Just as Helios personified the sun, so his sister Selene represented the moon, and was supposed to drive her chariot across the sky whilst her brother was reposing after the toils of the day.
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When the shades of evening began to enfold the earth, the two milk-white steeds of Selene rose out of the mysterious depths of Oceanus. Seated in a silvery chariot, and accompanied by her daughter Herse, the goddess of the dew, appeared the mild and gentle queen of the night, with a crescent on her fair brow, a gauzy veil flowing behind, and a lighted torch in her hand.
Selene greatly admired a beautiful young shepherd named Endymion, to whom Zeus had accorded the privilege of eternal youth, combined with the faculty of sleeping whenever he desired, and as long as he wished. Seeing this lovely youth fast asleep on Mount Latmus, Selene was so struck with his beauty, that she came down every night from heaven to watch over and protect him.
“Diana of Versailles”
Some archaeologists have supposed this statue to be one of a group with the Apollo Belvedere and an Athene in the Capitol Museum at Rome, as it is known that a work of this description was set up at Delphi by the Ætolians after defeating the Gauls
(.. 279). The story of the defeat is as follows: The Gauls had attacked the sacred oracle at Delphi, and the Ætolians were trying to repel the invaders, when suddenly on a height by the temple appeared Apollo accompanied by Artemis and Athene, who hurled down huge masses of the mountain on the heads of the impious barbarians. The Gauls, who were, not unnaturally, panic-stricken at sight of these celestial warriors, at once turned and fled, and the oracle was saved. Overbeck, the German authority, conceives this legend to have been in all probability the subject of the Delphic group.
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