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 archaeologists 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]