ENDYMION  , in

Greek mythology, son of Aethlius and king of Elis . He was loved by Selene, goddess of the moon, by whom he had fifty daughters, supposed to represent the fifty moons of the Olympian festal cycle . In other versions, Endymion was a beautiful youth, a shepherd or hunter whom Selene visited every night while he lay asleep in a cave on Mount Latmus in Caria (Pausanias v . 1; Ovid, Ars am. iii . 83) . Zeus left him free to choose anything he might desire, and he chose an everlasting sleep, in which he might remain youthful for ever (Apollodorus i. q) . According to others, Endymion's eternal sleep was a punishment inflicted by Zeus upon him because he ventured to fall in love with Hera, when he was admitted to the society of the Olympian gods (Schol . Theocritus iii: 49) . The usual form of the legend, however, represents Endymion as having been put to sleep by Selene herself in order that she might enjoy his society undisturbed (Cicero, Tusc. disp. i . 38) . Some see in Endymion the sun, setting opposite to the rising moon, the Latmian cave being the cave of forgetfulness, into which the sun plunges beneath the sea; others regard him as the personification of sleep or death (see Mayor on Juvenal x . 318) .