"May you [#Luna-Selene the Moon] wear a shining face and, the clouds all scattered, fare on with undimmed horns; when you drive your car through the nightly skies."
Seneca, Phaedra 417 ff
🏛️ #Selene in her chariot drawn by bulls across the sky, about 1st CE, British Museum
"Swelled like young Mene's [Selene's] arching chariot-rail when high over Okeanos' fathomless-flowing stream she rises, with the space half filled with light betwixt her bowing horns."
Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 1.147
Sculpture of #Selene carved from a cylinder of coarse-grained marble. It shows no traces of reworking. The right hand, which may have held a torch, is missing. She probably adorned a sanctuary, perhaps a domestic one.
Full description in the alt text.
🏛️ Statue of Selene, white marble (Proconnesio), dated 250-300 CE
"As wind rises, golden Phoebe [Luna-Selene] ever blushes. But if at her fourth rising--for that is our surest guide--she pass through the sky clear and with undimmed horns, then all that day, and the days born of it to the month's end, shall be free from rain and wind."
Virgil, Georgics 1. 426
🏛️ Roman oil lamp decorated with the goddess #Luna
#Diana-Selene wears a crescent-moon ornament in her hair and a torch in her right hand, attributes characteristic of the moon goddess. The statue has been found near the Porta San Sebastiano.
🏛️ #Selene, 1st century CE, Musei Capitolini: Palazzo Nuovo, #Rome
"The Astera (Stars) hide away their shining form around lovely #Selene (the Moon) when in all her fullnesss she shines over all the earth." #Sappho, Fragment 34
🏛️ Luna-Selene, relief on the pediment at the Roman Baths
#Selene driving her moon chariot, here shown as a team of four horses. She has a shining aureola around her head and the reins and her riding crop in hand. She is followed by her brother #Helios, the fish around them suggesting that one is descending and the other rising.
🏛️ Canosa, Italy, ca. 330 – 310 BCE; now at Munich, Antikensammlung
Roman sarcophagus with #Selene, the #Moon, in the top left corner with her team of horses and Helios in his quadriga on the right. The scene shows the creation of man by #Prometheus.
🏛️ Roman sarcophagus found in a mausoleum near the ancient Puteoli (Pozzuoli, Naples). Dated to the 4th century CE. Today in the National Archaeological Museum, #Naples.
"Shine, Moon of the night, horned Moon, who loves to look on revels, shine through the lattice and let your light fall on golden Callistiŏn. It is no offence for an immortal to pry into the secrets of lovers. You bless her and me, I know, O Moon, for did not Endymion set your soul afire?"
Philodemos, Epigrams 5.123
🏛️ Roman sarcophagus, detail, dated 3rd century CE
Mosaic of #Helios, #Selene and the 12 labours of the months. The Sun and the Moon are in the centre with the 12 labours arranged around them. Each of the labourers is labelled at the feet with the number of days as well as the Latin name of the month in Greek letters.
🏛️ Roman era #mosaic dated 6th century CE, Beit She'an, Israel
"Swelled like young Mene's the [#Moon's] arching chariot-rail when high over Okeanos' fathomless-flowing stream she rises, with the space half filled with light between her bowing horns."
Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 1.147
🏛️ #Fresco on the facade of the House of Venus and the Four Gods (IX. 7. 1), 1st century CE, Pompeii
Mould-made oil lamp with a circular body and a pierced handle. On the discus is a draped bust of Luna with the horns of a crescent #moon rising on each side of her.
🏛️ Roman oil lamp made by C. Atilius Vestalis, dated 90-140 CE. Today in the British Museum.
Selene-Diana and Endymion as a couple on the ivory Querinian diptych. A diptych is any object with two flat plates forming a pair, for example the standard notebook of the ancient world.
🏛️ Selene-Diana and Endymion, Roman relief, circa 5th century CE, found in Brescia and today residing in the Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia.