Europa. In Greek mythology, Europa was the mother of King Minos of Crete, a Phoenician princess of Argive origin, after whom the continent Europe is named.
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.
Europa's earliest literary reference is in the Iliad, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BC. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, discovered at Oxyrhynchus. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from mid-7th century BC. Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion.
It is common in ancient Greek mythology and geography to identify lands or rivers with female figures. Thus, Europa is first used in a geographic context in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea.
Sources differ in details regarding Europa's family, but agree that she is Phoenician, and from a lineage that ultimately descended from Argive princess Io, the mythical nymph beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor, the Phoenician King of Tyre; the Syracusan p
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.
Europa's earliest literary reference is in the Iliad, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BC. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, discovered at Oxyrhynchus. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from mid-7th century BC. Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion.
It is common in ancient Greek mythology and geography to identify lands or rivers with female figures. Thus, Europa is first used in a geographic context in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea.
Sources differ in details regarding Europa's family, but agree that she is Phoenician, and from a lineage that ultimately descended from Argive princess Io, the mythical nymph beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor, the Phoenician King of Tyre; the Syracusan p
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