[citation needed] Apollonius of Rhodes[5] (3rd century BC) is one of the many poets[6] who tell how Selene, the Titan goddess of the Moon,[b] loved the mortal Endymion.

Alternatively, Selene so loved how Endymion looked when he was asleep in the cave on Mount Latmus, near Miletus in Caria,[7] that she entreated Zeus that he might remain that way.

In some versions, Zeus wanted to punish Endymion for daring to show romantic interest in Hera (much like Ixion).

[10][11] According to a passage in the Deipnosophistae, the sophist and dithyrambic poet Licymnius of Chios[12] (probably 4th century BCE) told a different tale, in which Hypnos, the god of sleep, loves Endymion and does not close the eyes of his beloved even while he is asleep, but lulls him to rest with eyes wide open so that he may without interruption enjoy the pleasure of gazing at them.

As he was of unsurpassed beauty, the Moon fell in love with him, and Zeus allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to sleep for ever, remaining deathless and ageless.

[14]In a similar vein, a scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius wrote that, according to Hesiod, Zeus allowed Endymion to be the keeper of his own death and to decide on his own when he would die.

15), Cicero's Tusculanae Quaestiones (Book 1), and Theocritus discuss the Endymion myth at some length, but reiterate the above to varying degrees.

In the Argonautica (iv.57ff) the "daughter of Titan," the Moon, was witness to Medea's fearful night-time flight to Jason, and "rejoiced with malicious pleasure as she reflected to herself: 'I'm not the only one then to skulk off to the Latmian cave, nor is it only I that burn with desire for fair Endymion'" she muses.