Zeus fathered Endymion by the nymph Calyce, and the beautiful youth grew to become king of Elis before Selene fell in love with him and laid him in eternal sleep.
Selene loved the mortal shepherd Endymion so deeply that she bore him fifty daughters, the Menae who personify the lunar months, visiting his eternal sleep on Mount Latmus each night.
⚠ The fifty daughters (Menae) are attested in Pausanias (5.1.4), while other traditions give Endymion mortal wives and different children. The eternal sleep tradition (Apollonius, Apollodorus) and the genealogical tradition (Pausanias) may represent independent strands.
Selene and her sister Eos both loved mortal men of exceptional beauty. Eos took Tithonus and asked Zeus for his immortality but forgot to request eternal youth; Selene asked instead for Endymion's eternal sleep.
Hyperion and Theia were Selene's parents, making them grandparents to the fifty Menae that Selene bore to Endymion during her nightly visits to Mount Latmus.
Endymion sleeps eternally in a cave on Mount Latmus in Caria. The mountain became sacred to lunar worship as the site where Selene descends each night to visit her beloved.
Selene fell in love with the shepherd Endymion on Mount Latmus and asked Zeus to grant him eternal sleep so she could visit him every night without watching him age or die.
Zeus granted Endymion eternal sleep at Selene's request, preserving the youth's beauty forever so the moon goddess could visit him nightly on Mount Latmus without watching him age.
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