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Europa (mythology)
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
Europa (Greek
Ευρώπη Eurṓpē) was a Phoenicia
n woman of high lineage, from whom the name of the continent
Europe
has ultimately been taken. The name Europa occurs in Hesiod
's long list of daughters of primordial Oceanus
and Tethys
. The story of her abduction by Zeus
in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story; as 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".
The daughter of the earth-giant Tityas and mother of Euphemus
by Poseidon
was also named Europa.
Europa's earliest literary reference is in the Iliad
, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BCE. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiod
ic Catalogue of Women
, discovered at Oxyrhynchus
. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa, dates from mid-7th century BCE.
The etymology
of her Greek name (ευρυ- "wide" or "broad" + οπ– "eye(s)" or "face") suggests that Europa as a goddess represented the lunar cow, at least on some symbolic level. Metaphorically, at a later date her name could be construed as the intelligent or open-minded, analogous to glaukopis (γλαυκώπις) attributed to Athena
. However, Ernest Klein suggests a possible Semitic origin in Akkadian erebu "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun) which would parallel occident.
, Lucian of Samosata (2nd century CE) was informed that the temple of Astarte, whom Lucian equated with the moon goddess, was sacred to Europa:
The paradox, as it seemed to Lucian, would be solved if Europa is Astarte
in her guise as the full, "broad-faced" moon.
Sources differ in details regarding Europa's family, but agree that she is Phoenicia
n, and from a lineage that descended from Io
, the mythical nymph
beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor
, the Phoenicia
n King of Tyre; the Syracusan poet Moschus
makes her mother Queen Telephassa
("far-shining") but elsewhere her mother is Argiope
("white-faced"). Other sources, such as the Iliad
, claim that she is the daughter of Agenor's son, the "sun-red" Phoenix
. It is generally agreed that she had two brothers, Cadmus
, who brought the alphabet to mainland Greece, and Cilix
who gave his name to Cilicia
in Asia Minor
, with the author of Bibliotheke including Phoenix as a third. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons: Minos
, Rhadamanthus
, and Sarpedon
, the three of whom became the three judges of the Underworld when they died. In Crete she married Asterion
also rendered Asterius
. According to mythology, her children were fathered by Zeus.
There were two competing myths relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to Crete
, where the sacred bull
was paramount. In the more familiar telling she was seduced
by the god
Zeus
in the form of a bull, who breathed from his mouth a saffron crocus
and carried her away to Crete on his back— to be welcomed by Asterion
, but according to the more literal, euhemerist
version that begins the account of Persian-Hellene confrontations of Herodotus
, she was kidnapped
by Minoan
s, who likewise were said to have taken her to Crete. The mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the sacred bull
, which had been worshipped in the Levant
.
Europa does not seem to have been venerated directly in cult anywhere in classical Greece, but at Lebadaea in Boeotia
, Pausanias
noted in the 2nd century CE that Europa was the epithet
of Demeter
— "Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonios"— among the Olympians who were addressed by seekers at the cave sanctuary of Trophonios of Orchomenus, to whom a chthonic
cult and oracle
were dedicated: "the grove
of Trophonios by the river Herkyna. ...there is also a sanctuary of Demeter Europa... the nurse of Trophonios."
The mythographers tell that Zeus was enamored of Europa and decided to seduce or ravish her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a tame white bull and mixed in with her father's herds. While Europa and her female attendants were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, and eventually got onto his back. Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of Crete
. He then revealed his true identity, and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Zeus gave her a necklace made by Hephaestus
and three additional gifts: Talos
, Laelaps
and a javelin
that never missed. Zeus later re-created the shape of the white bull in the stars, which is now known as the constellation Taurus
. Some readers interpret as manifestations of this same bull the Cretan beast that was encountered by Hercules
, the Marathonian Bull slain by Theseus
(and that fathered the Minotaur
). Roman mythology adopted the tale of the Raptus, also known as "The Abduction of Europa" and "The Seduction of Europa", substituting the god Jupiter
for Zeus
.
According to Herodotus
' rationalizing approach, Europa was kidnapped by Minoan
s who were seeking to avenge the kidnapping of Io
, a princess from Argos
. His variant story may have been an attempt to rationalize the earlier myth; or the present myth may be a garbled version of facts — the abduction of a Phoenician aristocrat — later enunciated without gloss by Herodotus.
, born at Syracuse.
In Metamorphoses
, the poet Ovid
wrote the following depiction of Jupiter's seduction:
His picturesque details belong to anecdote and fable: in all the depictions, whether she straddles the bull, as in archaic vase-paintings or the ruined metope fragment from Sikyon, or sits gracefully sidesaddle as in a mosaic from North Africa, there is no trace of fear. Often Europa steadies herself by touching one of the bull's horns, acquiescing.
Her tale is also mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne
's Tanglewood Tales
. Though his story titled "Dragon's teeth" is largely about Cadmus, it begins with an elaborate albeit toned down version of Europa's abduction by the beautiful bull.
The name of Europe
as a geographical term came in use by Ancient Greek
geographers such as Strabo
. It is derived from the Greek
word Eurōpē (Ευρώπη) in all Romance languages
, Germanic languages
, Slavic languages
, Baltic Languages
, Celtic languages
, Uralic languages
(Hungarian
Európa, Finnish
Eurooppa, Estonian
Euroopa), as well as in Latin
.
Jürgen Fischer, in Oriens-Occidens-Europa summarized how the name came into use, supplanting the oriens
- occidens dichotomy of the later Roman Empire, which was expressive of a divided empire, Latin in the West, Greek in the East.
In the 8th century, ecclesiastical uses of "Europa" for the imperium of Charlemagne
provide the source for the modern geographical term. The first use of the term Europenses, to describe peoples of the Christian, western portion of the continent, appeared in the Hispanic Latin Chronicle of 754, sometimes attributed to an author called Isidore Pacensis in reference to the Battle of Tours
fought against Muslim forces.
The European Union has also used Europa as a symbol of pan-europeanism, notably by naming its web portal
after her, and depicting her on the Greek €2 coin and on several gold and silver commemorative coins
(e.g. the Belgian €10 European Expansion coin). Her name appeared on postage stamp
s commemorating the "United Europe
", which were first issued in 1956.
revealed that the planet
Jupiter
, clearly visible to the naked eye and known to humanity since prehistoric times, has an attendant family of moons. These were named for male and female lovers of the god and other mythological persons associated with him. The smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons was named after Europa.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
Europa (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
Ευρώπη Eurṓpē) was a Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n woman of high lineage, from whom the name of the continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
has ultimately been taken. The name Europa occurs in Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
's long list of daughters of primordial Oceanus
Oceanus
Oceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....
and Tethys
Tethys (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Tethys , daughter of Uranus and Gaia was an archaic Titaness and aquatic sea goddess, invoked in classical Greek poetry but not venerated in cult. Tethys was both sister and wife of Oceanus...
. The story of her abduction by Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story; as Kerényi points out "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa".
The daughter of the earth-giant Tityas and mother of Euphemus
Euphemus
Euphemus in Greek mythology was a son of Poseidon, an Argonaut connected with the legend of the foundation of Cyrene.Euphemus is also a character mentioned in in Book II of the Iliad.- Greek mythology :...
by Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
was also named Europa.
Europa's earliest literary reference is in the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BCE. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
ic Catalogue of Women
Catalogue of Women
thumb|275px|[[Guido Reni]]'s first Atalanta e Ippomene , depicting the race of [[Atalanta]], a myth which was known to Reni from [[Ovid]]'s [[Metamorphoses]], but is now also represented by several fragments of the Catalogue of Women.The Catalogue of Women —also known as...
, discovered at Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...
. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa, dates from mid-7th century BCE.
Etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
of her Greek name (ευρυ- "wide" or "broad" + οπ– "eye(s)" or "face") suggests that Europa as a goddess represented the lunar cow, at least on some symbolic level. Metaphorically, at a later date her name could be construed as the intelligent or open-minded, analogous to glaukopis (γλαυκώπις) attributed to Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
. However, Ernest Klein suggests a possible Semitic origin in Akkadian erebu "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun) which would parallel occident.
Astarte and Europa
In the territory of Phoenician SidonSidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...
, Lucian of Samosata (2nd century CE) was informed that the temple of Astarte, whom Lucian equated with the moon goddess, was sacred to Europa:
"There is likewise in Phœnicia a temple of great size owned by the Sidonians. They call it the temple of Astarte. I hold this Astarte to be no other than the moon-goddess. But according to the story of one of the priests this temple is sacred to Europa, the sister of Cadmus. She was the daughter of Agenor, and on her disappearance from Earth the Phœnicians honoured her with a temple and told a sacred legend about her; how that Zeus was enamoured of her for her beauty, and changing his form into that of a bull carried her off into Crete. This legend I heard from other Phœnicians as well; and the coinage current among the Sidonians bears upon it the effigy of Europa sitting upon a bull, none other than Zeus. Thus they do not agree that the temple in question is sacred to Europa."
The paradox, as it seemed to Lucian, would be solved if Europa is Astarte
Astarte
Astarte is the Greek name of a goddess known throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Classical times...
in her guise as the full, "broad-faced" moon.
Family
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n, and from a lineage that descended from Io
Io (mythology)
Io was, in Greek mythology, a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. His wife Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him...
, the mythical nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor
Agenor
Agenor was in Greek mythology and history a Phoenician king of Tyre. Herodotus estimates that Agenor lived sometime before the year 2000 B.C..-Genealogy:...
, the Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n King of Tyre; the Syracusan poet Moschus
Moschus
Moschus , ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, was born at Syracuse and flourished about 150 BC...
makes her mother Queen Telephassa
Telephassa
In Greek mythology, Telephassa is a lunar epithet like Telephae that is sometimes substituted for Argiope, the wife of Agenor, according to his name a "leader of men" in Phoenicia, and mother of Cadmus. In some versions she is the daughter of Nilus, god of the Nile and Nephele, a soft cloud oceanid...
("far-shining") but elsewhere her mother is Argiope
Argiope
-Greek Mythological Persons:* Argiope, a Naiad, a daughter of the River God Nile. She was wife of Agenor and mother of his children. More commonly known as Telephassa...
("white-faced"). Other sources, such as the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, claim that she is the daughter of Agenor's son, the "sun-red" Phoenix
Phoenix (son of Agenor)
In Greek mythology, Phoenix was a son of Agenor and Telephassa , brother of Cadmus, Cilix and Europe.When Europa was carried off by Zeus, her three brothers were sent out by Agenor to find her, but the search was unsuccessful...
. It is generally agreed that she had two brothers, Cadmus
Cadmus
Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...
, who brought the alphabet to mainland Greece, and Cilix
Cilix
In Greek mythology, Cilix was a son of Agenor and Telephassa or Argiope and brother of Cadmus, Phoenix and Europa.When Europa was carried off by Zeus, Agenor sent his three sons out to find her, telling them not to return until they find her. The search was unsuccessful. Cilix eventually settled...
who gave his name to Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, with the author of Bibliotheke including Phoenix as a third. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons: Minos
Minos
In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every year he made King Aegeus pick seven men and seven women to go to Daedalus' creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by The Minotaur. After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades. The Minoan civilization of Crete...
, Rhadamanthus
Rhadamanthus
In Greek mythology, Rhadamanthus was a wise king, the son of Zeus and Europa. Later accounts even make him out to be one of the judges of the dead. His brothers were Sarpedon and Minos . Rhadamanthus was raised by Asterion. He had two sons, Gortys and Erythrus. Other sources In Greek mythology,...
, and Sarpedon
Sarpedon
In Greek mythology, Sarpedon referred to at least three different people.-Son of Zeus and Europa:The first Sarpedon was a son of Zeus and Europa, and brother to Minos and Rhadamanthys. He was raised by the king Asterion and then, banished by Minos, his rival in love for the young Miletus, he...
, the three of whom became the three judges of the Underworld when they died. In Crete she married Asterion
Asterion
In Greek mythology, Asterion denotes two sacred kings of Crete. The first Asterion or Asterius , the son of Tectamus or son of Neleus and Chloris by the Greeks called "king" of Crete, was the consort of Europa and stepfather of her sons by Zeus, who had to assume the form of the Cretan bull of...
also rendered Asterius
Asterius
The name "Asterius" may refer to:* Asterion, name of two sacred kings of Crete* Asterius of Ostia , Christian martyr and saint* Asterius of Caesarea , Christian martyr and saint* Asterius, Claudius and Neon , Christian martyr and saint...
. According to mythology, her children were fathered by Zeus.
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, where the sacred bull
Bull (mythology)
The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the Western world in the biblical episode of the idol of the Golden Calf. The Golden Calf after being made by the Hebrew people in the wilderness of Sinai, were rejected and destroyed by Moses and his tribe after his...
was paramount. In the more familiar telling she was seduced
Seduction
In social science, seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person to engage. The word seduction stems from Latin and means literally "to lead astray". As a result, the term may have a positive or negative connotation...
by the god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
in the form of a bull, who breathed from his mouth a saffron crocus
Saffron
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...
and carried her away to Crete on his back— to be welcomed by Asterion
Asterion
In Greek mythology, Asterion denotes two sacred kings of Crete. The first Asterion or Asterius , the son of Tectamus or son of Neleus and Chloris by the Greeks called "king" of Crete, was the consort of Europa and stepfather of her sons by Zeus, who had to assume the form of the Cretan bull of...
, but according to the more literal, euhemerist
Euhemerus
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...
version that begins the account of Persian-Hellene confrontations of Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, she was kidnapped
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
by Minoan
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
s, who likewise were said to have taken her to Crete. The mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the sacred bull
Bull (mythology)
The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the Western world in the biblical episode of the idol of the Golden Calf. The Golden Calf after being made by the Hebrew people in the wilderness of Sinai, were rejected and destroyed by Moses and his tribe after his...
, which had been worshipped in the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
.
Europa does not seem to have been venerated directly in cult anywhere in classical Greece, but at Lebadaea in Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
, Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
noted in the 2nd century CE that Europa was the epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
of Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
— "Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonios"— among the Olympians who were addressed by seekers at the cave sanctuary of Trophonios of Orchomenus, to whom a chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
cult and oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
were dedicated: "the grove
Sacred grove
A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...
of Trophonios by the river Herkyna. ...there is also a sanctuary of Demeter Europa... the nurse of Trophonios."
Abduction
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. He then revealed his true identity, and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Zeus gave her a necklace made by Hephaestus
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...
and three additional gifts: Talos
Talos
In Greek mythology, Talos or Talon was a giant man of bronze who protected Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders by circling the island's shores three times daily while guarding it.- History :...
, Laelaps
Laelaps (mythology)
Laelaps was a Greek mythological dog who never failed to catch what he was hunting. In one version of Laelaps' origin, he was a gift from Zeus to Europa. The hound was passed down to King Minos. Minos had been cursed by his wife; he ejaculated scorpions and spiders that would devour the genitals...
and a javelin
Pilum
The pilum was a javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about two metres long overall, consisting of an iron shank about 7 mm in diameter and 60 cm long with pyramidal head...
that never missed. Zeus later re-created the shape of the white bull in the stars, which is now known as the constellation Taurus
Taurus (constellation)
Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is a Latin word meaning 'bull', and its astrological symbol is a stylized bull's head:...
. Some readers interpret as manifestations of this same bull the Cretan beast that was encountered by Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
, the Marathonian Bull slain by Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...
(and that fathered the Minotaur
Minotaur
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur , as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull"...
). Roman mythology adopted the tale of the Raptus, also known as "The Abduction of Europa" and "The Seduction of Europa", substituting the god Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
for Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
.
According to Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
' rationalizing approach, Europa was kidnapped by Minoan
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
s who were seeking to avenge the kidnapping of Io
Io (mythology)
Io was, in Greek mythology, a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. His wife Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him...
, a princess from Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
. His variant story may have been an attempt to rationalize the earlier myth; or the present myth may be a garbled version of facts — the abduction of a Phoenician aristocrat — later enunciated without gloss by Herodotus.
In classical literature
Europa provided the substance of a brief Hellenistic epic written in the mid-2nd century BCE by Moschos, a bucolic poet and friend of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of SamothraceAristarchus of Samothrace
Aristarchus of Samothrace was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the librarian of the library of Alexandria and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes of Byzantium in that role.He established the most historically important critical...
, born at Syracuse.
In Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)
Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
, the poet Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
wrote the following depiction of Jupiter's seduction:
- And gradually she lost her fear, and he
- Offered his breast for her virgin caresses,
- His horns for her to wind with chains of flowers
- Until the princess dared to mount his back
- Her pet bull's back, unwitting whom she rode.
- Then — slowly, slowly down the broad, dry beach —
- First in the shallow waves the great god set
- His spurious hooves, then sauntered further out
- 'til in the open sea he bore his prize
- Fear filled her heart as, gazing back, she saw
- The fast receding sands. Her right hand grasped
- A horn, the other lent upon his back
- Her fluttering tunic floated in the breeze.
His picturesque details belong to anecdote and fable: in all the depictions, whether she straddles the bull, as in archaic vase-paintings or the ruined metope fragment from Sikyon, or sits gracefully sidesaddle as in a mosaic from North Africa, there is no trace of fear. Often Europa steadies herself by touching one of the bull's horns, acquiescing.
Her tale is also mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
's Tanglewood Tales
Tanglewood Tales
Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls is a book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, a sequel to A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys...
. Though his story titled "Dragon's teeth" is largely about Cadmus, it begins with an elaborate albeit toned down version of Europa's abduction by the beautiful bull.
The continent
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
as a geographical term came in use by Ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
geographers such as Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
. It is derived from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word Eurōpē (Ευρώπη) in all Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, Baltic Languages
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe...
, Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
, Uralic languages
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
(Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
Európa, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
Eurooppa, Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
Euroopa), as well as in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
.
Jürgen Fischer, in Oriens-Occidens-Europa summarized how the name came into use, supplanting the oriens
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
- occidens dichotomy of the later Roman Empire, which was expressive of a divided empire, Latin in the West, Greek in the East.
In the 8th century, ecclesiastical uses of "Europa" for the imperium of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
provide the source for the modern geographical term. The first use of the term Europenses, to describe peoples of the Christian, western portion of the continent, appeared in the Hispanic Latin Chronicle of 754, sometimes attributed to an author called Isidore Pacensis in reference to the Battle of Tours
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours , also called the Battle of Poitiers and in Battle of the Court of the Martyrs, was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, located in north-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille, about northeast of Poitiers...
fought against Muslim forces.
The European Union has also used Europa as a symbol of pan-europeanism, notably by naming its web portal
Europa (web portal)
Europa is the official web portal of the European Union . It is intended to improve the public’s interaction with EU institutions by quickly directing website visitors to the services or information they are seeking. Europa links to all EU agencies and institutions in addition to press releases...
after her, and depicting her on the Greek €2 coin and on several gold and silver commemorative coins
Euro gold and silver commemorative coins
This article covers the gold and silver issues of the euro commemorative coins . It also includes some rare cases of bimetal collector coins . See :€2 commemorative coins for circulating commemorative coins....
(e.g. the Belgian €10 European Expansion coin). Her name appeared on postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s commemorating the "United Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
", which were first issued in 1956.
The moon of Jupiter
The invention of the telescopeTelescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
revealed that the planet
Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
, clearly visible to the naked eye and known to humanity since prehistoric times, has an attendant family of moons. These were named for male and female lovers of the god and other mythological persons associated with him. The smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons was named after Europa.
Primary sources
- Isidore, Etymologiae xiv.4.1
- HerodotusHerodotusHerodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, The HistoriesHistories (Herodotus)The Histories of Herodotus is considered one of the seminal works of history in Western literature. Written from the 450s to the 420s BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that...
, Book 1.2 - Eusebius, ChroniconChronicon (Eusebius)The Chronicon or Chronicle was a work in two books by Eusebius of Caesarea. It seems to have been compiled in the early 4th century. It contained a world chronicle from Abraham until the vicennalia of Constantine I in 325 AD...
, 47.7-10, 25, 53.16-17, 55.4-5 - OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
, MetamorphosesMetamorphoses (poem)Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
, 862, translation by A.D. Melville (1986), p.50
-
- MetamorphosesMetamorphoses (poem)Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
, ii.833-iii.2, vi.103-107
- Metamorphoses
Secondary sources
- Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke, III, i, 1-2
- Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics), translated by Robin Hard, Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-283924-1
- Kerenyi, KarlKarl KerényiKároly Kerényi was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology, one of the founders of modern studies in Greek mythology.- Hungary 1897–1943 :...
, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks (Thames and Hudson) - Graves, RobertRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, (1955) 1960. The Greek Myths - D'Europe à l'Europe, I. Le mythe d'Europe dans l'art et la culture de l'antiquité au XVIIIe s. (colloque de Paris, ENS – Ulm, 24-26.04.1997), éd. R. Poignault et O. Wattel — de Croizant, coll. Caesarodunum, n° XXXI bis, 1998.
- D'Europe à l'Europe, II. Mythe et identité du XIXe s. à nos jours (colloque de Caen, 30.09-02.10.1999), éd. R. Poignault, F. Lecocq et O. Wattel – de Croizant, coll. Caesarodunum, n° XXXIII bis, 2000.
- D’Europe à l’Europe, III. La dimension politique et religieuse du mythe d’Europe de l‘Antiquité à nos jours (colloque de Paris, ENS-Ulm, 29-30.11.2001), éd. O. Wattel — De Croizant, coll. Caesarodunum, n° hors-série, 2002.
- D’Europe à l’Europe, IV. Entre Orient et Occident, du mythe à la géopolitique (colloque de Paris, ENS-Ulm, 18-20.05.2006), dir. O. Wattel — de Croizant & G. de Montifroy, Editions de l’Age d’Homme, Lausanne – Paris, 2007.
- D’Europe à l’Europe, V. État des connaissances (colloque de Bruxelles, 21-22.10.2010), dir. O. Wattel - de Croizant & A. Roba, Bruxelles, éd. Métamorphoses d’Europe asbl, 2011.
External links
- A metope from Sicily, carved with Europa, ca 550 - 540 BCE: the bull's face, turned head-on, clearly reveals his Near Eastern iconic antecedents
- Europa on the Greek euro coin of 2€
- www.europesname.eu A study describing the origin and artistic use of the name EUROPE in its mythical, geographic and political sense by Drs. Peter H. Gommers
