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Endymion and the Moon. Engraved illustration from 'The Temple of the Muses', 1733. This book represented remarkable events of antiquity drawn and engraved by Bernard Picart (1673-1733). In Greek mythology, Endymion was variously a handsome Aeolian shepherd, hunter, or king who was said to rule and live at Olympia in Elis. Apollonius of Rhodes tells how Selene, the Titan goddess of the moon, loved the mortal. She believed him to be so beautiful that she asked Endymion's father, Zeus, to grant him eternal youth so that he would never leave her. Alternatively, Selene so loved how Endymion looked when he was asleep in the cave on Mount Latmus, near Miletus in Caria, that she entreated Zeus that he might remain that way. In either case, Zeus granted her wish and put him into an eternal sleep. Every night, Selene visited him where he slept (KEYSTONE/World History Archive/)