Zeus, falling in love with the Phoenician princess Europa, took the form of a tame white bull and bore her across the sea to Crete, where she bore Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon — and her father Agenor sent Cadmus and his brothers to wander the world until they found her, seeding the Cadmean search for Thebes.1
Agenor's daughter⚖
Agenor went to Phoenicia, married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix. But some say Europa was a daughter not of Agenor but of Phoenix — and Homer makes her daughter of Phoenix and niece of Cadmus, not sister. The genealogies divide; the abduction is the same in every telling.2
The tame bull
Zeus loved her. Ovid tells how the god, fearing jealous Juno, changed himself to a bull — snow-white, gentle-eyed, horns gilded, no trace of fear upon his brow — and mingled with the herds on the grass. Europa and her maidens wove garlands for the creature; when she climbed onto its back the bull plunged into the sea and swam away from the shore. Apollodorus says simply that Zeus turned himself into a tame bull, mounted her on his back, and conveyed her through the sea to Crete.3
Crete and the Cretan kings⚖
In Crete Zeus lay with Europa, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus — though Homer makes Sarpedon son of Zeus by Laodamia daughter of Bellerophon, not by Europa. Asterius prince of the Cretans married her and brought up her children; when they were grown they quarrelled over a boy called Miletus. Agenor meanwhile sent Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix to search for Europa and forbade their return without her — the quest that would end not in Phoenicia but at Apollo's cow in Boeotia, while Cilix gave up the search and settled the southern coast of Asia Minor, giving his name to Cilicia and its people.4
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
The Rape of Europa
Titian, c. 1560–1562
Titian's late poesie sends Europa over the waves on Zeus' bull, her companions stranded on the shore — the Phoenician princess's abduction as Venetian colour and terror. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
The Abduction of Europa
Rembrandt, 1632
Rembrandt's rare mythological oak panel stages Ovid's bull-ride with a Dutch landscape behind it: Europa mounted, attendants crying out as Zeus carries her toward Crete. J. Paul Getty Museum.
The Rape of Europa
Peter Paul Rubens, 1628–1629
Rubens copies and recharges Titian's invention for the Spanish court: Europa's white flesh against the dark bull, putti and sea spray framing the ride that founds Crete. Museo del Prado.
The Rape of Europa
Guido Reni, 1637–1639
Reni's cool Bolognese classicism sets Europa on the bull against a clear sky — the abduction as poised, almost serene motion. National Gallery, London.
The Rape of Europa
Francisco Goya, 1772
Young Goya paints Europa's bull-ride with Rococo lightness — the Phoenician princess still aloft on Zeus, the myth that named a continent restaged for an eighteenth-century Spanish wall.