Selene

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Selene

Selene is the Titan goddess of the moon. In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Selene (Se????, "moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
"; English ) was an archaic lunar deity

Lunar deity

In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon: see moon . These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related to or an enemy of the solar deity....
and the daughter of the Titans

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
Hyperion

Hyperion (mythology)

Hyperion is one of the twelve Titan gods of Ancient Greece, which were later supplanted by the Olympians. He was the son of Gaia and Uranus , and was referred to in early mythological writings as Helios Hyperion, 'Sun High-one'....
and Theia

Theia

In Greek mythology, Theia, goddess or divine, , also called Euryphaessa, wide-shining, was a Titan . The name Theia alone means simply, "goddess"; Theia Euryphaessa brings overtones of extent and brightness....
. In Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology, or more appropriately, Latin mythology, refers to the mythology beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Rome....
, the moon goddess is called Luna, Latin for "moon".

Like most moon deities, Selene plays a fairly large role in her pantheon, which preceded the Olympic pantheon.

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Encyclopedia

Selene is the Titan goddess of the moon. In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Moon

Lunar deity

Titan (mythology)

Hyperion (mythology)

Theia

Roman mythology

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
, and Luna by Diana

Diana (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunting, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon. In literature she was the Greek deities and their Roman and Etruscan counterparts of the Greek mythology Artemis, though in Cult she was Italy, not Greek, in origin....
. In the collection known as the Homeric hymns

Homeric Hymns

The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek language hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter? dactylic hexameter? as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect....
, there is a Hymn to Selene (xxxii), paired with the hymn to Helios; in it, Selene is addressed as "far-winged", an epithet ordinarily applied to birds. Selene is mentioned in Nonnus

Nonnus

Nonnus , was a Greek language epic poet. He was a native of Panopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, and probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century....
, Dionysiaca 48.581; Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
5.1.4; and Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
14.1.6,

The etymology of Selene is uncertain, but if the word is of Greek origin, it is likely connected to the word selas, meaning "light". Boreion Selas is the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
name for Aurora Borealis. In modern times, Selene is the root of selenology, the study of the geology of the Moon

Geology of the Moon

The geology of the Moon is quite different from that of the Earth. The Moon lacks a significant Celestial body atmosphere and any body of water, which eliminates erosion due to weather; it does not possess any form of plate tectonics, it has a lower gravitation, and because of its small size, it cools more rapidly....
, and the chemical element selenium

Selenium

Selenium is a chemical element with the atomic number 34, represented by the chemical symbol Se, an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, chemically related to sulfur and tellurium, and rarely occurs in its elemental state in nature....
.

Depictions

In post-Renaissance art, Selene is generally depicted as a beautiful woman with a pale face, riding a silver chariot pulled by a yoke

Yoke

File:09.Ixubo.JPGA yoke is a wooden beam which is used between a pair of oxen to allow them to pull a load . There are several types, used in different cultures, and for different types of oxen....
of oxen or a pair of horses. Often, she has been shown riding a horse or bull, wearing robes and a half-moon on her head and carrying a torch. Essentially, Selene is the moon goddess but is literally defined as 'the moon'.

Myths

Genealogy

In the traditional pre-Olympian divine genealogy, Helios

Helios

Helios is the god of sun.In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios . Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion , while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn....
, the sun, is Selene's brother: after Helios finishes his journey across the sky, Selene, freshly washed in the waters of Earth-circling Ocean

Ocean

An ocean is a major body of Seawater, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a World Ocean that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas....
, begins her own journey as night falls upon the earth, which becomes lit from the radiance of her immortal head and golden crown. When she is increasing after mid-month, it is a "sure token and a sign to mortal men". Her sister, Eos

Eos

Eos is, in Greek mythology, the Titan goddess of the dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the sun....
, is goddess of the dawn. Eos also carried off a human lover, Cephalus

Cephalus

Cephalus is an Ancient Greek name, used both for historical persons and for characters in Greek mythology. The word cephalus is Greek for "head", perhaps used here because Cephalus was the founding "head" of a great family that includes Odysseus....
, which mirrors a myth of Selene and Endymion

Endymion (mythology)

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
, like Artemis, or of Pallas

Pallas (son of Crius)

Pallas is a Titan , associated with war, killed by Athena in fight with gods. Most sources indicate that he was the son of Crius and Eurybia, the brother of Astraeus and Perses , and the husband of Styx ....
the Titan. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes

Homeric Hymns

The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek language hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter? dactylic hexameter? as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect....
, with its characteristically insistent patrilineality

Patrilineality

Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage; it generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
, she is "bright Selene, daughter of the lord Pallas, Megamedes' son."

Lovers

Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes, also known as Apollonius Rhodius , early 3rd century BCE - after 246 BCE, was a librarian at the Library of Alexandria....
(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

Elis

Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district, that corresponds with the modern Elis Prefecture. It is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea....
, named Endymion

Endymion (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Endymion could have been a handsome Aeolians shepherd or hunter, or, even a king who ruled and was said to reside at Olympia in Elis, but he was also said to reside and was venerated on Latmus in Caria, on the west coast of Asia Minor....
, 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

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Ancient Rome philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Constitution of the Roman Republic. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest rhetoric and prose stylists....
(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

Latmus

Miletus

Miletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria. Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander....
.

Selene had fifty daughters, the Menae

Menae

The Menae were the goddesses of the lunar phase of the moon. They were the daughters of the moon goddess Selene and Endymion . They probably included Nemea , Pandeia , Mesomene , Meniskos , and Mene ....
, by Endymion, including Naxos, the nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
of Naxos Island. The sanctuary

Temenos

Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to basileus and anax, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian Games race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ?e????? p??? t??e??? ?????da, the...
of Endymion at Heracleia under Latmus

Latmus

Latmus is a ridge of many spurs running in an east-west direction along the the north shore of the former Latmian Gulf on the coast of Caria, which became part of Hellenised Ionia....
still exists as a horseshoe-shaped chamber with an entrance hall and pillared forecourt.

Though the story of Endymion is the best-known one today, the Homeric hymn to Selene (xxxii) tells that Selene also bore to Zeus

Zeus

Pandia

In Greek mythology, the goddess Pandia was the personification of brightness and a daughter of Zeus and Selene. Her beauty was renowned among the gods. She also has a monster as a brother, the Nemean Lion, and fifty half-sisters, the Menae....
, the "utterly shining" full moon. According to some sources, the Nemean Lion

Nemean Lion

The Nemean lion was a vicious monster in Greek mythology that lived in Nemea. He was eventually killed by Heracles. The lion was usually considered the offspring of Typhon and Echidna , but it was also said to have fallen from the moon, offspring of Zeus and Selene....
was her offspring as well. According to Virgil she also had a brief tryst with Pan

Pan (mythology)

Pan , in Ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, is the companion of the nymphs, god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music....
, who seduced her by wrapping himself in a sheepskin

Sheepskin (material)

File:Sheep skin for sale.jpgSheepskin is the Hides of a Domestic sheep, sometimes also called lambskin or lambswool. Unlike common leather, sheepskin is tanned with the fleece intact, as in a pelt....
and gave her the yoke of white oxen that drew the chariot in which she is represented in sculptured reliefs, with her windblown veil above her head like the arching canopy of sky. In the Homeric hymn, her chariot is drawn by long-maned horses.

Luna

The Roman moon goddess, Luna, had a temple on the Aventine Hill

Aventine Hill

The Aventine Hill is one of the Seven hills of Rome on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa , the twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome....
. It was built in the sixth century BC, but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome

Great Fire of Rome

According to the historian Tacitus, the Great Fire of Rome started on the night of 18 July in the year 64 CE, among the shops clustered around the Circus Maximus....
during Nero

Nero

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus , born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, was the fifth and final Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty....
's reign. There was also a temple dedicated to Luna Noctiluca ("Luna that shines by night") on the Palatine Hill

Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city. It stands 40 metres above the Roman Forum, looking down upon it on one side, and upon the Circus Maximus on the other....
. There were festivals in honor of Luna on March 31, August 24 and August 29.

Modern use

"Selena" ranked 815th and "Selene" 2555th in a common US-based listing of Most Popular Female First Names.

Selene (comics)

Selene (comics)

Selene Gallio is a fictional character, a comic book supervillainess from the Marvel Comics Marvel Universe. The character first appeared in New Mutants vol....
is a Marvel comic book villaness most often associated with the X-Men and the Hellfire Club.

External links

Passages from Greek texts, in translation