LP0020 - Europa - The Library of Apollodorus -

Legendary Passages #0020 - Europa -  The Library of Apollodorus -

Last time we reviewed the stories of Theseus, Daedalus, and Minos. This time we examine the genealogy of the house of Minos, starting with his mother Europa.

Now Europa had three brothers: Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix. Their parents were Aegenor, son of Poseidon and Libya; and Telephassa, daughter of Nilus and Nephele.

Europa was abducted by Zeus, who was in the form of a white bull. Her father Aegenor told his sons to search for her, and not come home without her. None returned. Phoenix went to Phoenicia, Cilix went to Cilicia, and Cadmus went to Thrace.

Europa made pregnant by Zeus, was married by Asterius of Crete. She had three sons: Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys. Her sons loved a boy named Miletus, a son of Apollo; or Atymnius, a son of Zeus. They went to war, and Minos won. Sarpedon eventually became King of Lycia. Rhadamanthys eventually married Aclmena, mother of Heracles.

Minos became King of Crete, and married Pasiphae, daughter of Helius and Perseis. They had many, many children, including Ariadne, Androgeus, Glaucus, and Catreus.

In order to secure the throne, Minos prayed for proof of divine right, and Poseidon sent the Cretan Bull. Minos refused to sacrifice it, and Pasiphae fell in love with it. Deadalus constructed a wooden cow to aid Queen Pasiphae, and she conceived the Minotaur.

Catreus, son of Minos and Pasiphae, was told by an oracle that on of his children would kill him. Catreus had a son Althaemenes and three daughters: Aerope, Clymene, and Apemosyne. Overhearing the oracle, Althaemenes and his sister Apemosyne fled to Rhodes.

Catreus sold his daughters Aerope and Clymen to Nauplius to take far, far away. But Nauplius married Clymena himself; and he gave Areope to Plisthenes, son of Atreus.

When Minos' son Glaucus was very young, he drowned in a jar of honey. He was found by Polyidus, or Aesclepius in some stories. Minos imprisoned the diviner with the body, and ordered him to bring out his son alive. After seeing a serpent revived with a magic herb, Polyidus resurrected Glaucus, and taught him divination. But upon sailing away, he made the boy forget.

Europa was eventually found by her brother Cadmus, but she did not want to return home from Crete.  Cadmus was told by the oracle to follow a cow until it lay down, and built a city there. He founded the city of Thebes, and fought and killed a dragon of Ares. He sowed the dragons teeth, which grew up into skeleton warriors which fought each other.

Cadmus served Ares for a time, and married Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. He gave her a magic necklace made by Hephestus, and it might have once been given by Zeus to Europa.

Next time we shall hear more of Minos' brothers Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, as well as other Cretans.

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Europa,
a Legendary Passage,
from Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.

[3.1.1] - [3.4.2]

...[W]e have next to speak of the house of Agenor. For as I have said, Libya had by Poseidon two sons, Belus and Agenor. Now Belus reigned over the Egyptians and begat the aforesaid sons; but Agenor went to Phoenicia, married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus,  Phoenix, and Cilix. But some say that Europa was a daughter not of Agenor but of Phoenix.

Zeus loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the sea to Crete. There Zeus bedded with her, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys; but according to Homer, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophon.

On the disappearance of Europa her father Agenor sent out his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found Europa. With them her mother, Telephassa, and Thasus, son of Poseidon, or according to Pherecydes, of Cilix, went forth in search of her.

But when, after diligent search, they could not find Europa, they gave up the thought of returning home, and took up their abode in divers places; Phoenix settled in Phoenicia; Cilix settled near Phoenicia, and all the country subject to himself near the river Pyramus he called Cilicia; and Cadmus and Telephassa took up their abode in Thrace and in like manner Thasus founded a city Thasus in an island off Thrace and dwelt there.

Now Asterius, prince of the Cretans, married Europa and brought up her children. But when they were grown up, they quarrelled with each other; for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of Apollo by Aria, daughter of Cleochus.

As the boy was more friendly to Sarpedon, Minos went to war and had the better of it, and the others fled. Miletus landed in Caria and there founded a city which he called Miletus after himself; and Sarpedon allied himself with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and having stipulated for a share of the country, he became king of Lycia. And Zeus granted him to live for three generations.

But some say that they loved Atymnius, the son of Zeus and Cassiepea, and that it was about him that they quarrelled. Rhadamanthys legislated for the islanders but afterwards he fled to Boeotia and married Alcmena; and since his departure from the world he acts as judge in Hades along with Minos.

Minos, residing in Crete, passed laws, and married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun and Perseis; but Asclepiades says that his wife was Crete, daughter of Asterius. He begat sons, to wit, Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeus: and daughters, to wit, Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne, Phaedra; and by a nymph Paria he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaus; and by Dexithea he had Euxanthius.

Asterius dying childless, Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done. And in sacrificing to Poseidon he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another. Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over almost all the islands.

But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it.

In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect, who had been banished from Athens for murder. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow.

And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.

Now the Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way.  The story of the Minotaur, and Androgeus, and Phaedra, and Ariadne, I will tell hereafter in my account of Theseus.

But Catreus, son of Minos, had three daughters, Aerope, Clymene, and Apemosyne, and a son, Althaemenes. When Catreus inquired of the oracle how his life should end, the god said that he would die by the hand of one of his children.

Now Catreus hid the oracles, but Althaemenes heard of them, and fearing to be his father's murderer, he set out from Crete with his sister Apemosyne, and put in at a place in Rhodes, and having taken possession of it he called it Cretinia. And having ascended the mountain called Atabyrium, he beheld the islands round about; and descrying Crete also and calling to mind the gods of his fathers he founded an altar of Atabyrian Zeus.

But not long afterwards he became the murderer of his sister. For Hermes loved her, and as she fled from him and he could not catch her, because she excelled him in speed of foot, he spread fresh hides on the path, on which, returning from the spring, she slipped and so was deflowered. She revealed to her brother what had happened, but he, deeming the god a mere pretext, kicked her to death.

And Catreus gave Aerope and Clymene to Nauplius to sell into foreign lands; and of these two Aerope became the wife of Plisthenes, who begat Agamemnon and Menelaus; and Clymene became the wife of Nauplius, who became the father of Oeax and Palamedes.

But afterwards in the grip of old age Catreus yearned to transmit the kingdom to his son Althaemenes, and went for that purpose to Rhodes. And having landed from the ship with the heroes at a desert place of the island, he was chased by the cowherds, who imagined that they were pirates on a raid. He told them the truth, but they could not hear him for the barking of the dogs, and while they pelted him Althaemenes arrived and killed him with the cast of a javelin, not knowing him to be Catreus. Afterwards when he learned the truth, he prayed and disappeared in a chasm.

To Deucalion were born Idomeneus and Crete and a bastard son Molus. But Glaucus, while he was yet a child, in chasing a mouse fell into a jar of honey and was drowned. On his disappearance Minos made a great search and consulted diviners as to how he should find him. The Curetes told him that in his herds he had a cow of three different colors, and that the man who could best describe that cow's color would also restore his son to him alive. So when the diviners were assembled, Polyidus, son of Coeranus, compared the color of the cow to the fruit of the bramble, and being compelled to seek for the child he found him by means of a sort of divination.

But Minos declaring that he must recover him alive, he was shut up with the dead body. And while he was in great perplexity, he saw a serpent going towards the corpse. He threw a stone and killed it, fearing to be killed himself if any harm befell the body. But another serpent came, and, seeing the former one dead, departed, and then returned, bringing a herb, and placed it on the whole body of the other; and no sooner was the herb so placed upon it than the dead serpent came to life. Surprised at this sight, Polyidus applied the same herb to the body of Glaucus and raised him from the dead.

Minos had now got back his son, but even so he did not suffer Polyidus to depart to Argos until he had taught Glaucus the art of divination. Polyidus taught him on compulsion, and when he was sailing away he bade Glaucus spit into his mouth. Glaucus did so and forgot the art of divination. Thus much must suffice for my account of the descendants of Europa.

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When Telephassa died, Cadmus buried her, and after being hospitably received by the Thracians he came to Delphi to inquire about Europa. The god told him not to trouble about Europa, but to be guided by a cow, and to found a city wherever she should fall down for weariness. After receiving such an oracle he journeyed through Phocis; then falling in with a cow among the herds of Pelagon, he followed it behind. And after traversing Boeotia, it sank down where is now the city of Thebes.

Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athena, he sent some of his companions to draw water from the spring of Ares. But a dragon, which some said was the offspring of Ares, guarded the spring and destroyed most of those that were sent. In his indignation Cadmus killed the dragon, and by the advice of Athena sowed its teeth. When they were sown there rose from the ground armed men whom they called Sparti. These slew each other, some in a chance brawl, and some in ignorance. But Pherecydes says that when Cadmus saw armed men growing up out of the ground, he flung stones at them, and they, supposing that they were being pelted by each other, came to blows. However, five of them survived, Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus.

But Cadmus, to atone for the slaughter, served Ares for an eternal year; and the year was then equivalent to eight years of our reckoning.

After his servitude Athena procured for him the kingdom, and Zeus gave him to wife Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. And all the gods quitted the sky, and feasting in the Cadmea celebrated the marriage with hymns.

Cadmus gave her a robe and the necklace wrought by Hephaestus, which some say was given to Cadmus by Hephaestus, but Pherecydes says that it was given by Europa, who had received it from Zeus.

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