ENDYMION was a handsome shepherd-prince loved by the moon-goddess Selene. When Zeus offered him his choice of destinies, Endymion chose immortality and youth in eternal slumber. He was laid out in a cave on Mount Latmus in Karia (Caria) where his lunar lover would visit him each night.
In another myth--which contradicts the first--Endymion was a king of Elis in the Greek Peloponesse who founded the kingdom with a group of Aiolian (Aeolian) colonists from Thessalia (Thessaly). Zeus granted him foreknowledge of his own death and, when his time had come, he set up a racecourse at Olympia and commanded his sons compete for the throne. Endymion was afterwards entombed beside the starting gate.
The Eleian myths about King Endymion belong to the Greek tradition. The stories of the sleeping prince of Mount Latmos in Anatolia, on the other hand, were apparently a Greek translation of stories concerning the indigenous Karian moon-god Men--the Karians were a non-Greek people native to that region of Asia Minor. As the Greek moon-deity was female, the story was amended somewhat.