In Greek mythology, Europa (; ; ) was a Phoenician princess said to have been abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull. She was the mother of the Cretan king Minos.
An early reference to Europa is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, discovered at Oxyrhynchus. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from the mid-7th century BC.
Etymology
thumb|upright|A statue of Europa representing [[Europe at Palazzo Ferreria]]Greek (Eurṓpē) may have been formed from ('), "wide, broad" and (): "eye, face, countenance". 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.
As a name for a part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by Anaximander and Hecataeus. Toponyms related to that of Europa exist in the territory of ancient Greece, such as that of Europos in ancient Macedonia, as collected by Robert Beekes.
In 1966, an alternative suggestion from Ernest Klein and Giovanni Semerano attempted to connect a Semitic term for "west", Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun), Phoenician "evening; west", which would parallel occident. The resemblance to Erebus, from PIE *h<sub>1</sub>regʷos, "darkness", is accidental. In 1999, M.A. Barry adduced the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night", "[the country of] sunset", in opposition to Asu, "[the country of] sunrise", i.e. Asia, Anatolia coming equally from , "(sun)rise", "east". This proposal is mostly considered unlikely or untenable.
Family
thumb|The birthplace of Europa, [[Tyre, Lebanon]]
Sources differ in details regarding Europa's family, but agree that she is Phoenician, and from an Argive lineage that ultimately descended from the 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 poet Moschus makes her mother Queen Telephassa ("far-shining"). Elsewhere, her mother is Argiope ("silver-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. The author of Bibliotheke includes Phoenix as a third brother. So some interpret this as her brother Phoenix (when he is assumed to be son of Agenor) gave his siblings' name to his three children and this Europa (by this case, niece of former) is also loved by Zeus, but because of the same name, gave some confusions to others.
After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons fathered by Zeus: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. Minos and Rhadamanthus became judges of the Underworld, alongside Aeacus of Aegina, when they died.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ <big>Comparative table of Europa's family</big>
! rowspan="2" |Relation
! rowspan="2" |Names
! colspan="15" |Sources
|-
| Alcman
|
|
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|
|
|
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| Con
| Diod.
| colspan="2" |
| Hyg.
|
| Non.
|-
| rowspan="8" |Parentage
| Phoenix
|
| ✓
|
|
| ✓
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|-
| Phoenix and Cassiopeia
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
| Phoenix and Telephassa
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
| Phoenix and Telephe
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
| Phoenix and Perimede
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|-
| Agenor
|
|
|
|
|
|
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|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|-
| Agenor and Telephassa
|
|
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|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
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|-
| Agenor and Argiope
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|-
| rowspan="9" |Siblings
| Phineus
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|
|
|-
| Astypale
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|-
| Phoenice
|
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| ✓
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|-
| Peirus
|
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|
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| ✓
|
|
|
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|
|
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|-
| Cadmus
|
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|-
| Thasus
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| ✓
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|-
| Phoenix
|
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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| ✓
|
|
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|-
| Cilix
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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| ✓
|
|
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|-
| Adonis
|
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|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
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|-
| rowspan="2" |Consorts
| Zeus
| ✓
| ✓
|
|
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| ✓
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|-
| Asterius
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
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|-
| rowspan="4" |Children
| Minos
|
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|
|
|
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|-
| Rhadamanthys
|
| ✓
|
|
|
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|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
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|-
| Sarpedon
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
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|-
| Carnus
| ✓
|
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|}
Mythology
thumb|[[The Abduction of Europa (Rembrandt)|The Abduction of Europa by Rembrandt, 1632]]
The Dictionary of Classical Mythology explains that Zeus was enamoured with Europa and decided to seduce or rape 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 helpers 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.
According to Herodotus's rationalizing approach, Europa was kidnapped by Greeks, probably Cretans, 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. Palaephatus's rationalization similarly had it that a Cretan named Tauros was waging war around Tyre and carried off many girls, including Europa. Palaephatus also rationalized the Minotaur as simply a man whose father was named Tauros, thus using the same explanation twice.
In his commentary on Lycophron's Alexandra, John Tzetzes presents several different accounts of the story of Europa:
Europa is said to have been taken from Phoenicia to Crete on a "bull-shaped" ship, with the Cretans described as seizing her in this manner. Another tradition holds that a Cretan general named Taurus ("Bull"), sent by Asterius (also called Minos), king of Crete, abducted her. In some traditions, Asterius is identified with Minos and is described as having a bull-like appearance. relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to Crete (Kríti), 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 According to the more literal, euhemerist version that begins the account of Persian-Hellene confrontations of Herodotus, she was kidnapped by Cretans, 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. In 2012, an archaeological mission of the British Museum led by Lebanese archaeologist, Claude Doumet-Serhal, discovered at the site of the old American school in Sidon, Lebanon, currency that depicts Europa riding the bull with her veil flying all over like a bow, further proof of Europa's Phoenician origin. but at Lebadaea in Boeotia, Pausanias noted in the 2nd century AD, 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
The festival of Hellotia in Crete was celebrated in honour of Europa.
Argive genealogy
In art and literature
thumb|Europa and [[Bull (mythology)|bull on a Greek vase. Tarquinia Museum, Italy, ]]
thumb|A scene of Zeus in the form of a bull abducting Europa from an Apulian red-figure [[dinos, dating – , now held in the Eskenazi Museum of Art]]
Europa provided the substance of a brief Hellenistic epic written in the mid-2nd century BCE by Moschus, a bucolic poet and friend of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, born at Syracuse.
In Metamorphoses Book II, the poet Ovid wrote the following depiction of Jupiter's seduction:
thumb|Kylix, red-figure pottery 370 BC depicts the Rape of Europa (Ratto d'Europa), tomb 32 [[Archaeological area of Poggio Sommavilla|Poggio Sommavilla necropolis, archivio SBALazio Etruria Meridionale.]]
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 tale also features as the subject of a poem and film in the Enderby (fictional character) sequence of novels by Anthony Burgess. She is remembered in De Mulieribus Claris, a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in 136162. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature.
Gallery
<gallery widths="200" heights="200" mode="packed">
File:The Kidnapping of Europa Mosaic.jpg|Europa velificans, "her fluttering tunic… in the breeze" (mosaic, Zeugma Mosaic Museum)
File:Tizian 085.jpg|The Rape of Europa by Titian (1562)
File:Chauveau, François Métamorphoses d'Europe Eau-forte.jpg|The Rape of Europa by François Chauveau (1650)
File:Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre - Le Rapt d'Europe.jpg|The Rape of Europa by Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (1750)
File:The rape of Europa, Goya.JPG|The Rape of Europa by Francisco Goya (1772)
File:Felix Vallotton The Rape of Europa.jpg|The Rape of Europa by Félix Vallotton (1908)
File:Valentin Serov - Похищение Европы - Google Art Project.jpg|The Rape of Europa by Valentin Serov (1910)
File:UT-McClungPlaza.jpg|Europa on the Bull by Carl Milles (1926)
File:Monumento a Europa.jpg|Rapto de Europa by Juan Oliveira Viéitez (1989)
File:Statue of Europa outside Council building in Brussels.jpg|Europa by Léon de Pas (1997)
</gallery>
Namesakes
thumb|Europa and the bull, depicted as the continent's personification in [[:File:Nova et accurata totius Europæ descriptio.jpg|Nova et accurata totius Europæ descriptio by Fredericus de Wit, 1700]]
Continent
The name Europe, as a geographical term, was used by Ancient Greek geographers such as Strabo to refer to part of Thrace below the Balkan Mountains. Later, under the Roman Empire the name was given to a Thracian province. Thrace or Thraike in Greek mythology, was the sister of a water nymph named Europa. Europa was also a surname given to the earth mother goddess Demeter.
It is derived from the Greek word Eurōpē () in all Romance languages, Germanic languages, Slavic languages, Baltic languages, Celtic languages, Iranian languages, Uralic languages (Hungarian Európa, Finnish Eurooppa, Estonian Euroopa).
thumb|100px|left|Europa depicted on the 2013 Europa Series of [[Euro banknotes]]
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.
<!-- Image with inadequate rationale removed: Image:2004 Belgium 10 Euro Expansion European Union front.JPG|Europa and Zeus over Europe, Belgian €10 silver coin -->
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 used Europa as a symbol of pan-Europeanism, 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 stamps celebrating the Council of Europe, which were first issued in 1956. The second series of euro banknotes is known as the Europa Series and bears her likeness in the watermark and hologram.
thumb|upright|[[Europa (moon)|Europa, a moon of Jupiter]]
Chemical element
The metal europium, a rare-earth element, was named in 1901 after the continent.
Moon of Jupiter
The invention of the telescope 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.
<!-- <gallery widths="120px" heights="120px">
Image:Europe satellite globe.jpg|Satellite image of Europe
</gallery> -->
Notes
References
Further reading
Primary sources
- Isidore, Etymologiae xiv.4.1
- Herodotus, The Histories, Book 1.2
- Eusebius, Chronicon, 47.7–10, 25, 53.16–17, 55.4–5
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, 862, translation by A.D. Melville (1986), p.50
:: Metamorphoses, ii.833-iii.2, vi.103–107
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.
- 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, ENSUlm, 24–26.04.1997), éd. R. Poignault et O. Wattelde 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. Wattelde 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. WattelDe 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. Wattelde Croizant & G. de Montifroy, Editions de l'Age d'Homme, LausanneParis, 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, 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
- Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Europa)