Selene and Endymion Mosaic of Los Amores, Cástulo (Linares, Spain)

Myth of Selene and Endimión del Mosaico de los Amores. It is one of the main scenes placed next to the scene of the Judgment of Paris. The mosaic is made with stone tiles (black, red, roses, yellow, gray and white) and vitreous paste (black, red, green, blue, yellow and orange). Selene is the personification of the Moon. It happened to be, sometimes, the daughter of Hiperion and Tià, and sometimes because she was the daughter of Titan Palante or Helios' daughter. The scene shows the goddess, who has got off the cart pulled by two prisons, discovering and approaching the beautiful sleeping shepherd. The mythical story tells the goddess Luna’s loves with the beautiful shepherd, whose beauty had aroused an excessive passion in the goddess, and the tragic end of the legend, when Zeus fulfills the promise he had made to Endimion, at Selene’s request, to grant him a wish. The shepherd chose the gift of falling asleep in an eternal dream, falling asleep forever and staying eternally young, at which moment, according to some mythographers, he is discovered by the goddess who falls in love with him loathe. The excavations carried out in Cástulo in 2011 discovered, in area 2 of the archeological site, a large building of approximately 33x12 m (Building D) dated to the end of the first century A.D. The building would have been erected in honor of the emperor Domitian (51-96 AD) and would therefore have a public character. Its construction would respond to an imperial project, it would be a representation of the maiestas imperii and also of the emperor as representative of it. Other stylistic and literary criteria (the adaptation of the composition to the description of the two central scenes in the written sources), however, propose the second century AD, and even the third century AD as a more suitable chronological framework. The excavations carried out in Cástulo in 2011 discovered, in area 2 of the archeological site, a large building of approximately 33x12 m (Building D) dated to the end of the first century A.D. The building would have been erected in honor of the emperor Domitian (51-96 AD) and would therefore have a public character. Its construction would respond to an imperial project, it would be a representation of the maiestas imperii and also of the emperor as representative of it. In this building the Mosaic of the Amores would have appeared. The datation proposed for it is from the end of the first century A.D. Other stylistic and literary criteria (the adaptation of the composition to the description of the two central scenes in the written sources) propose, however, the second century A.D., and even the III A.D. as the most appropriate chronological framework. Bibliography Jimenez, Y. (2014): “The possible building of imperial worship. A necessarily penultimate reflection.” Magazine 7 corners, 6: 89-103. López G. (2014): “The mosaic of the Amores de Castulo.” Review7corners, 6: 117- 126. Neira Mª L. (2018): “Around the mosaic of the Amores of Cástulo. Regarding the connection of Professor Blázquez with the Roman mosaics and Cástulo,” in N. Camarero (coord.): Vir validus et nobilis. Tribute to D. José María Blázquez Martínez. Linarenses Studies Centre pp. 239-266. Facebook of Cástulo: https://es-es.facebook.com/CastuloSigloXXI / Mosaic View at 360º https://skfb.ly/6HUYC