip of the hands

Mastered the moon’s fierce child beside Asopus’ mother,¹³⁸

138 Heracles’ hands. He killed the Nemean lion, son of the moon, by strangling it (so ps.-Apoll. 2.5.1). The mother of the Asopus is Kelossa, a mountain just west of Nemea whence the river takes its source.

Euripides

The Phoenician Women

175–176

Daughter of the sun with dazzling zone, [176] O moon, you circle of golden light,

The Suppliants

990–994

Evadne

[990] What light, what radiancy did the sun-god's chariot dart forth, and the moon above the heaven, where they ride through the gloom,

fr. 1009

Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius 1.1280–1

. . . and the moon orbits, bright-faced [γλαυκῶπίς]

Hesiod

Theogony

326–329 (Most)

she²⁰ bore the deadly Sphinx, destruction for the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, Zeus’ illustrious consort, raised and settled among the hills of Nemea, a woe for human beings.

20 Probably Chimera.

371–374

And Theia was subject in love to Hyperion and bore great Helius (Sun) and clear Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn) who shines upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless Gods who live in the wide heaven.

375–377

And Eurybia, bright goddess, was joined in love to Crius and bore great Astraeus, and Pallas, and Perses who also was eminent among all men in wisdom.

fr. 10.58–62 Most [= fr. 10a Merkelbach-West]

Then] the mighty strength of godlike [Aethlius [58]

made [fair-formed vigorous Calyce] his wife;

and [she bore Endymion,] dear to the blessed gods: [60]

him Zeus honored,] and he gave him exceptional gifts:

he was his own dispenser of death and old age.

fr. 198 Most [= fr. 260 Merkelbach-West]

198 (260 MW) Schol. in Ap. Rhod. 4.58 (pp. 264.16–65.1 Wendel)

198 Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica

in the Great Ehoiai it is said that Endymion was carried up by Zeus to heaven, but that he was seized by desire for Hera and was deceived by the phantom of a cloud, and that because of this desire he was thrown out and went down to Hades.

Homeric Hymn to Helios (31)

6 [Evelyn-White]

rich-tressed Selene

ἐυπλόκαμόν τε Σελήνην

6 [West]

lovely-tressed Selene

Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4)

99–100 [Evelyn-White]

... while bright Selene, [100] daughter of the lord Pallas, Megamedes' son,

Homeric Hymn to Selene (32)

1–4 [Evelyn-White]

And next, sweet voiced Muses, daughters of Zeus, well-skilled in song, tell of the long-winged¹ [τανυσίπτερος] Moon. From her immortal head a radiance is shown from heaven and embraces earth; and great is the beauty that ariseth [5]

1 The epithet is a usual one for birds, cp. Hesiod, Works and Days, 210; as applied to Selene it may merely indicate her passage, like a bird, through the air, or mean “far-flying.”

1 [West 2003]

Tell of the fair, spread-winged Moon

5–14 [Evelyn-White]

[5] from her shining light. The air, unlit before, glows with the light of her golden crown, and her rays beam clear, whensoever bright Selene having bathed her lovely body in the waters of Ocean, and donned her far-gleaming raiment, and yoked her strong-necked, shining team, [10] drives on her long-maned horses at full speed, at eventime in the mid-month: then her great orbit is full and then her beams shine brightest as she increases. So she is a sure token and a sign to mortal men.

15–16 [Evelyn-White]

[15] Once the Son of Cronos was joined with her in love; and she conceived and bare a daughter Pandia, exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods.

17–20 [Evelyn-White]

Hail, white-armed goddess, bright Selene, mild, bright-tressed [ἐυπλόκαμος] queen! And now I will leave you and sing the glories of men half-divine, whose deeds minstrels, [20] the servants of the Muses, celebrate with lovely lips.

18 [West 2003]

lovely-tressed

Hyginus

Fabulae

Preface

12.1

Ex Hyperione et Aethra, Sol Luna Aurora.

From Hyperion and Aethra, Sol, Luna, Aurora. (Grant)

28.1

Ex Ioue et Luna, Pandi<a>.

From Jove and Luna, Pandia. (Grant)

30

The Nemean Lion, an invulnerable monster, which Luna had nourished in a two-mouthed cave,

271

YOUTHS WHO WERE MOST HANDSOME: ...Endymion, son of Aetolus, whom Luna loved.

Lucian

Dialogues of the Gods

19 (11) [Internet Archive]

19 (11) [Loeb]

Aphrodite and Selene

Aphrodite

What’s this I hear you’re up to, Mistress Moon? They say that every time you get over Caria, you stop your team and gaze at Endymion sleeping out of doors in hunter’s fashion, and sometimes even leave your course and go down to him.

Selene

Ask your own son,¹ Aphrodite; it’s his fault.

Aphrodite

You needn’t tell me. He’s got a cheek right enough. See what he’s done to me, his own mother. First he brought me down to Ida after Anchises the Trojan, and then to Mount Libanus after that Assyrian lad²; and then he made Persephone fall in love with the boy and robbed me of half my sweetheart. So I’ve threatened him time and again, if he doesn’t stop it, I’ll smash his archery set and strip off his wings. Last time I even took my sandal to his behind. But somehow or other, though he’s scared for the moment and begs for mercy, it’s not long before he’s forgotten all about it. But tell me, is Endymion good-looking? If so, your plight is sorry indeed.

Selene

I think he’s very good-looking, Aphrodite, especially when he sleeps with his cloak under him on the rock, with his javelins just slipping out of his left hand as he holds them, and his right hand bent upwards round his head and framing his face makes a charming picture, while he’s relaxed in sleep and breathing in the sweetest way imaginable. Then I creep down quietly on tip-toe, so as not to waken him and give him a fright, and then—but you can guess; there’s no need to tell you what happens next. You must remember I’m dying of love.

1 Eros.

2 Adonis.

20 (12) [Internet Archive]

20 (12) [Loeb]

Aphrodite and Eros

Aphrodite

Eros, my boy, you must watch what you’re about. I don’t mean on earth, when you persuade men to work against themselves or each other, but in heaven too, when you make Zeus turn into shape after shape, changing him into whatever you choose for the time, and bring Lady Moon down from the sky, ...

The Fly

10

The story goes that long ago there was a human being called Muia, a girl who was very pretty, but talkative, noisy, and fond of singing. She became a rival of Selene by falling in love with Endymion, and as she was for ever waking the boy out of his sleep by chattering and singing and paying him visits, he became vexed at her, and Selene in anger turned her into the fly we know.¹ So, in remembrance of Endymion, she begrudges all sleepers their repose, especially those of tender years; and even her biting and bloodthirstiness is not a sign of savagery, but of love and friendship. She gets what satisfaction she can, and culls something of the bloom of beauty.

1 The story explains the word μυῖα, “fly,” as having been originally the name of a girl.

Icaromenippus, or The Sky-Man

20.

Before I had gone a furlong upward, the moon spoke with a voice like a woman’s and said: “Menippus, I’ll thank you kindly to do me a service with Zeus.” “Tell me what it is,” said I, “it will be no trouble at all, unless you want me to carry something.” “Take a simple message and a request from me to Zeus. I am tired at last, Menippus, of hearing quantities of dreadful abuse from the philosophers, who have nothing else to do but to bother about me, what I am, how big I am, and why I become semicircular, or crescent-shaped. Some of them say I am inhabited, others that I hang over the sea like a mirror, and others ascribe to me—oh, anything that each man’s fancy prompts. Lately they even say that my very light is stolen and illegitimate, coming from the sun up above, and they never weary of wanting to entangle and embroil me with him, although he is my brother; for they were not satisfied with saying that Helius himself was a stone, and a glowing mass of molten metal.

21.

“But am I not aware of all the shameful, abominable deeds they do at night, they who by day are dour-visaged, resolute of eye, majestic of mien and the cynosure of the general public? Yet although I see all this, I keep quiet about it, for I do not think it decent to expose and illumine those nocturnal pastimes of theirs and their life behind the scenes. On the contrary, if I see one of them committing adultery or thieving or making bold to do anything else that best befits the night, I draw my garment of cloud together and veil my face at once, in order that I may not let the common people see old men bringing discredit on their long beards and on virtue. But they for their part never desist from picking me to pieces in talk and insulting me in every way, so that I vow by Night, I have often thought of moving as far away as possible to a place where I might escape their meddling tongues.

“So be sure to report all this to Zeus and to add, too, that I cannot remain in my place unless he destroys the natural philosophers, muzzles the logicians, razes the Porch, burns down the Academy, and stops the lectures in the Walks; for only then can I get a rest and cease to be surveyed by them every day.”

A True Story

22

Macrobius

Saturnalia

5.22.9–10

9. ‘In Virgil Pan is said to have lured the Moon with a snow-white gift of wool: “calling her into the deep groves” (G. 3.393) “with a snow-white gift of wool, if that deserves our credit” (G. 3.391†), and so on. Here Valerius Probus, a most accomplished man, remarks that he does not know on whose authority Virgil relates this anecdote or myth (fr. 9).

10. I am amazed that this escaped the great man: for Nicander is the source of this anecdote, a poet whom Didymus—the best trained of all grammarians who are or have been—calls a “myth-monger” (Strange Tales fr. 5). Aware of this, Virgil added “if that deserves our credit,” thus acknowledging that he had used a myth-monger as his source.

Nonnus

Dionysiaca

1.213–223

[The monster Typhoeus laid siege to heaven, challenging the rule of Zeus :] Many a time he [Typhoeus] took a bull at rest from his rustic plowtree and shook him with a threatening hand, bellow as he would, then shot him against Selene the Moon like another moon, and stayed her course, then rushed hissing against the goddess, checking with the bridle her bulls’ white yoke-straps, while he poured out the mortal whistle of a poison-spitting viper. But Titan Mene would not yield to the attack. Battling against the Gigante’s heads, like horned to hers, she carved many a scar on the shining orb of her bull’s horn; [222] and Selene’s radiant cattle bellowed amazed at the gaping chasm of Typhaon’s throat.

2.325

Selene, Endymion’s bed-fellow.

2.405–406

Some shots [of rocks from the monster Typhoeus when he was battling Zeus] went past Selene’s car, and scored through the invisible footprints of her moving bulls.

4.195–196

my comfort is Selene herself who felt the same for Endymion upon Latmos.

4.213–225

When the Moon saw the girl following a stranger along the shore above the sea, and boiling under fiery constraint, she reproached Cypris in mocking words : `So you make war even upon your children, Cypris! Not even the fruit of your womb is spared by the goad of love! Don’t you pity the girl you bore, hardheart? What other girl can you pity then, when you drag your own child into passion?--Then you must go wandering too, my darling. Say to your mother, Paphian’s child, `Phaethon mocks you, and Selene puts me to shame.’ Harmonia, love-tormented exile, leave to Mene her bridegroom Endymion, and care for your vagrant Cadmos. Be ready to endure as much trouble as I have, and when you are weary with lovebegetting anxiety, remember lovewounded Selene.'

5.70–73

he allotted the Oncaian Gate to Mene Bright-eyes [γλαυκώπιδι], taking the name from the honk of cattle, because the moon herself, bullshaped, horned, driver of cattle, [73] being triform is Titonis Athene.

5.162–166

One wing was covered with yellow jasper, one had the allwhite stone of Selene,^e which fades as the horned goddess [164] wanes, and waxes when Mene newkindled distills her horn's liguid light and milks out the self-gotten fire of Father Helios.

5.516–517

Shining Dawn carried off Orion for a bridegroom, and Selene Endymion,"

7.237–247

I believe Selene bathes in the Aonian [Theban] waves on her way to Endymion’s bed on Latmos, the bed of a sleepless shepherd; but if she has prinked herself out for her sweet shepherd, what’s the use of Asopos after the Ocean stream? And if she has a body white as the snows of heaven, what mark of the Moon has she? A team of mules unbridled and a mule-cart with silver wheels are there on the beach, but Selene knows not how to put mules to her yokestrap--she drives a team of bulls!

10.214–216

[Dionysus speculating on Ampelus' parentage] " ... Selene slept with Helios and brought you to birth wholly like the gracious Narcissos; for you have a like heavenly beauty, the image of horned Selene."

11.167–184

Then the bold boy [Ampelos] ... colt.

11.185–186

[Ampelos, love of Dionysos, riding on the back of a wild bull :] He shouted boldly to the fullfaced Moon (Mene)--`Give me best, Selene, horned driver of cattle!

11.187–223

Now I am both--I have horns and I ride a bull!’ So he called out boasting to the round Moon. Selene looked with a jealous eye through the air, to see how Ampleos rode on the murderous marauding bull. She sent him a cattlechasing gadfly; and the bull, pricked continually all over by the sharp sting, galloped away like a horse through pathless tracts . . . a headless corpse; his white body unburied was stained with ruddy gore.

12.1–5

So these [the Horae] by the brows of western Oceanos took ship for the mansion of Helios their father. ... Selene herself also darted out newrisen, showing her light as she drove her cattle.

13.553–556

... the song about the Latmian cowshed of the neversleeping herdsman, while he praised Endymion, the bride-groom of love-smitten Selene, as happy in love’s care on a neighbouring rock.

38.150

with Selene our Lady of Labour [Εὶλείθνια]

41.379–381

wise Endymion with changing bends of his fingers will calculate the three varying phases of Selene.

42.267

Sing Selene madly in love with Endymion.

44.191–192

"O daughter of Helios,^b Moon of many turnings, Nurse of all! O Selene, driver of the silver car!

48.581–583

There were the clustering blooms which have the name Narcissos the fair youth, whom horned Selene’s bridegroom Endymion begat on leafy Latmos,

48.668

Selene also the driver of bulls had her Latmian Endymion who was busy about the herds of cattle;

Philochorus

FHG fr. 200 (Müller) [= Scholia on Aristophanes's Frogs 1033]

Ovid

Amores

11.13.43–44 [Loeb]

Look, how many hours of slumber has Luna bestowed upon the youth she loves!^a

a Endymion.

1.13.43–44 [Perseus]

See how the moon does her Endymion keep

In night conceal'd, and drown'd in dewy sleep."

Ars Amatoria

3.83

Latmian Endymion brings no blush to thee, O Moon,

Fasti

3.109–110

and that the signs which the brother travels through in a long year the horses of the sister traverse in a single month.

3.409–410

’Tis said that the unshorn Ampelus, son of a nymph and satyr, was loved by Bacchus on the Ismarian hills.

4.373–374

When the next Dawn [Pallantias] shall have shone in the sky, and the stars have vanished, and the Moon shall have unyoked her snow-white steeds,

Heroides

15.89–90

Him should Phoebe behold, who beholds all things, ’twill be Phaon she bids continue in his sleep;

15.89 ff. [Perseus]

[Sappho to Phaon] If Cynthia, [epithet of Artemis, identified with Selene] whose eye extends over all, should chance to fix it upon you, Phaon [like Endymion] would be commanded to prolong his sleep.

• Commentary on the Heroides of Ovid 15 [Perseus]

[90] Jussus erit somnos continuare Sappho refers to the story of Endymion, a beautiful shepherd. The poets feign that Cynthia loved him, and cast him into a sound sleep, that she might kiss him without restraint. What is thought to have given rise to this story was, his being the first who discovered the course of the moon.

18.59–74

The moon for the most shed me a tremulous light as I swam, like a duteous attendant watchful over my path. Lifting to her my eyes, “Be gracious to me, shining deity,” I said, “and let the rocks of Latmos rise in thy mind! Endymion will not have thee austere of heart. Bend, O I pray, thy face to aid my secret loves. Thou, a goddess, didst glide from the skies and seek a mortal love; ah, may it be allowed me to say the truth!—she I seek is a goddess too. To say naught of virtues worthy of heavenly breasts, beauty like hers falls to none but the true divine. After the beautiful face of Venus, and thine own, there is none before hers; and, that thou mayst not need to trust my words, look thou thyself! As much as all the stars are less than thy bright fires when thy silvery gleam goes forth with pure rays, so much more fair is she than all the fair. If thou dost doubt it, Cynthia, thy light is blind.”

18.59 ff. [Perseus]

The Moon, like a faithful attendant to direct my way, furnished a trembling light as I traversed the flood. Regarding her with a wishful look, "Bright Goddess," I said, "favor my design, and call to mind the happy Latmian cliffs. Endymion cannot allow that you should be of an unrelenting mind; favor therefore with a friendly look these my stolen delights. You, though a Goddess, left heaven in quest of a mortal: ...

Metamorphoses

2.208–209 [as Phaethon attempting to drive the chariot of the sun looses control of the horses]

The Moon in amazement sees her brother’s horses running below her own

3.341–346

The first to make trial of his truth and assured utterances was the nymph, Liriope, whom once the river-god, Cephisus, embraced in his winding stream and ravished, while imprisoned in his waters. When her time came the beauteous nymph brought forth a child, whom a nymph might love even as a child, and named him Narcissus.

7.179–180

There were yet three nights before the horns of the moon would meet and make the round orb.

9.421

Pallantis⁶ lamented her husband’s hoary age;

6 Aurora.

15.191

there is still another aspect when Pallantias,¹ herald of the morning, stains the sky bright for Phoebus’ coming.

1 Aurora, see Index.

15.700

Ionium zephyris sextae Pallantidos ortu

Palatine Anthology

5.123

123.—Philodemos

Shine, Moon of the night, horned Moon, who lovest to look on revels, shine through the lattice and let thy light fall on golden Callistion. It is no offence for an immortal to pry into the secrets of lovers. Thou dost bless her and me, I know, O Moon; for did not Endymion set thy soul afire?

5.165

165.—Meleager.

Mother of all the gods, dear Night, one thing I beg, yea I pray to thee, holy Night, companion of my revels. If some one lies cosy beneath Heliodora’s mantle, warmed by her body’s touch that cheateth sleep, let the lamp close its eyes and let him, cradled on her bosom, lie there a second Endymion.¹

1 i.e. sound asleep.

6.58

58.—Isidorus Scholasticus of Bolbytine (?)

Thy friend Endymion, O Moon, dedicates to thee, ashamed, his bed that survives in vain and its futile cover; for grey hair reigns over his whole head and no trace of his former beauty is left.

Pausanias

5.1.4

The Moon, they say, fell in love with this Endymion and bore him fifty daughters. Others with greater probability say that Endymion took a wife Asterodia—others say she was Cromia, the daughter of Itonus, the son of Amphictyon; others again, Hyperippe, the daughter of Arcas—but all agree that Endymion begat Paeon, Epeius, Aetolus, and also a daughter Eurycyda. Endymion set his sons to run a race at Olympia for the throne; Epeius won, and obtained the kingdom, and his subjects were then named Epeans for the first time.

5.11.8

On the pedestal supporting the throne and Zeus with all his adornments are works in gold: the Sun mounted on a chariot, Zeus and Hera, Hephaestus, and by his side Grace. Close to her comes Hermes, and close to Hermes Hestia. After Hestia is Eros receiving Aphrodite as she rises from the sea, and Aphrodite is being crowned by Persuasion. There are also reliefs of Apollo with Artemis, of Athena and of Heracles; and near the end of the pedestal Amphitrite and Poseidon, while the Moon is driving what I think is a horse. Some have said that the steed of the goddess is a mule not a horse, and they tell a silly story about the mule.

6.24.6

The most notable things that the Eleans have in the open part of the market-place are a temple and image of Apollo Healer. The meaning of the name would appear to be exactly the same as that of Averter of Evil, the name current among the Athenians. In another part are the stone images of the sun [Ἡλίῳ] and of the moon [Σελήνῃ]; from the head of the moon project horns, from the head of the sun, his rays. There is also a sanctuary to the Graces; the images are of wood, with their clothes gilded, while their faces, hands and feet are of white marble. One of them holds a rose, the middle one a die, and the third a small branch of myrtle.

Pindar

Olympian

3.19–20

and in mid-month the full [20] evening's eye shone brightly, the Moon on her golden chariot,

fr. 104 Maehler

• Faraone p. 139

An ancient commentator on Theocritus' second Idyll tells us the following, when he explains why Simaetha in the couse of her agōgē spell asks Selene to appear:

Pindar says in the poems separate from his Partheneia that among lovers (erastōn), men pray for Helios to appear, but women pray for Selene to appear ... It is common for women who are mastered by passion (tais erōti katechomenais) to invoke Selene in prayer, just as even Euripides make Phaedra (i.e., invoke Selene) in his Hippolytus Veiled.²⁹

²⁹ Scholia to Theocritus 2.10b-c, which preserves Pindar frag. 104 (Maehler).

Plato

Phaedo

72c

in the end, you know, that would make the sleeping Endymion mere nonsense;

Republic

2.364e

And they produce a bushel1 of books of Musaeus and Orpheus, the offspring of the Moon and of the Muses, as they affirm,

Plutarch

Moralia

157 C [= The Dinner of the Seven Wise Men (Septem Sapientium Convivium) 14]

'...She said that the moon wanted her mother to weave for her a garment to fit her measure; and the mother said, 'How can I weave it to fit your measure? For now I see you full and round, and at another time crescent-shaped, and at still another but little more than half your full size.'

659 B–C [= Table-Talk (Quaestiones Convivales) 3.3]

The same thing happens to air, as we see; for especially at the time of the full moon it dissolves and precipitates dew, as, I suppose, the lyrist Alcman also suggests, calling dew the daughter of air and moon when he says^a

Such Hersa nourishes, daughter of Zeus

And Selenê divine.

Thus it is everywhere attested that moonlight has the property of producing moisture and softness.

^a Frag. 48 Bergk, 43 Diehl (1942); cf. Mor. 918 A, 940 A, with Cherniss’s notes, LCL Mor. xii, p. 175.

677 A [= Table-Talk (Quaestiones Convivales) 5.3 = Euphorion fr. 107 Lightfoot = fr. 84 Powell = fr. 47 Meineke]

Euphorion,^a for instance, wrote about Melicertes somewhat to this effect:

Weeping they laid the youth by the shore on boughs of pine,

When still they bore them as the victor’s crown.

Not yet had savage grip of hands brought down

Menê’s fierce-eyed son^b by Asopus’ daughter’s side.^c

a Probably Euphorion of Chalcis, born c. 276 b.c., a poet proverbially obscure in style and deviousness of mythological reference. (See Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina, Euph. 84.)

b The Nemean lion, son of the Moon (Menê or Selenê), according to Hyginus and Epimenides (Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker Epimenides, frag. 2).

c The stream Nemea named after the daughter (geneteira) of Asopus, god of the river near the seat of the Nemean Games. See Pausanias, v. 22. 6.

918 A [= Causes of Natural Phenomena (Quaestiones Naturales) 24]

Full moons precipitate dew, hence Alcman called dew the daughter of Zeus and Selene in the line

Fed by Dew, daughter of Zeus and Selana.^f

f Frag. 43 Diehl, cited again Quaest. Conviv. 659 B and De Facie, 940 A.

929 C–D (Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon (De Facie Quae In Orbe Lunae Apparet) 16) [= Empedocles fr. D132 Laks-Most = fr. B42 Diels-Kranz]

as Empedocles says,

From heaven above as far as to the earth, Whereof such breadth as had the bright-eyed moon She cast in shade,^b

b = Empedocles, frag. B 42 (i, p. 330. J1–13 [Diels-Kranz]).

934 D (Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon (De Facie Quae In Orbe Lunae Apparet) 21)

Empedocles give her the epithet ‘bright-eyed.’^d

d See 929 D supra and note b there; but Diels (Hermes', xv [1880], p. 176) because of ἀνακαλοῦνται thought that Plutarch must here have had in mind a verse of Empedocles that ended with the invocation, γλαυκῶπι Σελήνη. Cf. also Euripides, frag. 1009 (Nauck2).

940 A (Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon (De Facie Quae In Orbe Lunae Apparet) 25)

Therefore I shall rather turn to you, my dear Theon, for when you expound these words of Alcman’s,

<Such as> are nourished by Dew, daughter <of Zeus> and of <divine> Selene,^d

you tell us that at this point he calls the air ‘Zeus’ and says that it is liquefied by the moon and turns to dew-drops.^e

d Alcman, frag. 43 (Diehl) = 48 (Bergk4). In both Quaest. Conviv. 659 B and Quaest. Nat. 918 A Plutarch quotes the line as an explanation of the origin of dew, Cf. Macrobius, Sat. vii. 16. 31–32.

e Cf. Vergil, Georgics, iii. 337; Roscher, Selene und Verwandtes, p. 50, n. 200.

Propertius

Elegies 2.15.15–16

and it was naked that Endymion enraptured Phoebus’ sister and naked, they say, lay with the goddess.

Quintus Smyrnaeus

The Fall of Troy

1.147–149

like the moon's arching chariot-rail

When high o'er Ocean's fathomless-flowing stream

She rises, with the space half filled with light

Betwixt her bowing horns.

10.125–131

Teucer slew Zechis, Medon's war-famed son,

Who dwelt in Phrygia, land of myriad flocks,

Below that haunted cave of fair-haired 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.

10.336–343

And seated at her [Hera's] side were handmaids four

Whom radiant-faced Selene bare to the Sun

To be unwearying ministers in heaven,

In form and office diverse each from each;

For of these Seasons one was summer's queen,

And one of winter and his stromy star,

Of the spring the third, of autumn-tide the fourth.

So in four portions parted is man's year

Ruled by these Queens in turn—but of all this

Be Zeus himself overseer in heaven.

Sappho

fr. 199 Campbell [= Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 4.57]

199 Schol. Ap. Rhod. 4. 57 (p. 264 Wendel)

199 Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes

The story goes that Selene comes down to this cave¹ to meet Endymion. Sappho and Nicander in Europia Book 2 tell the story of the love of Selene (the Moon).

1 The cave on Mt. Latmos in Caria.

Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica

4.57 [= Sappho fr. 199 Campbell]

199 Schol. Ap. Rhod. 4. 57 (p. 264 Wendel)

199 Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes

The story goes that Selene comes down to this cave¹ to meet Endymion. Sappho and Nicander in Europia Book 2 tell the story of the love of Selene (the Moon).

1 The cave on Mt. Latmos in Caria.

4.58 [= fr. 198 Most [= fr. 260 Merkelbach-West]

198 (260 MW) Schol. in Ap. Rhod. 4.58 (pp. 264.16–65.1 Wendel)]

198 Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica

in the Great Ehoiai it is said that Endymion was carried up by Zeus to heaven, but that he was seized by desire for Hera and was deceived by the phantom of a cloud, and that because of this desire he was thrown out and went down to Hades.

Seneca

Medea

93–101

When she takes her place in the women’s dance,

her face alone outshines them all.

So the stars’ beauty wanes in the sun,

and the clustered Pleiades are hidden

when Phoebe in borrowed light

clasps her full orb with encircling horns.

<If the eager bridegroom espies her, a modest

blush suffuses her soft cheeks.>

So snowy whiteness blushes, suffused

by scarlet dye; so the dawn’s bright rays are viewed by a shepherd bathed in dew.

Phaedra

309–316

Fire touched the bright goddess of the darkened sky;

she forsook the night and entrusted her brother

with the different driving of her shining chariot.

He learned to guide the two-horse team

of night, and wheel in a tighter circuit.

But the nights did not keep their proper hours,

and day returned in a tardy dawn

as the burdened chariot’s axle trembled.

406–422

Queen of the forests, you who alone cherish the mountains, and alone are cherished as goddess in the lonely mountains: change these grim and threatening omens into good. O goddess, great amid the woods and groves, bright orb of heaven and splendor of night, by whose beams the world is lit alternately, three-formed Hecate: come here, favor my undertaking. Tame grim Hippolytus’ unbending spirit. Let him listen to me obligingly; soften his wild heart; let him learn to love, and feel shared flames of passion. Bind fast his mind; grim, hostile, fierce as he is, let him acknowledge Venus’ laws. Direct your power here: so may you fare bright-faced, and travel through rifted clouds with horns undimmed; so, as you guide the reins of the nighttime sky, may Thessalian chants never have power to drag you down, and may no herdsman win glory over you.²²

22 “Herdsman” alludes to Endymion, with whom Phoebe fell hopelessly in love; for spells drawing down the moon, see line 791 with footnote.

785–794

Or gazing on you from the starry heavens

the orb born after the old Arcadians

will be helpless to guide her shining horses.

Just lately she blushed, and there was no dingy

cloud obstructing her bright face.

We, alarmed at the deity’s gloom,

thinking her tugged by Thessalian spells,

made jangling noises;³⁵ but you

had caused her lingering, her pining; while gazing at you

the goddess of night had checked her swift course.

35 Lunar eclipses were attributed in folklore to witchcraft drawing down the moon; the countermagic involved clashing brass vessels.

Servius

Commentary on the Georgics of Vergil

3.391

SI CREDERE DIGNUM EST tantum de Luna sacrilegium. et aliter: (fefellit) id est cepit et fefellit. et bene 'si credere dignum est', quia dicturus erat impie in deam. fabula sic est: Pan cum Lunae amore flagraret, ut illi formosus videretur, niveis velleribus se circumdedit atque ita eam ad rem veneriam illexit. huius opinionis auctor est Nicander: nec poterat esse nisi Graecus.

Google translate:

IF IT IS WORTH TO BELIEVE sacrilege of the moon and in another way: (he deceived), that is, he took and deceived. and well 'if it is worthy to believe', because he was to speak impiously towards a goddess. The story is as follows: When Pan was burning with the love of the moon, so that he might seem to him handsome, he covered himself with snow-white wool, and thus enticed her to engage in sexual intercourse. The author of this opinion is Nicander, and he could not be but a Greek.

Statius

Thebaid

1.336–341

And now Phoebus’ work is done; Titanis rises nearby, through the wide spaces, borne up in the silent sky, thinning the cool atmosphere with her dewy car [biga]. Now beasts and birds are still, now Sleep steals upon greedy cares, hanging down from the air, bringing back sweet forgetfulness of toilsome living.

12.1–3

Not yet had wakeful sunrise lowered all the stars from heaven and the moon with fading horn saw day looming,

Strabo

14.1.8

Next comes the Latmian Gulf, on which is situated "Heracleia below Latmus," as it is called, a small town that has an anchoring-place. It was at first called Latmus, the same name as the mountain that lies above it, which Hecataeus indicates, in his opinion, to be the same as that which by the poet is called "the mountain of the Phtheires" ... At a slight distance away from it, after one has crossed a little river near Latmus, there is to be seen the sepulchre of Endymion, in a cave.

Theocritus

Idylls

2.10–11

But for now I shall bind him with fire spells. Cast a fair light, Moon: to you I shall chant softly, goddess,

2.69 etc

Note, lady Moon, whence came my love.

2.163–166

But farewell! Turn your steeds toward the ocean, lady; and I will bear my desire as I have borne it till now. Hail, Selene of the gleaming throne; and hail, you other stars, attendants at the chariot of quiet Night.

3.49–50

I envy Endymion, who slumbers undisturbed for ever;¹⁹

19 Endymion was usually said to be a hunter but was sometimes said to have pastured flocks (Serv. on Virg. Geo. 3.391). The Moon sent him to sleep so that she could kiss him at will (schol. ad loc.).

20.37–39

What was Endymion? Wasn’t he an oxherd? Selene fell in love with him as he herded his cattle; she came from Olympus to the Latmian grove and slept with the lad.

Tryphiodorus

The Taking of Ilios

514–519 [HUP]

514–519 [Internet Archive]

And even as when the moon, full with grey fire, gilds with her face the gleaming heaven: not when, sharpening her pointed horns, she first shines, rising in the shadowlessc dusk of the month, but when, orbing the rounded radiance of her eye, she draws to herself the reflected rays of the sun:

Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica

5.410–415

There iron Atlas stands in ocean, the wave swelling and breaking on his knees; but the god himself on high hurries his shining steeds across the old man’s body,¹ and spreads light about the curving sky; behind with smaller wheel follows his sister and the crowded Pleiads and the fires whose tresses are wet with dripping rain.²

1 The sun as he goes up the sky seems to pass over the body of Atlas, the mountain, before he fills the sky with light.

2 The Hyades.

8.28–30

Even as the Latmian hunter, while his comrades are yet scattered in troops about the glens, rests in the summer shade, fit lover for a goddess, and soon the Moon comes with veiled horns

Virgil

Georgics

3.191–193

Even with such snowy bribe of wool, if ear

May trust the tale, Pan, God of Arcady,

Snared and beguiled thee, Luna, calling thee

To the deep woods; nor thou didst spurn his call.

Modern

Allen

[15] "ΠανδείηΝ"

[15] ΠανδείηΝ: elsewhere unknown as a daughter of Selene; the point of her introduction here is not apparent. Hermann's “πανδίην” would make the mythology even more obscure. The daughter of Selene seems to be merely an abstraction of the moon herself; cf. Ulpian on Mid. 517 “οἱ δὲ Πανδίαν τὴν Σελήνην νομίζουσιν”, Orph. h. fr. 11 “πανδῖα Σεληναίη”, Maximus (“περὶ καταρχῶν”) 22, 281, and 463. The Attic festival “Πάνδια” was not connected with the goddess (Preller-Robert i.^{2} p. 445 n. 1).

Astour

[In folder]

p. 78

The exorbitant figure [the fifty daughters of Danaos], very popular in Greek myths, has its explanation: it is the number of seven-day weeks in one lunar year (50 x 7 = 350, the rounded number of days of a lunar year instead of the more exact 354). The proof of this is supplied by Odyss. XII: 129-130, where Helios is said to possess 7 herds of 50 cows each and 7 herds of 50 sheep each, a transparent allegory of the days and nights of the year. Selene, the Moon, also had from Endymion 50 daughters—it is the same motif. Further ...

Athanassakis and Wolkow

p. 11

p. 89

9. To Selene

Selene, ... had very little role in Greek cult, even less than that of the Sun, who at least had a major cult center at Rhodes. Her importance in religion is due largely to her identification with Artemis and Hekate. In later times she was adopted into pre-existing cults, along with other figures (e.g., Sun). Moon appears in magical texts, as well a curse tablet from Megara, but even in these cases she is not quite divoced from the other goddesses who are identified with her. ... Moon also does not have much presence in myth. She is perhaps best known for her love affair with Endymion; the story is first attested for Sappho (no text survives)

p. 90

As is the case ... For Moon's role in magic, of particular interest are a series of prayers and invocations to Moon/Hekate (PGM 4.2242-2358, 2441-2784). Theokritos' second idyll is a literary account of love magic in which Moon is invoked. ...

1-2 Selene, / . . . Moon: ... "Selēnē" is derived from the Greek noun "selas," "light, brightness, gleam" (compare Latin "luna," "moon" from "lux," "light", see also OH 71i), and might have developed as a euphemism for the moon proper (Greek "mēnē").

p. 91

5 mother of time: ... The months were calculated by the phases of the moon; indeed the words "moon" and "month" are cognate; compare also Greek "mēnē" ("moon") and "meis, mẽnos") ("month, moon") ...

Caldwell

p. 40 on lines 207-210

Hesiod derives the name Titanes from the the verb titaino [strian]; there is also a secondary connection with tisis [revenge]. In the late rationalizing account of Diodoros, who interpreted all myths as distorted versions of actual human history, the Titans got their name from their human mother Titaia, later called Gaia. Diodoros' strange version goes on to say the eldest daughters of Ouranos and Titaia were Basileia and Rhea (or Pandora). Basileia succeeded to the throne after her father's death and married her brother Hyperion, by whom she had two children Helios and Selene. But her brothers, the Titans, murdered Hyperion and drowned Helios, at which Selene jumped to her death from a roof top. Helios then appeared to Basileia in a vision and told her the Titans would be punished and that he and his sister would give their names to the sun and moon (formerly called "holy fire" and "mene"). Basileia then vanished from mortal sight and was honored as the Great Mother, and all the Titans were killed in a battle with Dionysos and his followers.

Cashford 2003a The Homeric Hymns

p. 174

15. Pandia: Originally perhaps an epithet of the full Moon, and also the name of a festival at Athens celebrated on the day of the full moon.

Cashford 2003b The Moon: Myth and Image

p. 25

[The moon goddess Inanna] "'Crowned with great horns', she 'flares' in the sky at night. We are to imagine the goddess as the heavens, with the horns of the Crescent Moon as a crown upon her head, ...

p. 70

Hathor, the Egyptian cow goddess with crescent horns, whose great belly was the heavens and whose four legs sttod upon the Earth as the pillars of the universe, was also in her nightly aspect the Moon.⁹

p. 77

THE MOON AND DEW

Dew arising in twilight and lasting til dawn, was generally believed to come from the Moon: 'The heat of the sun dries; that of the moon makes moist', ...

p. 103

[Get book page from library!]

p. 104

In early thinking, however, the sharp horns of a bull or cow were seen to match the pointed curve of the waxing and waning crescents so exactly that the powers of the one were attributed to the other, each gaining the other's potency as well as their own. ...

p. 137

These 50 children are the number of lunar months between the Olympic Games, which were held every four years (as they still are today). More exactly, the interval between the Olympic Games was alternatively 49 and 50 months, showing that the festival cycle was a period of eight years divided into two halves — the precise period which reconciles the Hellenic Moon year of 354 days with the solar year of 365 1/4 days.¹⁰⁵ ...

Cholmeley

The Idylls of Theocritus

On 3.49

ἄτροπον dist. xxiv. 7 εὕδετ᾽ ἐμὰ βρέφεα γλυκερὸν καὶ ἐγέρσιμον ὕπνον: Mosch. Epit. Bion. 117 (of sleep of death) εὕδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον. Endymion loved by Selènê was thrown by her into an endless sleep that she might ever look on him and kiss him sleeping; cf. A. Pal. v. 164 (Meleager): “ ὁ δ᾽ ἐν κόλποισιν ::ἐκείνης

ῥιπτασθεὶς κείσθω δεύτερος ᾿Ενδυμίων.

Cohen

[In folder]

p. 156

The greatest fifth-century composition with an outline depiction of the sea is the Selene tondo inside the Brygos Painter's Gigantomachy cup in Berlin of ca. 490-485 B.C. (cat fig 47.3). Here Selene, with the outlined moon disk shimmering above her head, plunges her frontal chariot pulled by winged horses into the sea.

p. 157

The Selene tondo is the first depiction of the moon as a fully embodied being shown in the context of a broader image. Earlier in red-figure, Selene is shown only as a profile head or bust upon the reserved moon disk itself. Gesturing with one outlined hand rasied before her outlined profile face, Selene appears on a reserved moon disk under the B/A handle of the Parade cup in Berlin (fig. 6) with the potter-signature of Sosias.⁴⁸ Shown with a frontal eye and outlined lips, the goddess wears a disk earring with two pendants; her black hair is bound by a reserved fillet. A similar outline image of Selene appears against a moon disk on the tondo cup in Bonn from the early fifth century, attributed to Beazley's Epinikos Painter, probably a phase of the painter Apollodorus,⁴⁹ ...

Figure 6. Moon disk with Selene in profile. ...

p. 177

47

...

1, Selene in her chariot

p. 178

In the Brigos Painter's daring composition on the cup's tondo, the moon goddess, Selen, descends into the sea, her chariot drawn by two winged horses toword the viewer (fig. 47.3). The moon's descent places the god's victory in the Gigantomachy at the dawn of a new day. A similar cosmological framework recurs in the iconographic program of the Parthenon. This is the earliest preserved Greek depiction of Selene in her chariot, ... Stars twinkle on both sides of Selene's sakkos-covered head. ... The shaded moon disk floating directly above Selene's profile head, ...

p. 179

47.3

Collard and Cropp

p. 469

it is inferred from the Scholia on Theocritus 2.10 (test. iv) that she [Phaedra] had invoked the moon in conventional love magic.

Cook

p. 456

Nemea, however, was not, as we should have expected, the daughter of Zeus and Hera, but the daughter of Selene and Zeus⁵.

Again whereas Hesiod spoke of the famous Nemean lion—

Whom Hera reared, the noble wife of Zeus,

And placed on Nemea's knees, a bane to men⁶,—

Hyginus says 'the Nemean lion, whom the Moon had reared⁷.' Epimenides, in a passage quoted by Aelian, wrote:

For I too am a child of the fair-tressed Moon,

Who with dread shudder cast the monstrous lion

At Nemea, bearing him for lady Hera⁸

...

⁵ Schol. Pind. Nem. p. 425 Boeekh. Zeus and Nemea appear together on the Archemoros-vase (Inghirami Vas. fitt. pl. 371). See further Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 115f."

⁶ Hes. theog. 328 f. ... The line was perhaps applied to Alkibiades, whom Aristophanes (ran 1431 ff.) calls a lion, after his Nemean victory (Paus. I. 22. 6f.); ...

⁷ Hyg. fab. 30 ...

⁸ Epimen. frag. 5 Kern ap. Ail. de nat. an. 12. 7.

p. 457

Anaxagoras told the same tale¹, and others followed suit², so that the lion came to be called the offspring of the Moon³. These references certainly lead us to suppose that from the time of Epimenides, that is to say from about 625 B.C.⁴, the Argive Hera was closely connected, if not identified, with the moon. More than that it would be unsalf to maintain."

¹ Anaxag. ap. schol. Ap. Rhod. I 498.

² Herodor. frag. 9 (Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 30 Müller) ap. Tatian. ap. Iust. Mart. p. 267, Plout. de facie in orbe lunae 24, Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀπέσς, Nigidius ap. schol. Caes. Germ. Aratea p. 393, 20 ff. Eyssenhardt.

³ Euphorion frag. 47 Meineke ... According to Demodokos ap. Plout. de fluv. 18. 4 Mt Apaisanton (in Argolis) used to be called Mt. Selenaion. For Hera, wishing to punish Herakles, got Selene to Help her. Selene used magic spells, filled a basket with foam, out of which a huge lion was born. Iris bound him with her own girdle ...

p. 732

and Photios states that the Attic festival Pandia derived its name from Pandia the daughter of Selene or from Pandion the eponym of the tribe Pandionis, adding that it was held for Zeus.⁸ It seems probable that, as W. H. Roscher conjectured⁹, Pandia was originally an epithet of Selene rather than her daughter¹⁰; but that the festival Pandia was ab initio connected with this Selene Pandia is far from clear."

⁸ Phot. lex. s.v. Πάνδια. So et. mag. p. 651, 21f., Bekker anecd. i. 292, 10 f.

⁹ W. H, Roscher Über Selene und Verwandtes Leizig 1890 p. 100 and in his Lex. Myth. ii. 3172.

¹⁰ Ulpian ...

Cox

[In folder]

p. 138

... She [Selene] is he bride of Zeus and the mother of Pandia, the full orb which gleams in the nightly sky; ¹

¹ 'Pandia d. h. die gams leuchtends.' — Preller, Gr. Myth. i. 3

p. 139

From this terrible bondage ... This rescue of Iô by Hermes is, in the opinion of Preller, the tem- [cont.]

p. 140

porary disappesrsnce of the moon, during her wanderings in unknown regions until she appears as Pandia, the full moon, in the eastern heaven.¹

¹ Gr. Myth. ii. 39.

Davidson

[In folder]

p. 204

A quadrennial Olympics means a festival every fifty moons, which informs the myth of Endymion, the ancestral king of Elis, [cont.]

p. 205

who had a tomb at Olympia: "And they say the Moon fell in love with Endymion and bore him fifty daughters" (5.1.4).

Fairbanks

p. 162

Zeus himself fell in love with Selene, and she bore him a daughter, Pandia (All-brightness).

Faraone

p. 139

An ancient commentator on Theocritus' second Idyll tells us the following, when he explains why Simaetha in the couse of her agōgē spell asks Selene to appear:

Pindar says in the poems separate from his Partheneia that among lovers (erastōn), men pray for Helios to appear, but women pray for Selene to appear ... It is common for women who are mastered by passion (tais erōti katechomenais) to invoke Selene in prayer, just as even Euripides make Phaedra (i.e., invoke Selene) in his Hippolytus Veiled.²⁹

²⁹ Scholia to Theocritus 2.10b-c, which preserves Pindar frag. 104 (Maehler).

Fowler 2013

pp. 133–134

p. 133

As Endymion ... The Latmian cave is attested as early as Sappho fr. 199, then in Ar. fr. 937 (cf. Strabo 14.1.8 quoting Hek, FGrHist 1 F 239); 'the [cont.]

p. 134

sleep of Endymion' was proverbial.⁴⁰ Hellenistic and Roman poetry found the story irresistible,⁴¹ and it was a favourite theme of Roman art, particularly for sarcophagi, eternal, youthful sleep being a kind of imortality.⁴² ... The gift the Eleian [Endymion] had of being able to choose his moment of death, attested for Hesiod [fr.10.62) and the mythographers, is intriguing; though one presumes he must choose to die at some point, the unusual gift (on what pretext?) suggests a kind of immortality, or at any rate an unusual mortality. ... The story in the Megalai Ehoiai and Epimenedes also involves love for a goddess, but as a transgression punished (in Epimenides) by eternal sleep.

⁴⁰ e.g. Pl. Phd. 72c, Aristot. Eth. Nik. 1178b, Zenob. 3.76.

⁴¹ e.g. the passage of Ap. Rhod. just mentioned; Theok. Id. 3.49-50, 20.37-9; Nik. fr. 24; Kallim. fr. 110 (Cataullus 66.5-6); AP 5.123, 165, 6.58; Prop. 2.15.15-16; Ov. Am. 1.13.43-4, Ars Am 3.83, Her. 18.62. ...

Gantz

p. 25

One final reference of an odd sort comes from Epimenides Theogony, where the Lion (like Epimenides himself) is said to be sprung from (or shaken off by) Selene, probably in her role as the moon rather than the goddess.

p. 34

Hyperion and Theia's second child, Selene, is simply mentioned by Hesiod as an offspring. Likewise in Homer she appears only in her capacity as the moon, without reference to any stories. The Hymn to Hermes calls her, oddly enough a daughter of Pallas, son of Megamedes, whoever he is (HHerm 99-100). Her most extensive description in Archaic literature is in the Hymn addressed to her (32), where, like Helios, she is given a chariot to drive across the sky. The Hymn also notes a mating with Zeus, the result of which is the goddess Pandeia. In Aischylos' Xantriai, on the other hand, we find the phrase "star faced eye of the daughter of Leto" after a reference to the [cont.]

p. 35

sun, suggesting that the process of identification between the moon and Artemis has already begun (fr. 170 R).

As for the famous love affair with Endymion, this does not appear where we might expect it, at the end of the Theogony together with other matings of goddesses and mortals, but Sappho apparently referred to it (199 LP). Our source on this point, a scholiast to Apollonios, goes on to offer various bits of further information about Endymion. Hesiod, he says, makes him the offspring of Aethlios (son of Zeus) and Kalyke, and given by Zeus the right to choose when he would dispense death to himself (Hes fr 245 MW)[?]; Pherekydes (3F121], Akouisilaos (2F36), and Peisandros mythographus (16F7) are cited in the same connection, and Alkaios may also have mentioned the story (317 LP). The scholiast then moves to quite a different tale in the Megalai Ehoiai, where an Ixion-like Endymion is taken up to Olympos by Zeus, falls in love with Hera (actually a cloud), and is cast out of Olympos as punishment, going down to into Hades (Hes fr 260 MW). From "Epimenides," he relates a version in which Endymion, after consorting with the gods and desiring Hera, requests eternal sleep (as his punishment?) from an aggrieved Zeus (3B14); finally from ... But nowhere, save at the very beginning of this whole note (where Endymion is visited in a cave, unattested), does our scholiast mention Selene. Sappho, as we saw, is said to have told something of her love, but the first actual account of it does not surface until the passage of Apollonios annotated by the scholiast (AR 4.57-58: Selene speaks of her passion for Endymion and her visits to the Latmian cave). In Theocritos 3.49–50, the singer calls his sleep enviable, clearly (in the context) becasue of her love. Apollodorus ... adding that because of his beauty Selene fell in love with him, and Zeus granted him a wish, which was to sleep forever, remaining deathless and ageless ... no source claims that the sleep was her idea, and likely enough (given its role in some quarters as a punishment, and his love for Hera), she was not always a part of the story. Loukianos' [Lucian] dialogue between Selene and Aphrodite suggests that she has become enomored of him while seeing him asleep each night, and that when she descends to him he awakens to fulfill her desires (DD 19). Vases an artifacts from the second half of the fifth century on may possibly show Selene leaving an awake Endymion.

p. 36

The other tale of Selene involves an affair with Pan. Vergil says that Pan won her favors with the gift of a sheep (G 3.391–93), but the scholia thereto make the god cover himself with a sheepskin (i.e., turn into a sheep?) and ascribe the story to Nikandros.

Grimal

s.v. Endymion

... When Selene saw Endymion, depicted in the legend as a young shepherd of great beauty, she fell violently in love with him and seduced him. At Selene's request Zeus promised to grant Endymion one wish; he chose the gift of eternal sleep, remaining young forever. Some versions claim that it was during this sleep that Selene saw him and fell in love with him. Sometimes the Peloponnese is the location of the legend, and sometimes Caria, not far from Miletus ... Endymion is said to have given his lover fifty daughters.

s.v. Selene

(Σελήνη) The personification of the Moon. She was sometimes said to be the daughter of Hyperion and Theia (Table 14) and sometimes that of the Titan Pallas or else Helios. She was depicted as a beautiful young girl who rode the heavens in a silver chariot drawn by two horses. She was famous for her love affairs: she had a daughter Pandia, by Zeus, and in Arcadia her lover was the god Pan who had given her as a present a herd of white oxen. She was usually described as the lover of Endymion, the handsome shepherd by whom she supposedly had 50 daughters. The hero Naxos was sometimes said to have been born of their [Endymion and Selene's] union.

Hansen

p. 221

Images shown of Selene riding sideways on mule (?!) surrounded by stars and crescent moon, and ram with billowing crescent veil overhead

[Image 1] Selene riding a mule [image 2] Selene riding a ram]

Hard

p. 43

p. 46

The gently radiant SELENE (or selenaia, or quite often Mene in poetic usage), the goddess of the moon, could be pictured as a charioteer like her brother; no one who has seen the Parthenon marbles is likely to forget the marvellous head of one of her chariot-horses that survives among them. Some authors specify that she drives a pair rather than a four like her brother, in accordance with the standard image in vase-paintings and other works of art. She is drawn by two snow-white horses or occasionally oxen. Or in some portrayals, she rides through the heavens on a horse (or steer or mule, or even a ram), facing sideways with both legs on one flank of her mount.^{139 [The artistic record is more helpful on these matters than the literary record, but see Pi. Ol. 3.19–20, Ov. Fast. 4.374, Serv. Aen 5.721.]} There is an attractive literary account of her journey through the sky in the Homeric Hymn to Selene, which also reports that she oncel slept with Zeus and bore him a daughter called Pandeia (an obscure figure whose name may have been a title of Selene).¹⁴⁰ The only notable legend recorded for the moon-goddess is the one that tells of her love for Endymion, a hero of Elis in the western Pelloponnese; see further on p. 411. There is also an interesting but poorly attested legend in which Pan is said to have seduced her. Vergil mentions in passing in the Georgics that he won her over by offering her the snowy fleece of a sheep, and the scholia report that the Hellenistic poet Nicander offered an account in which Pan wrapped himself in a sheepskin to approach her.^{141 [ Verg. Georg. 3.1[sic]91-3, with Serv. ad loc. reffering to Nicander.]} The rusticity of the tale suggests that it may have originated as a local legend in Arcadia.

There is some disagreement about the descent of Selene. According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, her father was Pallas, son of Megamedes (otherwise ubknown),^{142 [Hom. Hymn Hermes 99-100.]} who may perhaps be identified with the Pallas who is classed as a son of the Titan Kreios in the Theogony. Or in the Homeric Hymn to Helios, Hyperion is said to have fathered her and her two siblings by Euryphaessa ('she wo shines far and wide') rather than by Theia.^{143 [Hom. Hymn 21 to Helios 4-7.]} One or two passages in tragedy refer to her as daughter of Helios (rather than as sister), which seems appropriate enough in the view of her borrowed light.^{144 [Eur. Phoen. 175 with schol., schol. Arat 445.]} Herse (Dew), the goddess or personification of the dew, is described as the daughter of Zeus and Selene in a lyric fragment of Alman,¹⁴⁵ but this is really no more than an allegorical fancy referring to the heavy dew-fall associated with clear moonlit nights. Selene was quite often equated with Artemis in post-classical times, just as Helios came to be equated with Apollo; this already seems to be implied in a fragment from Aeschylus which suggests that Selene was a daughter of Leto.^{146 [Aesch. fr. 170 Nauck.]} She was of importance in magic as a goddess who could be appealed to in the laying of spells, especially love-spells; in the second Idyll of Theocritus, she is invoked by a girl who is portrayed as laying a spell of this kind.^{147 [Theoc. 2.10-11 etc.].}

p. 63

[In Hesiod] The dog Orthos mated with the Chimaira (or conceivably with his mother Echidna) to produce the ... Nemean Lion.

p. 256

As his ... According to Hesiod, it [Nemean Lion] was the offspring of Orthos and Chimaira (or possibly Echidna, see p. 63), and was reared by Hera, ...Or in another tradition, it was the child of the moon-goddess Selene (or at least born on the moon), and lived on the moon until Selene cast it down to earth with a fearsome shudder at the request of Hera.^{46 [Epimenides 3B2 DK, cf. Herodorus 31F4 and 21 (from moon, beings born there are fifteen times larger than on earth), Euphorion fr. 84 Powell (cited Plut. Moralia 677a; lion son of Selene), Hyg. Fab. 30 (nourished by Moon in a two-mouthed cave), Steph. Byz. s.v. Apesas.]}

p. 411

Endymion and his family of Elis

(v) To proceed ... KALYKE married Aethlios, the first king of Elis, ... she bore him a single son, ENDYMION, ...^{51 [Hes. fr. 10a58-62 (parentage of Endymion), ...]} ...

Endymion is ... according to one account, Zeus offered him the choice of whatever he desired at the urging of Selene after she fell in love with him, and he asked to sleep forever so as to be exempted from the ravages of age and from death itself in its usual form;^{53 [Zenob. 3.76, cf. Apollod. 1.7.6.[sic]]} or else Zeus allowed him to choose the time and manner of his passing, and he fell asleep forever at a moment selected by himself;^{54 [Schol. A.R. 4.57.]} or since since legend related that Selene used to visit him while he was asleep, it came to be suggested that she herself had put him to sleepmso as to be able to visit him at will and steal kisses from him. ^{55 [Cic. Tusc. 1.92.]} A wholly different story recounted that he was admitted into the company of the gods and fell in love with Hera, to the understandable annoyance of Zeus, who put an end to the matter by condemning him to eternal sleep.; or in a variant that was doubtless inspired by the corresponding legend of Ixion (see p. 554), Zeus fooled him into making love with a cloud-image of Hera and cast him into Hades for his pains.^{56 [Both in Schol, A. R. 4.57.]}

Hurwit 1999

[In folder]

p. 170

[on the North Metopes] The main narrative was set between two metopes giving a cosmic setting (a common Parthenon motif): north 1 represented Helios rising in his chariot, north 29 showed Selene plunging below the horizon on horseback.

Jebb

p. 296 note on VII, 1–3 πεντήκοντα (μῆνες)

πεντήκοντα (μῆνες) are the fifty lunar months which have elapsed since the preceding festival at Olympia. There [cont.]

p. 297 continuation of note on VII, 1–3 πεντήκοντα (μῆνες)

was an Olympic cycle of 99 lunar months, making up eight years. The interval between two Olympic festivals was alternately one of 49 lunar months and one of 50 such months. See schol. Pind. O. iii. 5 ...

In an old legend of Elis, the 50 lunar months of this cycle appear as fifty daughters born by Selene to Endymion

Keightley

[In folder]

p. 54

Seléné, the sister of Helios, drove her chariot through the sky while he was reposing after the toils of the day. There is, however, no allusion in Homer of Hesiod to the chariot of Seléné; but one of the hymns¹ describes her as bathing in Ocean, putting on gleaming rainment, and then ascending a chariot drawn by glittering steeds. Theokritos² also gives Seléné horses; but we do not meet with any other mention of her chariot and horses in the Greek poets. In Ovid³ her steeds are snow-white; Statius⁴ places her in a car drawn by two horses. Pausanias⁵ says that one of the figures on the base of the throne of Zeus at Olympia was Seléné driving a single horse, as it appeared to him; but that others said it was a mule, and they had a silly legend respecting it. We find this lunar mule spoken of elsewhere.⁶

The later poets make steers or heifers the draught-cattle of Seléné.⁷ This notion had its very natural origin in the contemplation of the horned moon.⁸

In the general and natural mode of representation Seléné is the sister of Helios, but another view of the subject made her his daughter, he being the source of her light;⁹ while a third view [cont.]

¹ Hom. Hymn xxxii. 7.

² Idyll. 11.163.

³ Rem. Amor 258. Fast. iv. 374.

⁴ Theb. i.336. See also viii. 271.

⁵ Paus. V.11.8.

...

⁷ Nonn. i. 331, 455; ii. 405; vii. 247; xi. 186; xii. 5; xlviii. 320. ... Claudian, Rapt. Pros. iii. 403. ...

...

⁹ Eur. Phoen. 175. Nonn. v. 166 et alibi. The scholiast on Euripides (l. c.) says that "Aeschylos and the ... say she is hid daughter, because she [cont.]

p. 55

made her by him the mother of the four Seasons.¹ ...

It was said ... The god Pan was also said to have gained her love under the form of a snow-white ram.⁴ She bore to Zeus a daughter named Pandia;⁵ and Ersa (Dew) was the offspring of the king of heaven and the goddess of the moon.⁶

This last is a pleasing fiction of the lyric poet Alkman. The moon was naturally, though incorrectly, regarded as the cause of dew, and nothing therefore was more obvious than to say that the dew was the progeny of the moon and sky personified after the usual manner of the Greeks.

In the Homeridan Hymn to Seléné she is styled:⁸ 1. White-[cont.]

partakes of the solar light, and changes form according to the solar positions," or "because she thence, as from a fount, draws light." ...

...

⁴ Verg. Geor. iii, 391. Philargyrius (in loc.) and Macrobius (v. 22) say that the fable was related by Nikander.

...

⁶ ... are the words of Alkman, as quoted by Plutarch, Quaest. Nat. 24. De Fac. in Orb. Lunae, 25. Sympos. iii. 10, 3.

...

⁸ ...

p. 56

armed; 2. Well-tressed,—two of the usual epithets of goddesses.

Empedoklés¹ and Euripidés² give moon an epithet (γλαυκῶπις) usually appropriated to Pallas-Athéné, and of which we shall treat in its due place.

The name Seléné (Σελήνη) is plainly derived from σέλας, brightness,

Kerényi

p. 175

But Pan's greatest passion was for Selene. Of this affair it was told⁵⁴² that the moon/goddess refused to company with the dark god. Whereupon Pan, to please her dressed himself in white sheep/skins, and thus seduced Selene. He even carried her on his back. It is uncertain whether even in the earliest time it was necessary for him to change his shape in order to play the role of successful lover with a goddess who repeatedly lets herself be embraced by darkness.

p. 196

The moon, ... She possessed a two/horse equipage in contrast to the four/horse chariot of Helios, and can also be seen riding alone on an ox or a horse, a mule or a stag. She was invoked as a winged, celestial being,⁶²⁷ but could be carried off by a goa—on one occasion by Pan himself, who, as I have already told, seduced her by wrapping himself in a sheep/skin.

Besides being called Selene—a word connected with selas, [cont.]

p. 197.

"light—the goddess as she appeared in the sky was also called Mene. This was the feminine form of Men, a word that meant the moon, the lunar month, and in Asia Minor also meant a moon/god. There was a story⁶²⁸ of a marriage of Selene with Zeus: the moon/goddess bore to the heavenly ruler a daughter named Pandia, "the entirely shining" or the "entirely bright"— doubtless the brightness of nights of full moon.

Littleton

• Get 1275-1278*

p. 473

p. 474

[Image of Roman relief of a sleeping Endymion]

p. 475

p. 1277

The most famous of Selene's lovers, however was Endymion. In one version of the myth he is said to have been herding cattle when Selene took him for her lover. Most versions agree that he was in an eternal sleep inside a cave, however. In some versions the youth pursued the goddess Hera, and his eternal sleep was a punishement from Zeus, who was Hera's brother and Husband; in another version Zeus offered him the privilege of choosing how he was to die, and he selected eternal sleep; in another account Selene fell in love with Endymion and asked Zeus to give him immortality and eternal yout, so Zeus put him into an eternal sleep. Once Endymion was asleep, Selene occasionalyy visited the cave and roused him to make love. Ancient Greeks believed that when the moon was elcipsed, Selene was in the cave with Endymion.

They had 50 daughters who were often interpreted as the 50 lunar months of the four-year cycle that governed many of the great festivals—for example, the Olympic Games.

A traditional myth in Athens recounted that Selene had a child by Zeus named Pandia. According to the genealogy of Athens, Pandia was the wife of Antiochus, a local hero who gave his name to one of the 10 Athenian tribes. Pandia was also the name of an Athenian festival held in honor of Pandia and her father Zeus.

Mayerson

[In folder]

p. 167 [Snippet]

Some scholars see in these fifty daughters the fifty lunar months that composed the four-year period of an Olympiad.

Meisner

p. 198

Where Proclus ...

And he contrived another boundless earth, which the immortals

call Selene, and those who live upon the earth call it Mene,

which has many mountains, many cities, and many houses.¹⁶⁵

165. Proclus, in PLat. Tim 2.48.15, 2.282.11, 3.142.12 Diehl (OF 155 I-III B = 91 K).

Morford

p. 61

The conventional ... Euryphaëssa (the word means "widely shining"), given as the wife of Hyperion and mother of Helius, is probably just another name for Theia.

p. 63

Selene, Goddess of the Moon. Selene, daughter of Hyperion and Theia, is a goddess of the moon. Like her brother Helius, she drives a chariot, although hers usually has only two horses.

p. 64

Hail, kind Queen with beautiful hair, ...

Selene and Endymion

Only one famous myth is linked with Selene and that concerns her love for the handsome youth Endymion, who is usually depicted as a shepherd. On a still night, she lay down beside him in a cave on Mt. Latmus (in Caria). Night after night, she lay down beside him as he slept. There are many variants to this story, but in all the outcome is that Zeus granted Endymion perpetual sleep with perpetual youth. This may be represented as a punishment (although sometimes Endymion is given some choice) because of Selene's continual absence from her duties in the heavens, or it may be the fulfillment of Selene's own wishes for her beloved.

Apollo, Sun-God, and Artemis, Moon-Goddess. ... Although Apollo was, in all probability, not originally a sun-god, he came to be considered as such. ... Similarly Apollo's sister Artemis became associated with the moon, although originally she was probably not a moon-goddess. Thus Selene and Artemis merge in identity, just as Hyperian, Helius and Apollo; and Selene and Artemis are described by the adjective "bright" Phoebe (the feminine form of Phoebus).¹⁵ Therefore the lover of Endymion becomes Artemis (or Roman Diana).

p. 65

The Endymion Sarcophagus. ... The myth of Endymion was a common subject for Roman sarcophagi (seventy examples are known from the second and third centuries A.D.) because it gave hope that the sleep of death would lead to eternal life. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1947 [47.100.4]. ...)

p. 219

which in its ... Artemis became a goddess of the moon in classical times. As in the case of other goddesses worshiped by women (e.g., Hera), this link with the moon may be associated with the lunar cycle and women's menstrual period.

ARTEMIS, SELENE, AND HECATE

As a moon-goddess, Artemis is sometimes closely identified with Selene and Hecate.

p. 221

Underworld. ...[Hecate] developed a terrifying aspect; triple-faced statues depicted the three manifestations of her multiple character as a deity of the moon: Selene in heaven, Artemis on earth, and Hecate in the realm of Hades.

p. 353

The Underworld, an Apulian red-figure krater by the Underworld paiter, ca 320 B.C.; ... on the neck are the [four horsed] chariots of Helius and Selene, beneath which fishes symbolize the Ocean in which their daily (or nightly) journeys begin and end. (Muninich Antikensammlung, Munich, Germany, inv. no. 3297.)

Murray 1892

p. 271

At the other extreme of the pediment the moon (Selenè) descends behind the horizon, her body down [cont.]

p. 272

to the waist being still visible, as is also the incomparable head of one of her horses. On the painted vases the more usual representations of Selenè show her riding sidewards on horseback, ... besides the horse's head in the British Museum there are still on the Parthenon the remains of three more horses, from which it follows that Selenè, like Helios, drove a chariot of four horses. Both her arms are extended straight out from the shoulders as if driving, while there remains on her back of her shoulders part of a scarf, the ends of which had fallen over her arms, as is often seen in drivers of chariots.

ní Mheallaigh

p. 26

In fr. 57, Alcman names Dew, personified as the goddess Ersa (Greek for 'dew'), as the daughter of the Moon-goddess Selene and Zeus god of the sky, thus accounting for dew as a nocturnal form of percipitation. In the fragment, Ersa is evidently 'nourishing' (...) something — possibly vegetation.⁷³

⁷³ ... the sort of things nourished by Dew, daughter of Zeus and Selene.

Obbink 2011

p. 353

Obbink 2002

p. 200

But indeed Chrysippus too,⁴⁰ ... There are no male or femle gods, just as cities and virtues are really neither male of female, but are only called masculine or feminine, though their substances are the same, just like Selene and Men.⁴⁴ ...

⁴⁰ Like the other Stoics (Cleanthes, Persaeus) who preceed in Philodemus.

...

⁴⁴ The Anatolian god Men, often found paired with the crescent moon or represented as Selene (= Luna) in iconography, here interpreted by Chrysippus as a masculine representation of the same divinity.

Osborne

p. 87

... And from models of the Athena Parthenos and a neo-Attic relief in Rome it seems that the base presented a central figure of Pandora flanked by standing and sitting deities with the rearing chariot of Helios at one end and the departing horsemen of Selene at the other. If this is correct then this composition echoed the scene of the birth of Athena herself from the east pediment of the Parthenon ...

Oxford Classical Dictionary

s.v. Selene

Greek moon-goddess (Roman Luna), was the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, according to Hesiod (Theog. 371), sister of Helius and Eos; but different parenys arenamed by other authorities—the Totan Pallas or Helius as father, Euryphaessa as mother. Selene drives the moon chariot, drawn by a pair of horses, or she rides on a horse or mule or ox.

Selene has few myths. Best known is the story of her love for Endymion which caused Zeus to cast him into an eternal sleep in a cave on Mount Latmus, where Selene visits him. In another story Pan loved Selene and lured her into the woods. We are told that Zeus and Selene were parents of Herse, the dew (Alcman, fr. 39 Bergk) and that Helius and Selene were parents of the Hours (Quint. Smyrn. 10. 337).

Selene was identified with Artemis, probably before the fifth century BC, perhaps because both had been identified with Hecate. Selene had little cult in Greece. There was an oracular shrine of Selene Pasiphae near Thalamai in Laconia (Plut. Agis 9; Paus. 3.26.1). Representations of the moon on ancient Cretan rings and gems do not necessarily indicate a Minoan moon cult, but may do so. In later times, however, the phrygian moon-god Men (q.v.; Selene was sometimes called Mene) received worship in several Greek cities. It is the luminary itself rather than the goddess Selene that played a role in Greek magic, folklore an poetry. (J. E. F)

Page

Select Papyri

3.140 (pp. 566, 567)

μήνην

σύνδρομον ἠελίωι κυανώπιδα

For even the stars go pale before their streams, no longer do we see the Moon, the dark-eyed Lady that treads upon the heel of the sun, who is frozen among the clouds ...

Palagia 2005

[In Folder]

pp. 236–237

Palagia 1998

[In Folder]

pp. 22–23

Pannen

p. 96

Cinthia, or Cynthia, the goddess of the moon,¹¹⁹

119 Cynthia, better known as Artemis, Diana or Selene is the goddess of the moon. See A. Maxwell-Hysop/ Pierre Grimal/ Stephen Kershaw: The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005). Fernand Comte: The Wordsworth Dictionary of Mythology (Ware: Wordsworth Reference, 1995), p. 52–53."

Parker

[In foder]

p. 477

Pandia A little-known festival, probably of Zeus, held straight after the City Dionysia in Elaphebolion. The primary evidence consists merely of (a) a payment made by the deme Plotheia ἐς Πάηδια (IG I³ 258. 9); (b) a law cited in Dem. 21.8. whereby on the day after the Pandia an assembly is to be held in the theatre of Dyonysus to discuss inter alia complaints concerning the City Dionysia; (c) an honorary resolution passed by the tribe Pandionis ἐν τῆ ἀγορᾶ τῆ μετὰ Πάνδια (IG II² 1140). Phot. Πάνδια [...]

p. 478

... clearly derives from (b); whether the association with Zeus (also in Poll. I.37) is more than a probably correct etymological guess is unclear. Etym. Magn. 651.21–4 (abbreviated in Anecd. Bekk. I.292.10–11) offers alternative associations with Pandeia the moon, with Pandion, eponym of the tribe Pandionis, and with Zeus, and adds an etymology [...]. (c) suggests that the festival had already in the classical period become associated by popular etymology with Pandion (himself originally named from the festival according to Wilamowitz, KI. Schr. V. 2. 118). If (a) refers to the central celebration, it provides support for seeing here a 'festival of Zeus for all' (so Wilamowitz, Glaube, i, 222: cf. Panathenaea), which faded in importance in the historical period."

Parisinou

[In folder]

p. 33–34

The personified form of Selene appears in literature and art no later than that of the sun god, and is always mentioned in connection with her brightness. Her radiance is concentrated in her face in the Homeric Hymn to Selene 3–4 and embraces earth; it is enhanced by her contrast to the dark nocturnal sky. Her golden crown is specifically mentioned in the Hymn (5), together with her white arms (17) and a shining team of horses for her chariot which also appear in art from the early fifth century BC. Alternatively she rides a horse or mule among other celestial divinities such as Helios, Nyx and Eos. The abstract aspect of Selene's brightness is also pronounced in the Hymn (11-12) with regard to her waxing and waning, which are said to be useful signs to mortals (13). It also appears in art as a nimbus-like headdress of the goddess or next to her, while torches are not uncommon attributes of Selene from Hellenistic times onward.

p. 35

Horses form part of her [Eos] image in art as in the case of Helios, Nyx and Selene. In this respect, comparison may be made to non-celestial divinities whose image is associated with both light and horses in art and literature. ... The role of the horse in connection with divinities who incarnate or bear light is not clear. Could this be ... Further associations between celestial personifications and animals include bulls, possibly due ...

Psaroudakes

p. 122

Ridgeway

[In folder]

p. 55

It is perhaps significant that some of the immortals included in the Gigantomachy received altars at the sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon: Ge, Helios, the winds (Anemoi), Nyx, Selene. These dedications have been explained within the context of the Orphic mysteries at times associated with the Elusinian cult: Gutherie 1935, 260; Ippel 1912, 288-93, no. 19. At any rate, this evidence may show that their presence on the altar was not as exceptional as usually surmised.

Robertson 1981

p. 96

Pausanias tells us that the Birth of Aphrodite on the base of Pheidias's Zeus at Olympia was framed by Helios (the Sun) in a chariot and Selene (the Moon) riding a horse or mule; and rough indications on a miniature copy of the Athena suggest that the creation of Pandora was similarly closed. The charioteers in the [Parthenon] pediment must be the same, unless the goddess is rather Nyx (Night) or Eos (Dawn) disappearing at the moment of sunrise.

Robertson 1992

p. 255

... A possible exception to this rule is a vase in Vienna¹¹⁹ which many have thought a late work of his [the Pronomos Painter]. Beazley, though, recognizing it as close to him, separated it and thought it might be an elaborate piece of composition by a companion, the Painter of the Athens Wedding.¹²⁰ It is a bell-krater of unique form, with horizontal lug-handles set directly under the moulded rim. On one side the Judgement of Paris is framed by Helios in his chariot rising above a hill and Selene on horseback departing

Robertson 1996

p. 75 n. 109

¹⁰⁹ The festival name Pandia is sometimes thought to mean "Common festival of Zeus"—i.e. one celebrated jointly by several communities, which would provide a different analogy. But the true meaning is surely "Rites of the all-bright sky," referring to the first full moon of spring; by one account, the festival is named for Pandia, daughter of Selene.

Roman and Roman

p. 434

In visual representations, Selene appears with her attribute, the moon, or in company with Eos and Helios. In the Homeric Hymn, Selene is given wings, while in the Orphic Hymn she has horns; in art she is usually depicted with a crescent moon crowning her head but without wings. In antiquity, she appears on various media: reliefs, vase paintings, gems, and coins. Selene also appears on the Pergamon Altar in a scene representing the Gigantomachy. In an Attic red-figure kylix krater [Blacas Krater] from ca. 430 B.C.E. (British Museum, London), Selene is shown in company with her siblings. Here, Helios drives a four-horse chariot, and Eos pursues the hunter Cephalus on foot, while Selene rides on horseback.

Roscher

p. 100

e) Ehegatten der Selene. ... Pandia oder Pandeie eine der Selene wesensverwandte, aus einem iher Epitheta abgeleitete Tocher, von welcher nach einer Notiz des Etymol. Magn. s. v. Πανδεια auch das athenische Fest Pandeia den Namen haben soll (s. oben S. 9), also eine feminine Parallele zu ...

Google translate:

Spouses of Selene. ... Pandia or Pandeie one of the Selene's essentially related daughter, derived from an epithet of which, according to a note in Etymol. Magn. S. V. Πανδεια is also said to have the name of the Athenian festival Pandeia (see above p. 9), thus a feminine parallel to

Savignoni

p. 264

[Between p. 265 and p. 266, Plate X]:

PL. X

KRATER AT ATHENS WITH SELENE AND HERMES

p. 267

Further, the same design has been adapted to a Selene figure, in the interior of a well-known red-figured kylix (Fig. 2) in the style of Brygos, belonging to the Berlin Museum.

p. 268

Fig. 2—Kylix at Berlin

p. 269

II

The subject figured on Plate X. ... this represents another [cont.]

p. 270

rare subject, the goddess of night. Selene rises from the sea (indicated by a dolphin) in her chariot drawn by two winged fiery steeds, and starts on her rapid journey across the starry sky, guided by the figure of Hermes who precedes her. The subject decorates a bell-krater (Fig. 3), which was found in Boeotia, and has passed with the rest of the Polytechnicon collection into the Central Museum at Athens.¹... and just as Helios has his solar disc, so Selene has her moon. Sometimes, as in the Berlin kylix (Fig. 2), this takes the form of a disc placed on the head of the goddess, like that above Helios, only it does not radiate;³ sometimes it is a profile female head, enclosed in a circle,⁴ probably an allusion to the full moon;⁵ the commonest sign is however the characteristic crescent moon, a sign which in the best period is always placed beside Selene, and generally between two stars,⁶ while later artists place it on her head. It [cont.]

¹ Invent. No. 4294.

p. 271

is obvious that by this time the realistic representation of the phenomenon has gradually lost itself in the symbol; in earlier work, such as our vase, instead of the crescent, the goddess wears a golden diadem from which dart effulgent rays.¹

There are as well known two classic types of Selene, one on horseback the other in a chariot; the former was the favourite type in the fifth century, and it is well known that Pheidias used it on the bathron of Zeus at Olympia. Up to a very recent period it was supposed that it was the only one recognized by the master, and that in the Parthenon pediment also Selene was on horseback, but recent investigations show that she, like Helios at the other end,² was in a chariot drawn by four horses. This does not in my opinion³ necessitate a renaming of the group, for the idea of Selene journeying in a chariot is of fairly ancient date.⁴ Judging from the monuments of all periods of ancient art it appears to be the more popular of the two, and if the riding type was more common in the fifth century it did not entirely oust it from public favour. A proof of this is to be found in the Berlin kylix to which we have already had occasion to refer, in a red-figured vase of severe style from Cuma,⁵ and in the Athenian vase under discussion, which is but little removed from the Parthenon marbles in point of date, and in point of composition recalls the chariot groups on the frieze.

Seyffert

p. 213

They were supposed to symbolize the fifty lunar months which intervened between Olympic games.

Smith

s.v. Selene

(Σελήνη), also called Mene, or Latin Luna, was the goddess of the moon, or the moon personified into a divine being. She is called a daughter of Hyperion and Theia, and accordingly a sister of Helios and Eos (Hes. Theog. 371, &c.; Apollod. 1.2.2; Schol. ad Pind. Isthm. 5.1, ad Apollon. Rhod. 4.55); but others speak of her as a daughter of Hyperion by Euryphaessa (Hom. Hymn. 31. 5), or of Pallas (Hom. Hymn. in Merc. 99, &c.), or of Zeus and Latona (Schol. ad Eur. Phoen. 175), or lastly of Helios (Eurip. l.c.; comp. Hygin. Praef. p. 10, ed. Muncker). She is also called Phoebe, as the sister of Phoebus, the god of the sun. By Endymion, whom she loved, and whom she sent to sleep in order to kiss him, she became the mother of fifty daughters (Apollod. 1.7.5; Cic. Tusc. 1.38; Catull. 66. 5; Paus. 5.1.2); by Zeus she became the mother of Pandeia, Ersa, and Nemea (Hom. Hymn. 32. 14 ; Plut. Sympos. iii. in fin.; Schol. ad Pind. Nem. Hypoth. p. 425, ed. Böckh). Pan also is said to have had connexion with her in the shape of a white ram (Verg. G. 3.391). Selene is described as a very beautiful goddess, with long wings and a golden diadem (Hom. Hymn. 32. 1, 7), and Aeschylus (Sept. 390) calls her the eye of night. She rode, like her brother Helios, across the heavens in a chariot drawn by two white horses, cows, or mules (Ov. Fast. 4.374, 3.110, Rem. Am. 258 ; Auson. Ep. 5.3; Claudian, Rapt. Proserp. 3.403; Nonn. Dionys. 7.244). She was represented on the pedestal of the throne of Zeus at Olympia, riding on a horse or a mule (Paus. 5.11.3); and at Elis there was a statue of her with two horns (Paus. 6.24.5). In later times Selene was identified with Artemis, and the worship of the two became amalgamated (Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 114, 141 ; Soph. Oed. Tyr. 207 ; Plut. Sympos. l.c.; Catull. 34. 16; Serv. ad Aen. 4.511, 6.118). In works of art, however, the two divinities are usually distinguished; the face of Selene being more full and round, her figure less tall, and always clothed in a long robe; her veil forms an arch above her head, and above it there is the crescent. (Hirt, Mythol. Bilderb. p. 38.)

At Rome Luna had a temple on the Aventine. (Liv. 40.2; Ov. Fast. 3.884.)

Sorabella

p. 70

The story of Endymion is found on some 120 sarcophagi made in Roman workshops.²⁰ ... The earliest examples, dated to about A.D. 130, have ... In the early third century, the single scene becomes most common, ...

There is a great deal of dispute about the meaning of the Endymion myth and the judgment of the second-and third century Romans who considered depictions of it suitable for sarcophagi. ...

Stoll

p. 61

25. Selene (..,

Selene is the subject of very few myths, her connection with Endymion being almost the only tradition respecting her which the poets have thought worth while to adopt and embellish. The scene of this myth is laid partly in Elis and partly in Caria. In Elis where the Olympic games were celebrated, he is called the son of King Aethlius ... and the father of fifty daughters by Selene. These daughters represent the fifty months which compose an Olympiad. ...

Vergados

p. 313 note to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes 100

...Selene's genealogy is unique. The usual genealogy of Selene led Groddeck to athetize 99-100, as Heyne had done before him. ...

The MSS transmit forms of ... 'son of Megamedes,' a character otherwise unknown in myth. At Hes. Th. 371 Selene is the daughter of Hyperion, while Pallas is said to be the son of Kreios, hence a cousin of Selene (Hes. Th. 376); there is no indication that Pallas was the father of Selene elsewhere in Greek literature. At Ov. Met. 9.421, 15,191, 15.700 Aurora is called Pallantis or Pallantias.

Selene was sometimes identified with Hecate, on whose ...

Walters

p. 79

Selene, the Moon, appears in many of the scenes already described under Helios, as on the Blacas krater. She is depicted under two types, either on horseback,² or driving a chariot like Helios,³ both as a single figure and in scenes; and she is sometimes characterized by the lunar disc or crescent. Besides the scenes already referred to, she appears on horseback at the birth of Dionysos⁴ and at the pursuit of Medeia by Jason⁵. The magic arts used by Thessalian witches to draw down the moon from heaven are also the subject to vase-painting,⁶ where two women essay to perform this feat by means of a rope, addressing her, "O Lady Moon!"

Stars are ... as on the Blacas krater, where they appear ... with Helios, Selene, and Eos.⁷

² B.M. E 252, 466, 776 ; Berlin 2519 ... ; ... (Naples 3222) ... .

³ Berlin 2293 ... ; Athens 1345 ... The figure in the chariot may be perhaps identified as Nyx ; see Berlin 2519, where Selene rides a horse and another goddess drives a chariot ; also B.M. E 776

⁴ Petersburg 1793 ... .

...

⁷ B.M. E 466 (Plate I.III); Naples 3256 ...;

Weigal

p. 281

Somewhere about 200 B.C., Apollonius of Rhodes wrote a poem, called Argonautica, in which occurred the line: "So then, I am not the only woman to go off in quest of the Latmian cave," the cave, that is to say, in which the legendary Endymion slept; and against this line an ancient scholiast, or marginal commentator, has written: "The love-story of Selene (the Moon) is told by Sappho ... and there it is said that Selene comes down to Endymion in his cave."¹ The famous legend is thus to be traced back to Sappho, who probably gave form to some vague folk-tale current in the Ionian lands around Mount Latmos in Asia Minor, that is to say behind the city of Miletus ...

West

2003

p. 19

Hymns 31 and 32, to the Sun and Moon, are a matching pair and clearly the work of one poet. They must be among the latest poems in the collection. There is a clue to their origin in the reference to a daughter of the Moon called Pandia (32.15), for this obscure figure featured in an Attic genealogy: she was the wife of Antiochos, the eponymous hero of the Antiochid phylē.²⁰

20 Apollodorus, FGrHist 244 F 162 as corrected by Albert Henrichs, Cronache Ercolanesi 5 (1975), 13 n. 40.

p. 215 n. 61

31. TO HELIOS

Of Helios again begin your song, daughter of Zeus, Muse Calliope: the shining one, whom mild-eyed Euryphaessa⁶¹ bore to the son of Earth and starry Heaven.

61 Euryphaessa, “Shining Far and Wide,” appears only here as the name of the Titan whom Hesiod and others call Theia.

Willetts

[In folder]

p. 178

… The Attic festival of Pandia seems to have been celebrated at the time of the full moon.²⁴⁶ In Greek belief this was the time when dew fell thickest.²⁴⁷ The festival was said to have derived its name either from Pandia, the daughter of Selene, or from Pandion, the eponym of the tribe Pandionis, being held in honor of Zeus.²⁴⁸ A not uncommon form of the sacred marriage is that between Zeus and Selene. This marriage, for example produced Nemea²⁴⁹ and also, in one tradition, Dionysos.²⁵⁰ The union produced an even more interesting offspring. For, in the seventh century B.C., Alkman refers to flowers and plants which are nourished by the dew—daughter of Zeus and Selene.²⁵¹ This reference must derive its origin from the traditions of herbal magic, from the time when moon-worship and the tending of plants were the province of women.²⁵² Hence, as Roscher suggested,²⁵³ Pandia was probably an epithet belonging originally not to Selene's daughter, but to Selene herself. It is the [cont.]

²⁴⁶ Mommsen FSA 432 n. 4, 441; Gruppe 938 n. I.

²⁴⁷ Cook Z I.733.

²⁴⁸ Phot., EM s.v.

²⁴⁹ Sch. Pi N 425. Boeckh.

²⁵⁰ Ulp. in Mid. 174; cf. Cic. DND 3.58; Cook Z I.457 n. 5.

²⁵¹ Alcm. 48.

²⁵² P. 79.

²⁵³ SV 100; cf. id. LGRM 2.3172.

p. 179

sacred marriage of Zeus with Selene that transfers the epithet to the offspring and may well have been responsible for a metamorphosis of that offspring from a female to a male—Pandia to Pandion.

Zschietzschmann

[In folder]

p. XII

23. Selene has mounted her two wheeled chariot, and is steering the winged pair of horses across the sea with a thorny stick for whip. Hermes goes before the horses, there is a new moon and a star; It is a nocturnal journey.

p. 23

Selene, goddess of the moon, driving across the sea. Mixing urn in Athens, Nat. Mus., second half of 5th century.

Topic

Artemis and Hecate

• Hard, p. 46

"Selene was quite often equated with Artemis in post-classical times, just as Helios came to be equated with Apollo."

• Hammond, "SELENE", pp. 970–971

"Selene was identified with Artemis, probably before the fifth century BC, perhaps because both had been identified with Hecate."

• Morford, p. 64

"Although Apollo was, in all probability, not originally a sun-god, he came to be considered as such. ... Similarly Apollo's sister Artemis became associated with the moon, although originally she was probably not a moon-goddess. Thus Selene and Artemis merge in identity, just as Hyperian, Helius and Apollo; and Selene and Artemis are described by the adjective "bright" Phoebe (the feminine form of Phoebus).¹⁵ Therefore the lover of Endymion becomes Artemis (or Roman Diana)."

• Morford, p. 219

"... Artemis became a goddess of the moon in classical times. As in the case of other goddesses worshipped by women (e.g., Hera), this link with the moon may be associated with the lunar cycle and women's menstrual period."

"ARTEMIS, SELENE, AND HECATE

"As a moon-goddess, Artemis is sometimes closely identified with Selene and Hecate."

• Morford, p. 221

[Hecate] "developed a terrifying aspect; triple-faced statues depicted the three manifestations of her multiple character as a diety of the moon: Selene in heaven, Artemis on earth, and Hecate in the realm of Hades."

• Smith, "Selene"

"In later times Selene was identified with Artemis, and the worship of the two became amalgamated (Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 114, 141 ; Soph. Oed. Tyr. 207 ; Plut. Sympos. l.c.; Catull. 34. 16; Serv. ad Aen. iv. 511, vi. 118). In works of art, however, the two divinities are usually distinguished; the face of Selene being more full and round, her figure less tall, and always clothed in a long robe; her veil forms an arch above her head, and above it there is the crescent."

Pandia

• Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16

"Once the Son of Cronos was joined with her in love; and she conceived and bare a daughter Pandia, exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods."

• Hyginus, Fabulae Preface

"From Jove and Luna, Pandia."

• West (2003), p. 19

"for this obscure figure [Pandia] featured in an Attic genealogy: she was the wife of Antiochos, the eponymous hero of the Antiochid phylē.²⁰"

• Kerényi, p. 197.

... [by Zeus] a 'daughter named Pandia, "the entirely shining" or the "entirely bright"— doubtless the brightness of nights of full moon.'

• Smith, "Selene"

"by Zeus she became the mother of Pandeia, Ersa, and Nemea (Hom. Hymn. 32. 14 ; Plut. Sympos. iii. in fin.; Schol. ad Pind. Nem. Hypoth. p. 425, ed. Böckh)"

• Grimal, "Selene", p. 415

"She had a daughter Pandia, by Zeus, ..."

• Littleton, p. 1277

"A traditional myth in Athens recounted that Selene had a child by Zeus named Pandia. According to the genealogy of Athens, Pandia was the wife of Antiochus, a local hero who gave his name to one of the 10 Athenian tribes. Pandia was also the name of an Athenian festival held in honor of Pandia and her father Zeus.

• Allen, [15] "ΠανδείηΝ"

[15] ΠανδείηΝ: elsewhere unknown as a daughter of Selene; the point of her introduction here is not apparent. Hermann's “πανδίην” would make the mythology even more obscure. The daughter of Selene seems to be merely an abstraction of the moon herself; cf. Ulpian on Mid. 517 “οἱ δὲ Πανδίαν τὴν Σελήνην νομίζουσιν”, Orph. h. fr. 11 “πανδῖα Σεληναίη”, Maximus (“περὶ καταρχῶν”) 22, 281, and 463. The Attic festival “Πάνδια” was not connected with the goddess (Preller-Robert i.^{2} p. 445 n. 1).

Ersa

• Alcman fr. 57 Campbell [= Plutarch, Moralia, Table-Talk 659b = fr. 48 Bergk = fr. 43 Diehl] (see also Plutarch, Moralia 918a, 940a)

57 Plutarch, Table-Talk

We observe this happening to the air also: it sheds dew especially at the full moon when it melts, as the lyric poet Alcman says somewhere when he talks in riddling fashion of the dew as daughter of air and moon:

such things as are nurtured by Dew, daughter of Zeus and Selene.

• Alcman, fragment 48 (Edmonds, pp. 84–85)

I suppose, the lyrist Alcman also suggests, calling dew the daughter of air and moon when he says^a

Such Hersa nourishes, daughter of Zeus

And Selenê divine.

^a Frag. 48 Bergk, 43 Diehl (1942); cf. Mor. 918 a, 940 a, with Cherniss’s notes, LCL Mor. xii, p. 175.

• Hard, p. 46

"Herse (Dew), the goddess or personification of the dew, is described as a daughter of Zeus and Selene in a lyric fragment from Alcman,¹⁴⁵ but this is really no more than an allegorical fancy referring to the heavy dew-fall associated with clear moonlit nights".

• Keightley, p.54

• Hammond, "SELENE", pp. 970–971

" ... Zeus and Selene were parents of Herse, the dew (Alcman, fr. 39 Bergk),

Alcman, Fragment 57? See Ersa.

• Smith

"by Zeus she became the mother of Pandeia, Ersa, and Nemea (Hom. Hymn. 32. 14 ; Plut. Sympos. iii. in fin.; Schol. ad Pind. Nem. Hypoth. p. 425, ed. Böckh)"

Nemea

• Cook, p. 456

"Nemea, however, was not, as we should have expected, the daughter of Zeus and Hera, but the daughter of Selene and Zeus⁵.

"⁵ Schol. Pind. Nem. p. 425 Boeekh. Zeus and Nemea appear together 0n the Archemoros-vase (Inghirami Vas. fitt. pl. 371). See further Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 115f."

• Avant, p. 292

"Nemea female/landmark god/valley 1.) the sister of Pandia, and the daughter of Selene and Zeus. 2.) A valley in Argolis, where Heracles defeated the Nemean Lion. It is also the location of the Nemean Games (held every two years in honor of Zeus).

• Smith

"by Zeus she became the mother of Pandeia, Ersa, and Nemea (Hom. Hymn. 32. 14 ; Plut. Sympos. iii. in fin.; Schol. ad Pind. Nem. Hypoth. p. 425, ed. Böckh)"

• Syllecta Classica - Volume 19 p. 83

"Already in the early epinician poems the nymph Nemea is invoked as the eponymous figure for the site of Nemea, although she is also identified as the daughter of Zeus and Selene, ..."

• Graves,123c pp. 104–105

"Still others say at Hera's desire Selene created the lion from sea foam enclosed in a large ark; and that Iris, binding it with her girdle, carried it to the Nemean mountains. These were named after a daughter of Asopus, or of Zeus and Selene; and the lion's cave is still shown about two miles from the city of Nemea.³

"3. Demodocus: History of Heracles i, quoted by Plutarch: On Rivers 18; Pausanias: ii. 15. 2-3; Scholiast on the Hypothothesis of Pindar's Nemean Odes."

Nemean Lion

Aelian, On Animals 12.7 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.):

And moreover they say that the Lion of Nemea fellThe Nemean Lion from the moon [Σελήνης]. At any rate Epimenides [C6th B.C. poet] also has these words [fr. 2, Diels Vorsok.6 1. 32]:

'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.'

Anaxagoras, fr. A77 Curd [= Scholium on Apollonius of Rhodes 1.498]

Curd, p. 111

Scholium on Apollonius of Rhodes 1.498: This same Anaxagoras declares that the moon is a flat broad place, from which, it is supposed, the Nemean lion had fallen.³³

³³ In Plutarch's essay On the Face in the Moon, there is a mention of a lion that fell from the moon onto the Peloponnese (937f).

Curd, p. 112

Achilles Introduction to Aratus's Phenomena 21 p. 49–4 M: Others say that the moon is a solid flaming earth that contains fire. There are other habitations there, and there are rivers, and as many things as are on the earth. Legend says that the Nemean Lion fell from there.

• Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers 18.4

"Situated nearby are the mountains Mycenae, Apesantus, Coccygium, and Athenaeum, having received their names for a reason of this sort. Formerly Apesantus was called Selenaeus. For Hera, wishing to get justice from Hercules, took Selene as a collaborator. Employing magical incantations, she filled a chest with foam, an immense lion having come to be from which, Iris, when she had bound it with her own girdle, bore down to Mount Opheltius. After it had attacked a shepherd of the regions, Apesantus, it killed him. And, according to the providence of the gods, the spot was renamed Apesantus from him, as Demodocus records in Heracleia I."

• Hyginus, Fabulae 30

"The Nemean Lion, an invulnerable monster, which Luna [Selene] had nourished in a two-mouthed cave, he [Herakles] slew and took the pelt for defensive covering."

• Seneca, Hercules 83 ff. (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st A.D.) :

"Let Luna [Selene the moon] in the sky produce still other monstrous creatures. But he [Herakles] has conquered such as these [i.e. the Nemeian lion, born of the moon]."

• Plutarch, On the Face in the Moon 937f

There is reason to wonder then not that the velocity caused a lion to fall on the Peloponnesus^e

^e Voss after Hirzel refers to a dialogue of his that may have Cf. Epimenides, frag. B 2 (i, p. 33. 22 ff. [Diels-Kranz]); Anaxagoras, frag. A 77 (ii, p. 24. 25–26 and 28–30 [Diels-Kranz]). It may be that Anaxagoras referred to this legend in connection with his theory concerning the meteoric stone of Aegospotami, the fall of which he is said to have “predicted” (Lysander, 12 [439 d-f]; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 10; Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 58 [59], 149–150). Kepler (note 77) suggests that the story of the lion falling from the sky may have arisen from a confusion of λάων (gen. pl. of λᾶας) and λέων or, as Prickard puts it, between λᾶς and λίς. Diogenes Laertius (viii. 72) quotes Timaeus to the effect that Heraclides Ponticus spoke of the fall of a man from the moon, an incident which influenced Plutarch (Voss, De Heraclidis Pontici Vita et Scriptis, p. 61).

• Cook, pp. 456–457

"Again whereas Hesiod spoke of the famous Nemean lion—

Whom Hera reared, the noble wife of Zeus,

And placed on Nemea's knees, a bane to men⁶,—

Hyginus says 'the Nemean lion, whom the Moon had reared⁷.' Epimenides, in a passage quoted by Aelian, wrote:

For I too am a child of the fair-tressed Moon,

Who with dread shudder cast the monstrous lion

At Nemea, bearing him for lady Hera⁸

⁶ Hes. theog. 328 f. ... The line was perhaps applied to Alkibiades, whom Aristophanes (ran 1431 ff.) calls a lion, after his Nemean victory (Paus. I. 22. 6f.); ...

⁷ Hyg. fab. 30 ...

⁸ Epimen. frag. 5 Kern ap. Ail. de nat. an. 12. 7.

Anaxagoras told the same tale¹, and others followed suit², so that the lion came to be called the offspring of the Moon³. These references certainly lead us to suppose that from the time of Epimenides, that is to say from about 625 B.C.⁴, the Argive Hera was closely connected, if not identified, with the moon. More than that it would be unsalf to maintain."

¹ Anaxag. ap. schol. Ap. Rhod. I 498.

² Herodor. frag. 9 (Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 30 Müller) ap. Tatian. ap. Iust. Mart. p. 267, Plout. de facie in orbe lunae 24, Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀπέσς, Nigidius ap. schol. Caes. Germ. Aratea p. 393, 20 ff. Eyssenhardt.

³ Euphorion frag. 9 (Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 30 Miller) ... According to Demodokos ap. Plout. de fluv. 18. 4 Mt Apaisanton (in Argolis) used to be called Mt. Selenaion. For Hera, wishing to punish Herakles, got Selene to Help her. Selene used magic spells, filled a basket with foam, out of which a huge lion was born. Iris bound him with her own girdle ...

• Burkert 1972, p. 346

"Herodorus presupposes the story that Helen, who was born from an egg, had fallen from the moon;⁴⁶ a similar story was told of the Nemean Lion.⁴⁷ As support for his theory that the moon was an inhabited "earth," Anaxagoras cited not only the observation of a fallen meteorite, but the story of the Nemean Lion.⁴⁸ The Pythagorean acusma that the sun and moon are the "Isles of the Blest" belongs in this context.⁴⁹

⁴⁷ Herodorus FGrHist 31F4 = Tatian 27; Epimenides DK 3B2.

⁴⁸ A77. ..."

• Gantz, p. 25

"One final reference of an odd sort comes from Epimenides Theogony, where the Lion (like Epimenides himself) is said to be sprung from (or shaken off by) Selene, probably in her role as the moon rather than the goddess."

• Hard, p. 256

"Or in another tradition, it was a child of the moon-goddess Selene (or at least born on the moon), and lived on the moon until Selene cast it down to the earth with a fearsome shudder at the request of Hera.⁴⁶"

• Graves,123c pp. 104–105

"Still others say at Hera's desire Selene created the lion from sea foam enclosed in a large ark; and that Iris, binding it with her girdle, carried it to the Nemean mountains. These were named after a daughter of Asopus, or of Zeus and Selene; and the lion's cave is still shown about two miles from the city of Nemea.³

"3. Demodocus: History of Heracles i, quoted by Plutarch: On Rivers 18; Pausanias: ii. 15. 2-3; Scholiast on the Hypothothesis of Pindar's Nemean Odes."

• Reid, p. 26

"The lion born by Selene the moon goddesss, was dropped to earth on Mount Tretus, near Nemea, by Selene, as a punishment for an unfullfilled sacrifice. Selene set the lion to prey upon her own people."

• West (1983), pp. 47–48

"For I too am of the fair-tressed moon by birth,

of her who with a mighty shiver shook out a wild lion

in Nemea

Horae

• Quintus Smyrnaeus, 10.336 ff. pp. 442–443

"And seated at her [Hera's] side were handmaids four Whom radiant-faced Selene bare to the Sun To be unwearying ministers in heaven, In form and office diverse each from each; For of these Seasons one was summer's quees, And one of winter and his stromy star, Of the spring the third, of autumn-tide the fourth. So in four portions parted is man's year Ruled by these Queens in turn—but of all this Be Zeus himself overseer in heaven."

• Hammond, "SELENE", pp. 970–971

"... and that Helius and Selene were parents of the Hours (Quint. Smyrn. 10. 337)."

Pan

• Virgil, Georgics 3.391–393

"Even with such snowy bribe of wool, if ear / May trust the tale, Pan, God of Arcady, / Snared and beguiled thee, Luna, calling thee / To the deep woods; nor thou didst spurn his call."

• Gantz, p. 36

"The other tale of Selene involves an affair with Pan. Vergil says that Pan won her favors with the gift of a sheep (G 3.391–93), but the scholia thereto make the god cover himself with a sheepskin (i.e., turn into a sheep?) and ascribe the story to Nikandros."

• Hard, p. 46

There is also an interesting but poorly attested legend in which Pan is said to have seduced her. Vergil mentions in passing in the Georgics that he won her over by offering her the smowy fleece of a sheep, and the scholia report that the Hellenistic poet Nicander offered an account in which Pan wrapped himself in a sheepskin to approach her.^{141 [Verg. Georg. 3.191-3, with Serv. ad. loc. referring to Nicander.]}

• Grimal, "Selene", p. 415

"... and in Arcadia her lover was the god Pan who had given her as a present a herd of white oxen."

• Kerényi

p. 175

"But Pan's greatest passion was for Selene. Of this affair it was told⁵⁴² that the moon/goddess refused to company with the dark god. Whereupon Pan, to please her dressed himself in white sheep/skins, and thus seduced Selene. He even carried her on his back. It is uncertain whether even in the earliest time it was necessary for him to change his shape in order to play the role of successful lover with a goddess who repeatedly lets herself be embraced by darkness."

p. 196

" but she could be carried off by a goat—on one occasion actually by Pan himself, who, as I have told, seduced her by wrapping himself in a sheep/skin.

Musaeus

• Plato, Republic 2.364e

"And they produce a bushel of books of Musaeus and Orpheus, the offspring of the Moon and of the Muses, as they affirm, and these books they use in their ritual, and make not only ordinary men but states believe that there really are remissions of sins and purifications for deeds of injustice, by means of sacrifice and pleasant sport2 for the living,"

• Obbink, pp. 353

"As for Muaeus, Orpheus says that he was her (Selene's) son, but Musaeus says of himself that he was the son of Pandia, daughter of Zeus and Selene, and 'Antiophemos'. Ion says he was "fallen from the moon".

• Burkert 1972, p. 346 n. 48

"⁴⁸... Musaeus was a son of Selene (PL. Rep. 364e, Hermesianax 2.15 Diehl, etc.), ..."

• Smith, s.v. Musaeus (literary 1)

（*Mousai=os), literary.

1. A semimythological personage, to be classed with Olen, Orpheus, and Pamphus. He was regarded as the author of various poetical compositions, especially as connected with the mystic rites of Demeter at Eleusis, over which the legend represented him as presiding in the time of Heracles. (Diod. 4.25.) He was reputed to belong to the family of the Eumolpidae, being the son of Eumolpus and Selene. (Philochor. apud Schol. ad Arist. Ran. 1065; Diog. Laert. Prooem. 3.)

• Littleton, p. 1277

"In another myth Selene was the mother of Musaeus, a legendary Greek bard. One of two legendary seers was thought to be the father, either Eumolpus or Antiphemus."

Moon chariot literary sources

• Pindar, Olympian 3.19–20 (Greek c. 522–443 BC)

"and in mid-month the full evening's eye shone brightly, the Moon on her golden chariot".

• Euripides, The Suppliant Women, 990–991:

"Over what blaze, what gleam did sun and moon / Drive their chariots through the air

• Theocritus, Idyll 2.163 ff. (Greek C3rd BC)

"So fare thee well, great Lady; to Ocean with thy team. And I, I will bear my love as best I may. Farewell sweet Lady o’ the Shining Face, and all ye starry followers in the train of drowsy Night, farewell, farewell."

• Ovid, Fasti 4.373–374 (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)

"When Pallantis [Eos the Dawn] next gleams in heaven and stars flee and Luna’s [Selene the Moon’s] snow-white horses are unhitched."

• Ovid, Fasti 3.109–110

"and that the signs which the brother travels through in a long year the horses of the sister traverse in a single month".

• Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 208 ff

""Phoebe is wondering that her brother's steeds run lower than her own [as Phaethon attempting to drive the chariot of the sun looses control of the horses]"

• Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 5.408 ff. (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.)

"[Depicted on the doors of the palace of King Aeetes :] There iron Atlas stands in Oceanus, the wave swelling and breaking on his knees; but the god himself [Helios the Sun] on high hurries his shining steeds . . . behind with smaller wheel follows his sister [Selene the Moon] and the crowded Pleiades and the fires whose tresses are wet with dripping rain [the Hyades]."

• Statius, Thebaid 1. 336 ff. (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.)

"But now through the wide domains which Phoebus [Helios the sun], his day’s work ended, had left bare, rose the Titanian queen [Selene the moon], borne upward through a silent world, and with her dewy chariot cooled and rarefied the air; now birds and beasts are hushed, and Somnus [Hypnos, sleep] steals o’er the greedy cares of men, and stoops and beckons from the sky, shrouding a toilsome life once more in sweet oblivion."

• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.214 ff. (Greek epic C5th A.D.)

"[The monster Typhoeus laid siege to heaven, challenging the rule of Zeus :] Many a time he [Typhoeus] took a bull at rest from his rustic plowtree and shook him with a threatening hand, bellow as he would, then shot him against Selene the Moon like another moon, and stayed her course, then rushed hissing against the goddess, checking with the bridle her bulls’ white yoke-straps, while he poured out the mortal whistle of a poison-spitting viper. But Titanis Mene [Selene] would not yield to the attack. Battling against the Gigante’s heads, like horned to hers [Selene was pictured with horns and a disc between them which formed the circle of the moon, with these she locked horns with one of Typhoeus’ bull heads], she carved many a scar on the shining orb of her bull’s horn [i.e the smooth white surface of the moon was scarred by this battle]; and Selene’s radiant cattle bellowed amazed at the gaping chasm of Typhaon’s throat."

• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.405 ff.

"Some shots [of rocks from the monster Typhoeus when he was battling Zeus] went past Selene’s car, and scored through the invisible footprints of her moving bulls."

• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 7.244

"A team of mules unbridled and a mule-cart with silver wheels are there on the beach, but Selene knows not how to put mules to her yokestrap--she drives a team of bulls!"

• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11.185 ff.

"[Ampelos, love of Dionysos, riding on the back of a wild bull :] He shouted boldly to the fullfaced Moon (Mene)--`Give me best, Selene, horned driver of cattle! Now I am both--I have horns and I ride a bull!’ So he called out boasting to the round Moon. Selene looked with a jealous eye through the air, to see how Ampleos rode on the murderous marauding bull. She sent him a cattlechasing gadfly; and the bull, pricked continually all over by the sharp sting, galloped away like a horse through pathless tracts . . . [it then threw him and gorged him to death]."

• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 44.191

"O Selene, driver of the silver car!"

• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.667 ff.

"... Selene also the driver of bulls had her Latmian Endymion who was busy about the herds of cattle;"

Literary descriptions sources

• Aelian, On Animals 12. 7 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.):

"They say that the Lion of Nemea fell from the moon (selene). At any rate Epimenides [C6th B.C. poet] also has these words : `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.'"

• Allen, [1] "τανυσίπτερον":

[1] "τανυσίπτερον ["long-winged" (Evelyn-White)]]: the epithet seems to imply lateness of composition. There appears to be no other example of a winged Selene in literature, and the type is very uncertain in art; Roscher (Lex. ii. 3140) doubtfully identifies a winged goddess on a gem (MüllerWieseler ii. 16, 176a) as Selene-Nike. The attribution of wings to Selene is rather due to a confusion with Eos than with Nike. Even when she drives a car, Eos is regularly represented as winged."

• Allen, [6] "χρυσέου":

"[6] χρυσέου: the epithet “golden” is at least as common as “silver” in classical allusions to the moon; cf. Pind. Ol.3. 20, Eur. Phoen.176, Anth. Pal. v. 15. 1, orac.ap. Jo. Lyd. p. 94, Dion. 44. 192, and other references in Roscher Lex. ii. 3130, 3136. On the “στέφανος” see ib. 3133."

• Allen, [18] "Πρόφρον":

"[18] Πρόφρον ["mild" (Evelyn-White)]]: here a true adjective, “benevolent”; in xxx. 18, xxxi. 17 the word is used predicatively with a verb, as in Homer (Il. 1.543 etc.)."

• Roman, "Selene" p. 434:

"In the Homeric Hymn, Selene is given wings, while in the Orphic Hymn, she has horns;"

• Taylor, Orphic Hymns 8 (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.):

Hear, Goddess queen, diffusing silver light, bull-horn'd and wand'ring thro' the gloom of Night.

With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide Night's torch extending, thro' the heav'ns you ride:

Female and Male with borrow'd rays you shine, and now full-orb'd, now tending to decline.

Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon [Mene], whose amber orb makes Night's reflected noon:

Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night, all-seeing pow'r bedeck'd with starry light.

Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife, in peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:

Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend, who giv'st to Nature's works their destin'd end.

Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail! Deck'd with a graceful robe and shining veil;

Come, blessed Goddess, prudent, starry, bright, come moony-lamp with chaste and splendid light,

Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays, and pleas'd accept thy suppliant's mystic praise.

Iconography

Vases

Athens, National Museum (4294? 1383?) (winged horses) (Nyx?)

LIMC 31573, image 33180X101.jpg

Object

ID: 31573

Type: calyx crater

Artist: Painter of the Judgement of Paris

Origin: Boeotia / Boeotian

Category: vase painting

Material: terracotta

Discovery: Boeotia

Dating: -450 – -400

Description: Hermes in front of the chariot of Nyx [not Selene?]

Address: National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Inventory 1383

Beazley Archive, 15412

Vase Number: 15412

Fabric: ATHENIAN

Technique: RED-FIGURE

Shape Name: KRATER, CALYX

Provenance: GREECE, BOEOTIA

Date: -450 to -400

Attributed To: ATTIC QUERY by UNKNOWN

Decoration: A: SELENE IN BIGA (WINGED HORSES), HERMES, DOLPHIN

B: ATHENA IN BIGA, OWL

Current Collection: Athens, National Museum: 4294

Previous Collections: Athens, National Museum: 1383

Savignoni, p. 264

[Between p. 265 and p. 266, Plate X]:

PL. X

KRATER AT ATHENS WITH SELENE AND HERMES

Savignoni, pp. 269–270

II

The subject figured on Plate X. ... this represents another rare subject, the goddess of night. Selene rises from the sea (indicated by a dolphin) in her chariot drawn by two winged fiery steeds, and starts on her rapid journey across the starry sky, guided by the figure of Hermes who precedes her. The subject decorates a bell-krater (Fig. 3), which was found in Boeotia, and has passed with the rest of the Polytechnicon collection into the Central Museum at Athens.¹...

¹ Invent. No. 4294.

Zschietzschmann, p. XII

23. Selene has mounted her two wheeled chariot, and is steering the winged pair of horses across the sea with a thorny stick for whip. Hermes goes before the horses, there is a new moon and a star; It is a nocturnal journey.

Zschietzschmann, p. 23

Selene, goddess of the moon, driving across the sea. Mixing urn in Athens, Nat. Mus., second half of 5th century.

Berlin, Antikensammlung F 2293 - Berlin Gigantomachy cup

(c. 490–485 BC)

LIMC 11564 (Selene, Luna 47), image 11842X101.jpg

Object

ID: 11564

Type: cup, kylix

Artist: Brygos Painter

Origin: Attica

Category: vase painting

Material: terracotta

Discovery: Vulci

Dating: -490 – -480

Beazley Archive 203909

Vase Number: 203909

Fabric: ATHENIAN

Technique: RED-FIGURE

Shape Name: CUP B

Provenance: ITALY, ETRURIA, VULCI

Date: -500 to -450

Attributed To: BRYGOS P by FURTWÄNGLER

Decoration: A,B: GIGANTOMACHY, ZEUS IN CHARIOT WITH THUNDERBOLT, HERAKLES (AS SCYTHIAN ARCHER), ATHENA, HEPHAISTOS, POSEIDON WITH ROCK WITH FOX OR DOG (NISYROS), HERMES, GIANTS, COLUMN, DEVICE, SNAKE

I: SELENE IN BIGA DRAWN BY WINGED HORSES

Current Collection: Berlin, Antikensammlung: F2293

Previous Collections:

Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg: F2293

AVI 2843

• Cohen, p. 156:

"... Selene tondo inside the Brygos Painter's Gigantomachy cup in Berlin of ca. 490–485 B.C. ... Selene, with outlined moon disk shimmering above her head, plunges her frontal chariot pulled by winged horses into the sea."

• Cohen, p. 157

The Selene tondo is the first depiction of the moon goddess as a fully embodied being shown in the context of a broader image. Earlier in red-figure, Selene is shown only as a profile head or bust upon the reserved moon disk itself. Gesturing with one outlined hand raised before her outline profile face, Selene appears on a reserved moon disk under the B/A handle of the Parade cup in Berlin (fig. 6) [c. 500 BC] with the potter-signature of Sosias.⁴⁸ Shown with a frontal eye and outlined lips, the goddess wears a disk earring with two pendants; her black hair is bound by a reserved fillet. A similar outline image of Selene appears against a moon disk on the tondo of a cup in Bonn from the early fifth century ...

• Cohen, p. 178

In the Brygos Painter's daring composition on the cup's tondo, the moon goddess, Selene descends into the sea, her chariot drawn by two winged horses toward the viewer (fig. 47.3). The moon's descent places the god's victory in the Gigantomachy at the dawn of a new day. A similar cosmological framework recurs in the iconographic program of the Parthenon. This is the earliest preserved Greek depiction of Selene in her chariot, ... Stars twinkle on both sides of Selene's sakkos-covered head. ... The shaded moon disk floating directly above Selene's profile head, ...

• Cohen, p. 179:

(Image)

• Savignoni, p. 267

Further, the same design has been adapted to a Selene figure, in the interior of a well-known red-figured kylix (Fig. 2) in the style of Brygos, belonging to the Berlin Museum.

• Savignoni, p. 268

Fig. 2—Kylix at Berlin

Berlin, Antikensammlung F 2519

Riding horse sideways

LIMC 13274 (Selene, Luna 40), image 13612X101.jpg

Beazley Archive 4674

Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco 3996

On horseback, crescent moon, stars

LIMC 13265 (Selene, Luna 35), image 13603X001.jpg

Object

ID: 13265

Type: oinochoe

Artist: Florence 4021

Category: vase painting

Discovery: Orvieto

Description

Selene riding on her horse, looking backwards. Next to her head the lunar crescent and two stars.

Bibliography

ARV(2) 874,4.

Technique

red figured

Names

Astra, Luna, Selene

Museum

Museo Archeologico

Firenze

Inventory

3996

Beazley Archive 211530

Fabric: ATHENIAN

Technique: RED-FIGURE

Shape Name: CHOUS

Provenance: ITALY, ORVIETO

Date: -475 to -425

Attributed To: FLORENCE 4021, P OF by BEAZLEY

Decoration: Body: SELENE ON HORSEBACK, CRESCENT MOON, STARS

Current Collection: Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco: 3996

Publication Record: Beazley, J.D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1963): 874.4

Beazley, J.D., Paralipomena (Oxford, 1971): 427

Carpenter, T.H., with Mannack, T. and Mendonca, M., Beazley Addenda, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1989): 300

Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: FIRENZE, REGIO MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO 2, III.I.58, III.I.59, PLS.(650-651) 66.1, 67.1 View Whole CVA Plates

Ellinghaus, C., Die Parthenonskulpturen, Der Bauschmuck eines öffentlichen Monumentes der demokratischen Gesellschaft Athens zur Zeit des Perikles, ::Techniken in der bildenden Kunst zur Tradierung von Aussagen (Hamburg, 2011): FIG.87 (BD)

Esposito, A.M., and Tommaso, G. (eds.), Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, Vasi Attici (Firenze, 1993): 70, FIG.109 (COLOUR OF BD)

LIMC ID: 13265

• Hansen, p. 221

[Image 1] Selene riding a mule

Architectural relief

Berlin, Pergamon Museum - Selene

Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases 385a

Great Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, Selene

Selene on horseback, from the south side of the Large Frieze.

Date:

Probably constructed between 180 and 159 BCE

Parthenon north metope 29

LIMC 7734 (Selene, Luna 38), image 7919X001.jpg

• Hurwit 199, p. 170

[on the North Metopes] The main narrative was set between two metopes giving a cosmic setting (a common Parthenon motif): north 1 represented Helios rising in his chariot, north 29 showed Selene plunging below the horizon on horseback.

Coins

British Museum R.7248

British Museum R.7248

British Museum IOC.282

Kushan coinage of Kanishka I with Selene (Greek legend "CAΛHNH") on the reverse, wearing lunar horns, c. AD 127 – 151.

British Museum IOC.282

Gems

British Museum 1923,0401.199

Crescent moon on head, chariot drawn by mules

British Museum 1923,0401.199

Description

Sard gem engraved with Selene with a crescent on her head, in a chariot drawn by two mules.

British Museum 1956,0517.1

Luna or Dea Syria, driving a chariot drawn by two bulls.

British Museum 1956,0517.1

LIMC 13303 (Selene, Luna 61), image 13643X001.jpg

LIMC

LIMC 18206 (Mithras 113)

LIMC 6780 (Selene, Luna 2)

LIMC 13181 (Selene, Luna 4)

LIMC 13186 (Selene, Luna 7)

LIMC 13188 (Selene, Luna 9)

LIMC 3076 (Selene, Luna 10)

LIMC 13207 (Selene, Luna 15)

LIMC 13211 (Selene, Luna 19)

LIMC 13213 (Selene, Luna 21)

LIMC 13264 (Selene, Luna 34)

LIMC 7734 (Selene, Luna 38), image 7919X001.jpg

Selene plunging below the horizon on horseback, Parthenon north metope 29.

Hurwit 199, p. 170

[on the North Metopes] The main narrative was set between two metopes giving a cosmic setting (a common Parthenon motif): north 1 represented Helios rising in his chariot, north 29 showed Selene plunging below the horizon on horseback.

LIMC 13303 (Selene, Luna 61), image 13643X001.jpg

Luna (or Dea Syria), driving a chariot drawn by two bulls.

Images

On Wikipedeia

• 
  Selene from an altar piece, flanked possibly by the Dioscuri, or Phosphoros (the Morning Star) and Hesperus (the Evening Star), Louvre.
• 
  Endymion and Selene, by Sebastiano Ricci (1713), Chiswick House, England
• 
  Gallo-Roman "Endymion" sarcophagus, early 3rd century (Louvre)
• 
  Roman Endymion sarcophagus, mid-2nd century AD. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• 
  Head of a horse of Selene from the east pediment of the Parthenon (British Museum)
• 
  Selene detail from an early 3rd century Roman sarcophagus
• 
  Blacas krater illustration
• 
  Selene riding horseback, Pergamon Altar
• 
  Selene riding horseback, Pergamon Altar

Image links

From Personification In The Greek World: From Antiquity To Byzantium p. 34

• Karusu 1984 910-15 nos 18-73
• Gury 1994, 706-15

• Selene LIMC
• CVA Online

Horseback

• Parthenon métopes, horseback: LIMC Selene, Luna 38
• Pergamon, horseback: LIMC Selene, Luna 44
• Vase, horseback, crescent, stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 35
• Vase, horseback, Helios: LIMC Selene, Luna 41
• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos: LIMC Selene, Luna 40
• Vase, horseback, billowing veil: LIMC Selene, Luna 42
• Vase, horseback, Nyx: British Museum 1873,0915.14
• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos (winged), crescent, stars: LIMC Astra 7
• Vase, horseback: LIMC Nike 238
• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos British Museum 1867,0508.1133 (Blacas krater)

• Wall painting, horseback, torch?: LIMC Selene, Luna 43

Ram

• Vase? ram, torch, billowing veil: Hansen, p. 221

Helios

• Lamp, Helios: LIMC Selene, Luna 18
• Lamp, Helios, billowing veil, torch: LIMC Selene, Luna 29
• Relief, "horns", Helios: LIMC Selene, Luna 15
• Vase, horseback, Helios: LIMC Selene, Luna 41

"Horns"

• Gem, "horns", mules: British Museum 1923,0401.199
• Gem, "horns", stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 21
• Lamp, "horns": LIMC Selene, Luna 4
• Relief, "horns": LIMC Mithras 113
• Relief, "horns", Helios: LIMC Selene, Luna 15
• Relief, "horns", stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 2
• Relief, horses?, "horns"? LIMC Selene, Luna 51, Selene? ... ?
• Sculpture, "horns", billowing veil: LIMC Selene, Luna 34

Crescent behind shoulders

• Lamp, crescent behind shoulders: LIMC Selene, Luna 9
• Relief, crescent behind shoulders, stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 7
• Relief, horses, crescent behind shoulders? billowing veil?: LIMC Selene, Luna 19
• Wall painting, crescent behind shoulders: LIMC Selene, Luna 10

Crescent, disk, stars

• Gem, "horns", stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 21
• Relief, "horns", stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 2
• Relief, crescent behind shoulders, stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 7
• Relief, Selene?, horses?, horns? LIMC Selene, Luna 51, ... ? ... ?
• Vase, horseback, crescent, stars LIMC Selene, Luna 35
• Vase, disk on head, winged horses, stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 47
• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos (winged), crescent, stars: LIMC Astra 7
• Vase, winged horses, crescent: Zschietzschmann, p. 23

Helios and Eos

• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos LIMC Selene, Luna 40
• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos (winged), crescent, stars: LIMC Astra 7
• Vase, horseback, Helios, Eos British Museum 1867,0508.1133 (Blacas krater)

Driving horses

• Vase, disk on head, winged horses, stars: LIMC Selene, Luna 47
• Relief, horses, crescent behind shoulders? billowing veil?: LIMC Selene, Luna 19
• Relief, horses?, "horns"? LIMC Selene, Luna 51, Selene? ... ?
• Vase, winged horses, crescent: Zschietzschmann, p. 23

Driving bulls

• Gem, bulls, torch?: LIMC Selene, Luna 61
• Relief, bulls, billowing veil: LIMC Selene, Luna 60

Driving mules

• Gem, "horns", mules: British Museum 1923,0401.199

Billowing veil

• Sculpture, "horns", billowing veil: LIMC Selene, Luna 34
• Vase, horseback, billowing veil LIMC Selene, Luna 42
• Helios, billowing veil, torch: LIMC Selene, Luna 29
• Relief, horses, crescent behind shoulders? billowing veil?: LIMC Selene, Luna 19
• Relief, bulls, billowing veil: LIMC Selene, Luna 60
• Vase? ram, torch, billowing veil: Hansen, p. 221

Torch

• Gem, bulls, torch?: LIMC Selene, Luna 61
• Lamp, Helios, billowing veil, torch: LIMC Selene, Luna 29
• Wall painting, horseback, torch?: LIMC Selene, Luna 43
• Vase? ram, torch, billowing veil: Hansen, p. 221

Sarcophagus

• Sarcophagus, Rome
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, Endymion sarcophagus acc. no. 47.100.4

Other

• British Museum, east pediment horse head