Luna- Roman GodDeity"Goddess of the Moon"

The Aventine

Luna had her own temples before anyone thought to fold her into Diana. The oldest stood on the Aventine Hill, traditionally dated to the regal period. A second occupied a site on the Palatine. Varro lists her among Rome's principal celestial deities, and Cicero names her in De Natura Deorum alongside Sol as a god the Romans worshipped in visible form: the moon itself, crossing the sky each night.

Tacitus records the end of the Aventine temple. In his account of the Great Fire of 64 CE, the fire that gutted fourteen districts of Rome, he lists Luna's shrine among the ancient buildings destroyed. It had stood for centuries. The flames took it in a night.

Endymion

The story came to Rome through Latin poets and stayed on Roman sarcophagi for centuries. Jupiter granted the shepherd Endymion eternal sleep and eternal youth on Mount Latmos. He would never wake and never age. Luna descended each night from her chariot to the mountainside where he lay, bent over him, and held him while he slept.

Roman sculptors carved the scene on coffin lids and chamber walls: the moon goddess arriving with her billowing veil, the shepherd sprawled in perfect sleep, her hand reaching for his face. Apollodorus preserves the myth. The sarcophagi kept it visible long after Luna's temples were ash.