Europa

EUROPA (or rather, EUROPE), in Greek mythology, according to Homer (Iliad, xiv. 321), the daughter of Phoenix or, in a later story, of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. The beauty of Europa fired the love of Zeus, who approached her in the form of a white bull and carried her away from her native Phoenicia to Crete, where 1 New ed. by E. Schwartz (1887-1891). EUROPE •he became the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. She WM worshipped under the name of Hcllotis in Crete, where the festival Hellotia, at which her bones, wreathed in myrtle, were carried round, was held in her honour (Athenaeus xv. p. 678). Some consider Europa to be a moon-goddess; others explain the story by saying that she was carried off by a king of Crete in a ship decorated with the figure-head of a bull. O. Gruppe (De Codmi Ftibula, 1891) endeavours to show that the myth of Europa is only another version of the myth of Persephone. See Apollodorus iii. i; Ovid, Metam. ii. 833; articles by Helbig in Ro«chrr'» Lenkon der Mytkolcpt, and by Mild in Daremberg and Suglio's Dtcttcmnaire tei anlimtitfs. Fig. 26 in the article GREEK ART (archaic metope from Palermo) represents the journey of Europa over the sea on the back of the bull.