While traveling the Greek world in the 2nd century CE, the geographer Pausanias visited the statue of Zeus at Olympia. The ancient geographer noted a curious detail about the statue’s pedestal. At the end of the carved relief depicting various deities was a goddess driving a single horse. Identifying her as Selene, the goddess of the moon, Pausanias notes that some said the horse was, in fact, a mule, a detail that resulted in much mirth. While some may have poked fun at this seemingly inconsequential deity, exploring the myths and legends about Selene, the ancient goddess of the moon, reveals a fascinating character.
Divine Genealogy: Selene’s Family Tree
While visitors to the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia may have felt emboldened to poke fun at Selene’s mule, they risked mocking the daughter of Titans. In ancient Greece, the goddess of the moon was a descendant of the Titan Hyperion. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Hyperion was one of the 12 offspring of Gaia, the personification of the earth, and her partner, Uranus, the god of the sky.
They had three especially noteworthy children. These were Helios, the god of the sun, Eos, the goddess of the dawn, and Selene, the goddess of the moon. They were, according to Hesiod’s poem, the offspring of an incestuous relationship between Hyperion and his sister, Theia, the goddess of sight and vision. While this is the standard account of the goddess’ ancestry, it is not the only version. Different writers in the ancient world identified different divine parents for the lunar deity. This includes Virgil, the Roman poet, who described Selene as the daughter of Latona in his Aeneid.
Like many of the gods of the ancient Mediterranean world, Selene was also an extraordinarily fecund deity. In his account of the Peloponnese, the geographer Pausanias describes a local myth that claims that Selene was the mother to 50 offspring with her mortal lover, Endymion.
She also had divine offspring, most notably from her relationship with Zeus. According to the Homeric Hymns, a series of 33 Greek hymns praising the Olympian deities, the daughter of Selene and Zeus’ union was Pandia, whose name means “brightness.” In the 7th century BCE, the Spartan poet Alcman identified this divine child of Zeus and Selene as Ersa, whose name means “dew.”
The ancient Greeks and Romans remained fascinated with Selene’s progeny, and as late as the 4th century CE, the poet Quintus of Smyrna described Selene as having had four offspring by her brother, Helios. These goddesses, the Horae, were the personifications of the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
Myths and Worship: Selene, Goddess of the Moon
Most commonly, Selene is understood as the counterpart to her brother, Helios, the god of the sun. Together, they were responsible for the rising and setting of the sun and the moon every day. Much as the solar deity drove a sun chariot across the sky each day, Selene was said to drive the moon across the heavens in a similar manner—at least, that’s the account provided by the Homeric Hymn.
Curiously, there is no mention of the goddess having such a carriage in either Homer or Hesiod. Nevertheless, the chariot became a common motif when representing the lunar goddess, even though the representation of Selene’s carriage varies considerably across different media and different accounts. An upturned crescent moon atop her head, resembling a pair of horns, is another common feature used in artistic representations of Selene. As a goddess of the moon and its cyclical rising and falling, Selene came to be linked with a number of different associations, including menstruation.
Despite the very personal nature of these associations and the omnipresence of the lunar cycle in day-to-day human life, Selene’s presence in ancient religion is remarkably limited. Some scattered evidence identifies worship of the goddess, including at Gyhreum, a town close to Sparta. Epigraphic evidence here testifies to the worship of Selene alongside Helios. This is a common pattern, with the goddess appearing in sacred contexts often coupled with her brother.
Pausanias’ account of the statue of Zeus at Olympia reveals that Selene and Helios framed a relief of the birth of Aphrodite. There was also a well-known image pairing of the solar and lunar deities on the Parthenon metopes.
But where does the goddess of the moon appear in cult practice? Often in connection with other, more notable, deities. For instance, Selene was associated with childbirth, which was considered to be easiest during the full moon, and this saw her associated with Artemis and Hera, as well as other deities who supported women.
Lunar Love: The Myth of Selene and Endymion
While she may not have been particularly prominent in the cultic practices of ancient Mediterranean societies, Selene was nevertheless an important character in several mythological tales, most notably the myth of Endymion.
The first account of this famous love affair between the goddess and the mortal was from Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, written in the 3rd century BCE. This work is perhaps more widely known to modern audiences as not only the only surviving Hellenistic epic but also the work which recounts the story of Jason and the Argonauts and their search for the Golden Fleece.
According to the tale, Selene was utterly enamored with the beautiful Endymion, a handsome Aeolian shepherd who resided on Mount Latmus in Caria, Asia Minor. Selene became so infatuated with Endymion that she sought Zeus’s aid. She asked the ruler of the gods to grant Endymion eternal youth, to keep him in the state in which the moon goddess found him so bewitching. According to one version of the myth, Zeus used Selene’s request to enact a spiteful vengeance on Endymion, who had fallen in love with Hera, Zeus’ wife. So, to grant Selene’s request, Zeus put Endymion into eternal sleep.
The myth takes a darker turn for modern sensibilities when, according to some versions, including as recounted by Pausanias, the infatuated goddess continued to visit the sleeping shepherd nightly and, although he was unconscious, had 50 daughters by him. The myth remained popular in Classical culture, featuring in the works of writers as diverse as Theocritus, Propertius, and Cicero. It would also attract the interest of much later writers, and the myth of Endymion and his divine lover became the subject of poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Keats, as well as the subject of numerous paintings.
Heroes, Giants, and Lovers: Selene in Classical Mythology
Alongside her role in the myth of Endymion, the moon goddess Selene is also featured in several other myths from the Classical world. Perhaps most significant was her role in the climactic struggle between the gods of Olympus and the primordial Giants. Known as the Gigantomachy, this war was prompted by Gaia’s anger. Furious at Zeus and the Olympians’ defeat of her Titan children and their banishment to Tartarus, she called forth the giants to attack the Olympians.
In fear of a prophecy foretelling their defeat, Gaia sought a secret herb that would make the giants omnipotent. Zeus, fearing this, ordered Helios and Selene not to shine. With the world plunged into darkness, Zeus harvested all of this potent ingredient for himself. In the battle that followed, the Olympians were victorious. However, they could not have been so without the aid of Selene and her brother. She is prominently featured in artistic depictions of the Gigantomachy, most notably the monumental altar from Pergamon in Asia Minor.
However, Selene was a lover as much as a fighter. Later mythological traditions have the lunar goddess having a tryst with the libidinous god, Pan. According to Virgil’s Georgics, the goat-legged god seduced the goddess with the gift of wool. Selene is also featured in the mythology surrounding Hercules, including in both his divine origins and in his famous 12 labors. In the former, she aided Zeus in his seduction of the mortal queen, Alcmene, Hercules’ mother. To help him in his endeavors with Alcmene, according to the Roman poet Lucian, the ruler of Olympus had Selene make one night last as long as three. There is also a suggestion in some accounts of Hercules’ twelve labors that the Nemean Lion had been reared by Selene.
Afterlife of an Ancient Goddess: Selene in Modern Science and Society
Although she may not have been one of the most prominent or important of the gods in ancient Greece, Selene nevertheless lives on in modern societies in a number of different ways. Most obviously, the goddess has lent her name to the sciences as humans have explored the far reaches of space. Although modern readers are perhaps more aware of the afterlife of Selene’s Roman equivalent, Luna, from which the term “lunar” derives, Selene continues to inspire scientists and astronomers. Most obviously, the scientific study of lunar geology is sometimes referred to as “selenology,” while further afield in our solar system, in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, there is a minor planet called 580 Selene.
