Selene

The moon as a divine body

Selene is the moon, thought of as a person. The early Greek poet Hesiod places her in the family of the Titans, the older gods, as a daughter of Hyperion and Theia. Her brother is Helios and her sister is Eos. The three set the visible sky in order: sun, moon and dawn come from one branch of the older gods.

The short Homeric Hymn to Selene, an early poem in her praise, shows her in motion. Light spreads from her immortal head and reaches the earth. She bathes in Ocean, puts on shining clothes, harnesses a team of horses and drives out at evening. In the middle of the month her circle is full and her light is brightest, and she becomes a sign for mortals.

The hymn makes no split between a goddess and a physical moon that she controls. Her body, her light, her journey and her changing shape are all one description. Her regular change is clear enough to mark time. The poet can still give her clothes, horses and a divine family.

The hymn adds one child. Zeus joins with Selene, and she bears Pandia. Hesiod says nothing of this union. The two poems keep different parts of her family story, and they do not contradict each other.

Selene and Endymion

Selene’s best-known love story comes from Elis, the region around Olympia. The travel writer Pausanias records it as part of the early history of Elis. The people of Elis say the Moon fell in love with Endymion and bore him 50 daughters. Pausanias also gives several other mortal wives for Endymion. He makes clear that the local family trees did not agree on all his children.

His account leaves out some details that later writers attached to the pair. It does not say that Selene puts Endymion into an endless sleep so that she can visit him. Elsewhere Pausanias records a tradition from Caria that places Endymion on Mount Latmus. In the story from Elis, the firm points are her love, the 50 daughters and Endymion’s place in the royal line.

This matters because Endymion belongs to more than one region and more than one story. Selene’s link with Olympia rests on the version from Elis that Pausanias reports. It does not rest on moving the cave of Latmus to Greece.

A race for the kingdom at Olympia

Endymion follows his father as ruler in Elis. He sets his sons a race at Olympia, with the kingdom as the prize. Epeius wins, takes power and gives his name to the people called the Epeans. This race belongs to local memory of the royal family, not to the later Olympic programme. Even so, Pausanias ties it to Olympia by name.

He gives a second marker on the ground when he describes the stadium. At the end, beside the runners’ starting place, the people of Elis point out a tomb of Endymion. So the man Selene loved is tied both to a founding race at Olympia and to a monument among its sports grounds.

In these passages Selene herself has no temple at Olympia. The link runs through the story of Endymion as told in Elis, exactly as Pausanias gives it. To call it worship of Selene would go beyond the evidence.

Fullness, measure and return

The hymn and Pausanias keep different kinds of knowledge. The hymn watches the moon grow full and treats her light as a reliable sign. Pausanias records how one region fitted the Moon into its royal past.

Together they also keep Selene apart from the gods near her. She is the sister of Eos, not another name for dawn. In Hesiod and the hymn she is the moon, which they do not give to the Titan Phoebe. Her horses cross the night sky, while Endymion’s sons run on the ground for a kingdom.

Olympia joins these two scales through memory. A goddess of the sky loves a king of Elis. That king turns the choice of an heir into a race, and the people of Elis later point to his tomb at the edge of the stadium. The moon does not become local, but the story of the man she loved does.