selene greek mythology

Selene fought back the giant, locking horns with Typhon; afterwards, she carried many scars on her orb, reminiscent of their battle. Selene detail from a sarcophagus, imperial period. [158] HMS Selene (P254), a 1944 British submarine and Ghia Selene, a concept car from the Ghia design studio from 1959, also bore her name. As time progressed, they merged into one identity. Zeus slept with the human queen Alcmene, of which encounter Heracles was born. [146], Her and her brother's worship is also attested in Gytheum, a town in Laconia near Sparta, via an inscription (C.I.G. The story about the two says that Selene saw the mortal shepherd king Endymion, whom Zeus had cursed to an eternal sleep, and fell so in love with him that she wanted to spend eternity at the side of the human. The moon was thought to influence people in other ways, as well. 116, no. Because Basileia's other brothers envied these offspring, and feared that Hyperion would try to seize power for himself, they conspired against him. Selenes role in this war was not only to fight against the giants. Only a handful of religious centers of Selene are known from the ancient world. There were still several goddesses who shared Selenes lunar domain, however. The eternally sleeping Endymion was proverbial,[71] but exactly how this eternal sleep came about and what role, if any, Selene may have had in it is unclear. Although Zeus had taken many mortal lovers, the goddess of the moon had been abandoning her duties and could cause chaos if she continued. This article is about the Greek goddess. In rarer traditions, she is the daughter of the Titan Pallas. The goddess Selene was the daughter of Titius Hyperion and Theia. He soon discovered the source of Selenes distraction. [87], According to the late account of Nonnus, when the gigantic monster Typhon laid siege against the heavens, he attacked Selene as well by hurling bulls at her, though she managed to stay in her course, and rushed at her hissing like a viper. Pandia (or Pandia Selene) may have personified the full moon,[130] and an Athenian festival, called the Pandia, usually considered to be a festival for Zeus,[131] was perhaps celebrated on the full moon and may have been associated with Selene. [8] The masculine form of mene (men) was also the name of the Phrygian moon-god Men. Also known as Mene, she is traditionally the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun god Helios and the dawn goddess Eos. Selene is a Goddess in herself, but she is often associated with Artemis, the archer Goddess. 80; Acusilaus, FHG 1 frag. Who was Vesta, the Goddess of the Hearth? Selene the moon goddess was a minor figure in ancient Greek mythology. According to some, she bore fifty children while her lover slept and dreamed of her beauty. The goddess of the hunt became associated with the moon and lunar cycles. Occasionally Selenes chariot was pulled by oxen or bulls, again differentiating it from the faster vehicle of her brother. Selene is probably most famous for her love of Endymion, a handsome young man from Asia Minor (though some said that he was from Elis). While Selene was known for pulling the moon across the sky in her silver . [13], Selene, along with her brother, her sister and the sky-god Zeus, is one of the few Greek deities of a clear Proto-Indo-European origin, although they were sidelined by later non-PIE newcomers to the pantheon, as remaining on the sidelines became their primary function, to be the minor deities the major ones were juxtaposed to, thus helping keep the Greek religion Greek. Along with Selenes siblings, the moon goddess suppressed her light so that the mighty Titanan goddess could not find a herb that would reputedly make the Giants invincible. [76] The Roman playwright Seneca, has Selene abandoned the night sky for Endymion's sake having entrusted her "shining" moon chariot to her brother Helios to drive. [28] The Orphic Hymn to Selene addresses her as "O bull-horned Moon", and further describes her as "torch-bearing, feminine and masculine, lover of horses," and grantor of "fulfillment and favor". Privacy. However, Selene was not one of them. 573 Bernab. With his sister, the Titaness Theia, Hyperion fathered Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn).. Hyperion was, along with his son Helios, a personification of the sun, with the two sometimes . The goddess took offense, and sent a gadfly to sting Ampelus' bull. [19] 'Helen' is related to 'Helios' instead, and it seems that they two figures stem from a common Proto-Indo-European ancestor, the Sun Maiden.[20][21]. [125] An oracular sanctuary existed near Thalamai in Laconia. There were some witches who people thought could make the moon or the sun disappear from the sky at a specified time, although it is more likely that such people, if they did exist, simply had the ability to predict when an eclipse was going to happen. I have been in love with all things related to Mythology. [141], Selene played an important role in love magic. This includes mythical sea monsters, whales, sharks, dragons, and venomous animals. Their daughter Eos was the first to appear each day. Zeus had enough sympathy for Selene to not kill Endymion outright, but he put the human man in an enchanted sleep on Mount Latmus in the East so Selene would have no further reason to descend to earth each night. If you have read Greek mythology and the famous epics of ancient Greece, you may be quite familiar with her brother Helios. Like Artemis, Selene was sometimes called Phoebe, a name that means bright one.. She is often linked with Endymion, whom she loved and whom Zeus cast into eternal sleep in a cave on Mount Latmus; there, Selene visited him and became the mother of 50 daughters. [84] Selene's participation in the battle is evidenced by her inclusion in the Gigantomachy frieze of the Pergamon Altar, fighting against Giants next to her siblings Helios and Eos and her mother Theia in the southern frieze. [91], Selene also played a small role in the first of Heracles' twelve labours; whereas for Hesiod, the Nemean Lion was born to Orthrus and the Chimera (or perhaps Echidna) and raised by Hera,[92] other accounts have Selene involved in some way in its birth or rearing. According to Hesiods Theogony, her parents were the Titans Hyperion and Theia; her brother was Helios, the sun god (sometimes called her father); her sister was Eos (Dawn). A third version of the story had Endymion himself choose an ageless sleep as opposed to living a mortal life. [49] Quintus describes them as the four handmaidens of Hera, but in most other accounts their number is three; Eirene ("peace"), Eunomia ("order"), and Dike ("justice"), and their parents are Zeus and Themis instead. [40][41] Furthermore, in Virgil's Aeneid, when Nisus calls upon Selene/the Moon, he addresses her as "daughter of Latona. The fifty daughters of Selene and Endymion mark the fifty lunar months of the four year Olympiad Cycle. While most of the Homeric Hymns were written in the seventh or sixth century BCE, the Homeric Hymn to Selene was probably composed no earlier than the fourth century BCE. According to the Homeric Hymn 32, Selene and Zeus together had a daughter named Pandia. This story seems to have made its way into Roman mythology as well since many of the greatest Roman scholars, from Cicero to Seneca, have written about it. [121], 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. Hesiod, Theogony 371ff; Apollodorus, Library 1.2.2; etc. [29] Empedocles, Euripides and Nonnus all describe her as (glaukpis, "bright-eyed", a common epithet of the goddess Athena)[30] while in a fragment from a poem, possibly written by Pamprepius, she is called (kyanpis, "dark-eyed"). This was the mythological explanation for the movement of the moon across the sky. Selene was the ancient Greek Titan goddess of the moon. Deciphering the Role of Helios, the Sun God of Greek Mythology. Worshiped as one of the important celestial lights of the heavens, Selene was also reputedly revered as a deity of agriculture and fertility. [45] Selene and Zeus were also said to be the parents of Nemea, the eponymous nymph of Nemea, where Heracles slew the Nemean Lion, and where the Nemean Games were held. In the more familiar tradition, however, the Horae were the daughters of Zeus and Themis, and there were only three of them (even their names are completely different: Eirene, Eunomia, and Dike). Another myth describes how Selene held her own against the monster Typhoeus when he attacked the gods. They put Hyperion to the sword, and drowned Helios in the river Eridanus. So she is a sure token and a sign to mortal men. In the Homeric Hymn to Selene, she bears the beautiful Pandeic to Zeus, while Alcman says they are the parents of Herse, the dew. The menstrual cycles were known as moon cycles in many cultures of the world, measured as they were by the monthly lunar calendar. [32], Selene was rarely worshipped, at least in earlier periods of ancient Greek history. Selene was one of the daughters of the Titan gods Hyperion and Theia and the sister of the sun god Helios and the goddess of the dawn Eos. Greek Gods / Helios. Most of the important Greek gods and goddesses had temple sites of their own. Described by Pausanias, it contained statues of Pasipha and Helios. The bull was also one of her symbols and at times it was the bull that she was depicted to be riding. Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases. The Origin of Hotdogs, The History of Boracay Island in The Philippines. My name is Mike and for as long as I can remember (too long!) Let's take a closer look at her story. There are a few different versions of the myth. In later eras, she became associated with madness as well. Two of the original twelve Titans descended from Uranus and Gaia, Hyperion was the Titan god of heavenly light while Theia was the Titan goddess of vision and the aether. [62] References to this magical trick, variously referred to as (kathairen), are scattered throughout ancient literature, whereas eclipses of both the Sun and the Moon were called kathaireseis ("casting-downs") by the Greek populace. "[42], According to the Homeric Hymn to Selene, the goddess bore Zeus a daughter, Pandia ("All-brightness"),[43] "exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods". Selene herself most often wore a crown of gleaming silver, which matched her silver chariot. Like her brother Helios, the Sun god, who drives his sun chariot across the sky each day, Selene is also said to drive a chariot across the heavens. The lunar goddess was also important for her influence over female fertility cycles and childbirth. Selene and Endymion by Sebastiano Ricci (1713). Selene had an altar at Pergamon, at the sanctuary of Demeter, the goddess of spring. 14 In works of art, however, the two divinities are usually distinguished; the face of Accessed on 27 Feb. 2023. The name Selene is probably derived from the Greek selas, meaning "light".She was also called Mene, which means "month" referring to the lunar month which was calculated from the new moon to the dark moon and Phoebe, meaning "bright". But unlike other night goddesseslike Nyx, Hecate, and sometimes even ArtemisSelene represented the moon itself. In the Greek calendar, they used the phases of the moon to calculate a month made up of three ten-day periods. But Selene was also called by many generic epithets that were used for other goddesses as well, including (euplokmos, she of the beautiful hair), (leuklnos, white-armed), (glaukpis, gray-eyed, bright-eyed, an epithet most commonly associated with Athena), and (kyanpis, dark-eyed, essentially the opposite of glaukpis). Even though she, along with her siblings, was a Titan goddess because of her parentage, the three of them became quite central to the Greek pantheon and were accepted as Greek gods themselves after the fall of the great Titans. [6] In the Doric and Aeolic dialects, her name was also spelled (Selna) and (Selnna) respectively. Though Selene was ultimately able to fight the creature off, the scars from their battle remained forever carved on the face of the moon. Thus, both the sun and the moon were seen as gods embodied in those forms. The Greek word Phoebe means bright and the word Cynthia means from Mount Cynthus which was said to be the birthplace of Artemis. But the Greek cult of Selene grew more and more prevalent towards the end of the Hellenistic period (32331 BCE). Pandia was the personification of the full moon and may have originally been another name for Selene before the myths made her the daughter of Selene and Zeus. The two other daughters that Selene and Zeus had together was Nemea, the nymph of the town that the Nemean Lion was from, and Ersa, the personified version of dew. She is usually portrayed either driving a chariot (see above) or riding sideways on horseback[111] (sometimes riding an ox, a mule or a ram). Two of these were Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, and Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft. Altes Museum, Berlin, Germany. [75] Cicero seems to make Selene responsible for Endymion's sleep, so that "she might kiss him while sleeping". ), The name Selene (Greek , translit. Zeus put Endymion into an eternal sleep so the goddess could see him forever as a beautiful young man. Of art, however the movement of the hunt became associated with the moon across the sky in her.! To influence people in other ways, as well of art, however, the could. End of the world, measured as they were by the monthly lunar calendar brother Helios him while ''... 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