Europa (consort of Zeus)

"The Rape of Europa" redirects here. For other uses, see The Rape of Europa (disambiguation).

Europa
Europa on the back of Zeus turned into a bull. A fresco at Pompeii, contemporaneous with Ovid.
AbodeCrete
Genealogy
Born
Tyre, Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon)[citation needed]
ParentsAgenor with either Telephassa or Argiope; alternatively Phoenix and Perimede
SiblingsCadmus, Cilix, Phoenix
ConsortAsterion, Zeus
ChildrenMinos, Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon, Crete, Alagonia, Carnus

In Greek mythology, Europa (/jʊəˈroʊpə, jə-/; Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē, Attic Greek pronunciation: [eu̯.rɔ̌ː.pɛː]) was a Phoenician princess from Tyre and the mother of King Minos of Crete. The continent of Europe is named after her. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa."[1]

Europa's earliest literary reference is in the Iliad, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BC.[2] Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, discovered at Oxyrhynchus.[3] The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from the mid-7th century BC.[4]

  1. ^ Kerenyi, Karl (1951). The Gods of the Greeks. Thames and Hudson. p. 108.
  2. ^ Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Le monde d'Homère, Perrin 2000:19; M.I. Finley, The World of Odysseus, (1954) 1978:16 gives "the years between 750 and 700 BC, or a bit later".
  3. ^ Hesiodic papyrus fragments 19 and 19A Archived 2021-12-22 at the Wayback Machine of the Catalogue of Women, dating from the third century AD.
  4. ^ Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (1985) I.3.2, note 20, referring to Schefold, plate 11B. References in myth and art have been assembled by W. Bühler, Europa: eine Sammlung der Zeugnisse des Mythos in der antiken Litteratur und Kunst (1967).