Mene ( grc, Μήνη, Mḗnē, "moon, month", ), in

ancient Greek religion Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been ...

and

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, is an epithet of

Selene In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Selene (; grc-gre, Σελήνη , meaning "Moon"''A Greek–English Lexicon's.v. σελήνη) is the goddess and the personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene, she is traditionally the daughter of ...

, the Greek lunar goddess as a goddess presiding over the months.

Etymology

The Greek word (''mēnē'') means both the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

and the lunar month. It represents the feminine form of the older masculine noun (''mēn''), which in turn derives from the oblique stem of the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

word ''*meh₁nōt'' ("moon; month").' The name of the

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires ...

n moon-god

Men A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chro ...

derives from the same word''.'' Further cognates include "Moon" and "

Máni Máni (Old Norse: ; "Moon"Orchard (1997:109).) is the Moon personified in Germanic mythology. Máni, personified, is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', written ...

." William Smith writes of Mene as "a goddess presiding over the months".Smith, s.v
"Mene"
/ref>

Apostolos Athanassakis Apostolos N. Athanassakis ( el, Αποστολος Αθανασάκης) is a classical scholar and formerly Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Professor Athanassakis, or "Professor A" as he ...

and Benjamin Wolkow speculate that Selene's name, which is derived from the word (''selas,'' "light") and thus means "luminous one", might have originally developed as a euphemism, before becoming the Moon and its goddess's proper name.

Notes

References

* Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, ''The Orphic Hymns'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Google Books
* * Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004,
Google Books
* Kerényi, Karl (1951), ''The Gods of the Greeks'', Thames and Hudson, London, 1951
Internet Archive
* Smith, William; ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 p ...

'', London (1873)
"Mene"

External links

Selene Epithets of Greek deities {{Greek-myth-stub

Etymology

See also

Notes

References

External links