Luna
Greek: Selene
The Roman goddess of the Moon, who gives Monday its name.
Luna was the divine Moon, often shown driving a chariot drawn by two horses or oxen across the night sky. She had a temple on the Aventine Hill in Rome, and the day 'dies Lunae' (Monday) was named for her.
Symbols
Crescent moon Two-horse chariot
In the ancient sources
Roman writers
- Noctiluca
- “the night-shining” Varro, On the Latin Language 5.68
- Varro, On the Latin Language 5.68 Luna is named because she alone shines at night; as Noctiluca she has a temple on the Palatine.
- Varro, On the Latin Language 5.74 Luna is among the gods to whom the Sabine king Titus Tatius dedicated altars.
- Horace, Carmen Saeculare 35–36 At the Secular Games of 17 BCE, a girls' choir sings: 'Two-horned queen of the stars, Luna, hear the girls.'
- Livy 40.2 In 182 BCE a storm tears the doors off the temple of Luna on the Aventine and hurls them against the temple of Ceres.
- Tacitus, Annals 15.41 Her Aventine temple, said to have been founded by Servius Tullius, burns in the Great Fire of 64 CE.
The Roman sources have almost no myths about Luna; the stories of the Moon goddess come from the Greek Selene. Monday, dies Lunae, comes from the planetary week, which spread through the Roman world in the first centuries CE.
Cross-checked against these texts and records, in public-domain or freely available versions where they exist. Line, section and chapter numbers follow the standard editions, so a particular translation may differ slightly.
Correspondences Explore all
These mix ancient attributes with modern associations from contemporary pagan and magical practice; the modern ones weren't part of her original worship.