Selene: Titan Goddess of the Moon

The Story of Selene

Selene was the goddess of the moon, a daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. Her brother was Helios, the sun, and her sister was Eos, the dawn. Every night, after her brother finished his journey, she drove her silver chariot across the sky, pulled by white horses or, in some tellings, oxen.

The most famous story about Selene is her love for Endymion, a beautiful young shepherd who slept in a cave on Mount Latmus. She fell in love with him as she watched him from the sky. Endymion was granted eternal sleep along with eternal youth, so that he would never grow old, and Selene visited him every night.

In some tellings, it was Zeus who gave Endymion this endless sleep, while others say Selene asked for it so she could keep him forever. Some poets even claimed Selene bore him fifty daughters. The Greeks liked to say that the moon slipping behind the hills each night was Selene going down to visit her sleeping love.

In another story, told by the Roman poet Virgil, the god Pan won Selene's attention with a gleaming white fleece. She was charmed and followed him into the woods. Selene was also linked with Zeus, and in some tellings she bore him a daughter, Pandia, a goddess of the full moon.

Over time, Selene was often blended with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, who also came to be linked with the moon. Yet Selene remained the moon itself, a shining presence that lit the night. The Romans called her Luna, and her name lives on in words like selenology, the study of the moon.