| Urania Museum of the Vatican | Alinari |
It is catalogued as Iris Descending, but mistakenly, says Monsieur Guzman, for Iris was invariably represented with wings, and this graceful figure is wingless, a torch in hand, and floating downward so gently that her motion scarcely agitates her soft drapery. Authorities are now agreed that the lovely figure represents Selene, the moon-goddess, who, enamoured with Endymion, kept tryst with him in his dreams, and a beautiful "Sleeping Youth" was actually discovered beneath the descending Selene, thus completing the composition and verifying the assumption as to its subject. That the recumbent youth was not at once recognised as intended to represent Endymion is due to the inability of the scientific mind to grasp more than one idea at a time, for the features bore so marked a resemblance to those of Antoninus Pius that it was rightly considered a portrait of that Emperor in his youth. Only recently have archæologists accepted the title, Antoninus Pius as Endymion and it seems probable that the Selene of Villa Albani portrayed the Empress Faustina, and that this group was a tribute of the Emperor's to his beautiful wife, his "Diva Faustina," who stooped to him like the moon-goddess from the sky. Is it not equally possible that he caused the symbols of Selene to be cut upon her signet that she might use it in her intimate correspondence, that the charm of this wonderful woman was associated in his mind with the magic of moonlight, gentle, love-compelling, and pure? Such a testimonial does in fact exist in a medal struck by the command of Antoninus Pius after the death of the Empress, representing Faustina bearing two torches, but returning to heaven, and depriving him of the light which had illumined their wedded life; and lest there should be any doubt that the deity typified in this apotheosis is Selene the Emperor caused the words Luna lucifera to be engraved beneath the name of Faustina.
The myth of the love of the lady-moon has nowhere been so exquisitely rendered as in the Endymion of Keats, and his description of the descent of Selene applies well to the moon-maiden of the Villa Albani:
"I raised
My sight right upward, but it was quite daz'd
By a bright something sailing down apace,
Making me quickly veil my eyes and face.
. . . . . . . . .
Her locks were simply gordianed up and braided
Leaving in naked comeliness unshaded
Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow.
. . . I see her hovering feet
More bluely veined, more whitely sweet
Than those of sea-born Venus when she rose
From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows
Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion,
'Tis blue and over-spangled with a million
Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed
Over the darkest lushest blue-bell bed
Handfuls of daisies."[11]
Faustina may have known Antinous before her marriage, while Hadrian still hoped to make him his successor, ere the clamours of the people forced him to make the wiser choice. Had Antinous been so favoured, is there any doubt whether Faustina would not have inclined to him instead of to the good man with the serious, anxious face, who was more than twice her age when he became her husband?
The statues of Antinous fully realise Keats's ideal of Endymion.
"His youth was fully blown
Shining like Ganymede to manhood grown,
A smile was on his countenance; he seemed
To common lookers-on like one who dreamed
Of idleness in groves Elysian
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip.
Then would they sigh, 'Ah! well-a-day
Why should our young Endymion pine away?'"
We know not on what authority Ebers links the name of Antinous, Endymion-like, with that of Selene. Was there some missive sealed by a moon-beam torch, or addressed to the lady moon which went astray and set the gossip of the Court crackling like a flame in dry grass? Or was it merely his aspiration for the throne of the Cæsars which was signified by the common expression, "he longed for the moon," and not a love hopeless, but beyond his power to conquer for the unattainable Selene, which saddened his young life so deeply, and determined him to throw it away when the occasion seemed to demand the sacrifice.