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SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - EUROPA THE CURRENCY
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THE LIBRARY OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III
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CAROLINE E. KENNEDY______________________________
OCTOBER 29, 2006
Sources differ in details regarding her family but agree that she is Phoenician, and from a lineage that descended from Io, the mythical nymph beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is said to be the daughter of the Phoenician King Agenor and Queen Telephassa ("far-shining") or of Argiope ("white-faced")[3]. 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 Apollodorus including Phoenix as a third. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. She married Asterion also rendered Asterius. According to mythology, her children were fathered by Zeus.
There were two competing myths[4] 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 and carried away to Crete on his back— to be welcomed by Asterion [5], but according to a more literal, euhemerist version in Herodotus, she was kidnapped by Minoans, 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.
The Abduction of Europa by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1632. The princess Europa is carried away from her companions and across the sea to the distant land that would bear her name by the god Jupiter (in the guise of a white bull).
[edit] "The Rape of Europa"
According to legend, Zeus was enamored of her and decided to seduce or rape her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a white bull and mixed in with her father's herds. While Europa and her female attendants were gathering flowers, she saw the bull and caressed his flanks and eventually got onto its back. Zeus took that chance 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 three 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). Also known as "The Abduction of Europa" and "The Seduction of Europa," Roman mythology adopted the tale, substituting the god Jupiter for Zeus.
It is tempting to see in this story the remnants of oral history about the settlement of the island. Cretans were of course great sailors, as all islanders must be, and must have come from some mainland area by raft or ship. They must also have brought their cattle and other livestock with them, since bulls figured prominently in their sports, arts and religious imagery. In the mythological transformation of history, however, roles are reversed, and the bull provides the transportation for the founding mother of the Minoan people.
[edit] Europa in literature
[edit] Herodotus
According to Herodotus, Europa was kidnapped by Minoans 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 rape of a Phoenician aristocrat — later enunciated without gloss by Herodotus.
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