The Myth of Europa and Minos

Author(s): P. B. S. Andrews
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Apr., 1969), pp. 60-66
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/642899 .
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THE MYTH OF EUROPA AND MINOS

By P. B. S. ANDREWS

EUROPA
and

was the daughterof Phoinixor Agenor,king of Phoenice,

Telephassa; her brother was Cadmos. Zeus came in the form

of a bull and carried her away to Crete, where she gave birth to Minos,
also Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon the elder. Afterwards she married
Asterios (or Asterion), who reared her children.
Their father sent Cadmos to search for her, but he never found her.
When in his wandering he came to Delphi, Apollo commanded him to
abandon the search and go and found Thebes instead.
Minos married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun (Helios); she bore him
Ariadne and Phaidra. (Also other children in various traditions.) Minos
prayed to Poseidon to send him a bull for sacrifice, but the bull which
appeared was so beautiful that he kept it and sacrificed another. Poseidon in anger made Pasiphae love his bull; she coupled with it and bore
Minotauros (sometimes also called Asterios), a man with a bull's head.
Minos confined Minotauros in the house Labyrinthos and fed him on
human flesh. When Minos conquered Athens, the Athenians were compelled to send their children to feed Minotauros, until Theseus came
with them, killed Minotauros with the help of Ariadne, and escaped.
These are the essential contents of the myth, as given in agreement by
all the best authorities.
It is evident at once that Europa and Pasiphae are doublets; each is a
queen of Crete who mates with a divine bull and bears a son called
Mino-. Therefore they are in principle the same person; which means
that their names are interchangeable, and so should be those of their
kinsfolk. Phoinix is evidently a suitable name for the Sun, and Telepha[e]ssa for the Sun's wife (cf. Euryphaessa, mother of Helios in the
Homeric Hymn). Agenor, however, who is not in Homer, seems not to
fit the pattern and to be intrusive. Conversely, Europa, whatever it means,
should be as appropriate as is Pasiphae to a daughter of the Sun; and
Cadmos should be appropriate to a son of the Sun. Europa cannot have
been formed to mean 'wide eye' in Greek (though it might suggest it to
a Greek-speaker), since e'p11s in such compounds is not elided. Since
Cadmos and Europa are both 'Phoenician', it is striking that in Phoenician, as in Semitic generally, q-d-m and '-r-b mean respectively 'sunrise/east' and 'sunset/west'.
According to Pausanias (iii. 26. i) Pasiphae in his day was a title of
the Moon; he does not say whether in this capacity she was daughter

THE

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61

or sister of Helios. But it is equally suitable in principle for either

luminary.
In all known religions of the bronze-age east, from Anatolia to Sumer
and Egypt, the Moon is a male god. Sometimes he has a consort, but she
is not necessarily a moon-goddess; at Ugarit, for instance, where her
name is borrowed from Sumerian, she is daughter of the god of summer
and herself a pure fertility-goddess, the type of the divine Bride. It
seems perfectly possible that the case was the same in Minoan cultthough not necessarily in Mycenaean, since the Greek grammatical
genders of the luminaries were surely already determined.
The sex of the Sun varies. In Egypt and Sumer and among the
eastern Semites he is male, with or without a consort. In Hatti, however,
the principal royal deity was a sun-goddess, though there was also a sungod; and at Ugarit the sun-goddess appears virtually alone. Her name
was 1-p-s, beside the regular Semitic masc. s-m-s'. This parallelism
somewhat recalls that of IE fem. *suwen- and masc. *sdwel-. Again it
seems possible (especially in view of the 'Phoenician' association of
Europa) that the Minoan cult resembled the Ugaritic, or perhaps rather
the Hittite, in this respect.
I suggest, therefore, that the myth of Europa and Minos is really
'astronomical' and reflects the ritual of an important event in the calendar, the appearance of the first new moon of summer-most likely
regarded as the beginning of the year. Europa is the sun-goddess, Minos
(here) the moon-god, Zeus the constellation Taurus, and Asterios the
constellation Orion. (Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon are intrusive in the
myth as such; they are type-kings, possibly of Phaistos and Mallia,
associated with Minos in his capacity as king of Knossos.) The goddess
comes up from her father's palace on the eastern shore, riding on the
back of the Bull of Heaven-i.e. at the time of the heliacal rising of the
Pleiades, the 'shoulder' of Taurus; and at evening she is brought to bed
in the west ('-r-b) of the new moon with his bull-horns. In 1500 B.C. the
Pleiades would rise at the end of April, in 2000 B.C.about a week earlier.
The myth in fact is not simply a pretty fairy-tale, much less a fragment
of genuine history, about human kings and queens of Crete. It is a
perfectly practical instruction to priests and people: in modern terms,
'The year begins with the new moon which appears on a day when the
sun rose with the Pleiades.' In the direct ancestry, in fact, of the plainlanguage instructions in the Worksand Days; it was not for nothing that
that was attributed to the same poet as compiled the first comprehensive
summary of mythology.
Of course the relationship of new moon to heliacal rising would
actually vary considerably from year to year; if the Pleiades just missed
a new moon, as it were, by the next time round most of the stars of

THE

62

MYTH

OF EUROPA

AND

MINOS

Taurus would be rising before the sun and some of those of Orion. This
is why the Starry King as well as the Bull of Heaven comes into the myth
as a long-stop; in any case, when the new moon really did coincide with
the rising of the Pleiades, the stars of Orion would be dominating the
dawn by the next lunation, which is why Asterios has the bringing up

of Minos.

If this was the basis of the Minoan calendar-year, it would easily be

discovered that if the moon and Pleiades coincided well in a particular
year, they would tend to do so again in each eighth year thereafter, at
any rate for the best part of any single lifetime's observation. The
octaeteris seems to be an Aegean discovery, not used in other systems.
It is much too crude a cycle for a precise calendar, since the moon is
about i4 days later each eighth year, but it was quite good enough for
the bronze-age Aegean. And this theory exactly explains Homer's saying

of Minos:

p oiAEVuE
EvvcAopoS
Al6S lr~d&hou
6apto-r'is. (Od.xix. '79)
The statementonly makes sense, in terms of the octaeteris,if 'Minos'
here is the moon. The sun is alwaysthere at the right time, and so for
practicalpurposesarethe stars;it is only the moon that goes wandering
all over the place, and turns up properlyfor its appointmentonly every
eight (or by Greekreckoning'nine')years. As to the Moon's being the
'confidentialgossip'of greatZeus, is the implicationof this perhapsthat
Zeus himself,the Sun, and everyoneelse can see and hear what goes on
in the daytime; only the Moon is aroundat night to hear, and report,
what possibly treasonablewhispersgo on in the dark?
I see no difficultyin supposingthat the proper name or title of the
Moon became the regularroyal title of the kings of Knossos. It corresponds directly to 'Son of RE"'as the principaltitle of the kings of
Egypt, and to the kings of Hatti sometimes calling themselves simply
'the Sun'. The Cretanking was regardedas the earthlyrepresentative
and avatarof the other luminary,becausethere was no male sun-god at
all or becausehe was a minorand unimportantfigure. Philologicallythe
identificationseems of some interest, since it is hard, if Minos really
means the moon-god, not to connect it with *mines- in some unidenti-

fied IE language. The acceptedview that non-Greekwords of this type

has been challengedby Linear B
are w-stems like true Greek pirlrpcos
are really herjei and Trios,
if
to-ro-o
there
e-ro-e
and
interpretation:
s-stems.
in
fact
be
former
must
they
The interpretationof Asterios as Orion to Zeus' Taurus is I think
certain. We have no reason to assume a priori that the ancients divided

the constellationsas we do, but the Bull and the Giant are surely of all
constellationsthe most compulsive. In the Mediterraneanthey south

THE MYTH OF EUROPA AND MINOS

63
at just the right altitude to catch the wondering eye, and are always the
right way up. They lie in the most brilliant region of the sky, with three
first-magnitude stars between them besides the Pleiades and Hyades,
Belt and Sword, and four more strung round them to the east. And to a
Minoan the Giant would surely have a special appeal-for would he not
see in him a bull-dancer, with tight belt and codpiece, reaching up his
arms to seize the horns of the Bull and vault between them ? (May it not
even have been this fancy which first impelled Cretan athletes to try
whether it could really be done?)
It seems to me impossible to accept that Cadmos brother of Europa
and Cadmos founder of Thebes can be originally the same person; they
have been confounded, and their myths run into one, through a purely
chance homonymy of Phoenician q-d-m with the native Helladic ethnic
Cadmeios. The myth of search for a lost god is found alike at Ugarit
(Anat and Baal), in Hittite (Telepinus), and in classical Greece (Demeter
and Kore). In all these cases the lost one is the spirit of fertility, and
therefore must be found and recovered-till next year!-in the end. If
the search of Cadmos for Europa is original and integral, it must surely
be of the same type. Europa is only the sun-goddess, as such quite
simply, for the immediate calendar purpose of this myth, but the
functions of bronze-age gods are never as simple and clear-cut as that:
as a great royal goddess of Crete, the divine queen of Knossos, she is
properly, if cumbrously, 'the aspect of the fertility-goddess embodied in
the sun', just as Artemis and her avatars are 'in the forest', and the oldest
Aphrodite, sprung from the sea-foam on the fall of the seed of Heaven,
'in the sea' (the exact equivalent of Ugaritic Asherah). If Cadmos then
ever in fact set out in search of her, he must certainly have run her to
earth in Crete in the end.
The myth of Cadmos of Thebes on the other hand begins simply at
the point where a wandering man arrives, following or driving a cow
with a sacred mark, to win a wife and found a city. It has a close doublet
in the foundation-myth of Colophon, also traceable to Delphi, where
'Ragged son of Pot' (Rakios of Lebes) arrives from nowhere to marry
the weeping Manto, daughter of Teiresias. The roots of this lie somewhere far back in neolithic Europe, for we find the three main personsragged man, weeping maid, and the cow 'with the crumpled horn'-even
turning up in our English nursery rhyme of the House that Jack Built.
It is the myth of the founding of the first 'city' ever, by the fertility god
and goddess and their magic cow; it has nothing whatever to do with
Europa and Cadmos, the sun goddess and god of Minoan Crete. Perhaps
Agenor, however, was the Theban's original father?
In the astronomical context it is tempting to equate Ariadne and
Phaidra with the constellation Gemini, but I think this would be wrong.

THE MYTH OF EUROPA AND MINOS

64
In the first place, since Minos has the sun-goddess both for mother and
for wife, he is surely likely to have her for daughter too-and so he
plainly has in Phaidra ('beaming, especially of luminaries'); while
Ariadne was clearly recognized even in classical times as an avatar of
Aphrodite. In the second, there is a strong hint in the Odyssey that the
two daughters should really be three:
TE i OV KCKaAVT'
(Od. xi. 321)
c~aSprlv-rE -TTp6KpiV
Api&lvilv.

Procris in classical myth is the wife of Cephalos and located in Attica;

as such she is made daughter of Erechtheus. Classical versions, e.g. that
in Apollodorus Bib. ii. 15. I, contain extraordinary and revolting details
which seem to have been worked up from something primitive to make
an Alexandrian novelette. The points which seem relevant here are,
however, that she was a huntress; that she spent part of her life at least
with Minos, as a rival of Pasiphae for his love; that she received, either
from him or from Artemis, a spear that never missed its mark and a
hound that never lost its quarry, which she gave in turn to Cephalos; that
Eos was her rival for the love of Cephalos, and that on Eos' instigation
he killed her by mistake with her own spear.
This looks like a confused Athenian version of some originally Minoan
(or perhaps rather Cycladic) myth about the rivalry of the sun-goddess
and Artemis for the love of the same hero. Eos is evidently the only
goddess, as such, who can represent the Aegean sun-goddess on the
Greek-speaking mainland. The gifts of Procris can only be proper to
Artemis herself; it is interesting to have here an Artemis who hunts with
the spear, as in Minoan-Mycenaean art, instead of the bow.
This is only one example of a myth-theme which appears again and
again in Crete, the Cyclades, and the Saronic gulf. There are two versions. More often, the rejected goddess kills her successful rival-who
must therefore appear as a mortal heroine (e.g. Artemis-Procris here);
her killer may also do so, or may retain her divine identity. Less often,
she kills the hero himself; in this case both goddesses appear as such.
The really strange feature is that the goddesses are always two out of the
Od. ix. 321 triad-Sun, Artemis, Aphrodite-but they may be any two,
and either may play either role.
Two fragmentary versions appear in Od. xi. 322-5, perhaps incorrectly
welded together. First we are told that Theseus would lead Ariadne to
Athens, but never enjoyed her .. .; the completion of this, in classical
Athenian tradition, is that he deserted her in Naxos and took Phaidra
in her place-for which, in Euripides' Hippolytos, Aphrodite duly in
effect kills Phaidra. Then we are told: 'for Artemis slew Ariadne in
Dia, on the evidence of Dionysos.' Dionysos here is the Cretan Master
of Animals, perhaps hero rather than god, and in the Athenian myth he

THE

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65

finds Ariadne in Naxos, deserted by Theseus, and takes her for wife.
Presumably in the original Cretan myth he boasted of this to his rightful
mistress Artemis, who then killed Ariadne. (Notice that Dia perhaps
corresponds to Dione, in Homer mother of Aphrodite, as do Cythera and
Cyprus to her usual titles; in these myths she is always fundamentally
a sea-goddess.)
A Corinthian version appears, much disguised, attached to Jason in
Euripides' Medea. Medea is the sun-goddess (granddaughter of Helios,
her father, like Europa's, lord of the eastern shore), Glauce lady of
Corinth is Aphrodite with an epithet of the sea for name; so the Athenian roles of Phaidra and Ariadne are reversed.
The simplest version of the other form belongs to Delos: Orion the
hunter deserted Artemis for Eos, for which Artemis killed him. This
reverses the Athenian roles of Procris and Eos. Whether Orion the
hunter is yet to be identified with the constellation is not clear, but in the
bewildering kaleidoscope of shifting personalities among these Aegean
gods it is quite possible. The Master of Animals lurks behind Cephalos
and Dionysos and, in some Procris versions, Minos himself, so he may
well do so behind Asterios as well.
The original Troezene version was presumably that Hippolytos deserted Aphrodite for Artemis, and Aphrodite herself sent the sea-monster
to kill him. But Euripides, who was clearly fascinated by the permutations of this myth, has deliberately welded this and the Theseus version
together (with the Potiphar's Wife theme thrown in for good measure)
so that Aphrodite-Ariadne takes simultaneous revenge for her wrongs on
Sun-Phaidra and Theseus, Artemis and Hippolytos all together. Only
Dionysos, in an Athenian tragedy, is beyond her power-but he at least
did prefer her, even if he afterwards betrayed her.
Doubtless other versions may still be found, or once existed. The
theme perhaps contributed something to the Judgement of Paris, but in
that all three goddesses improperly appear together, and the Sun and
Artemis have been replaced by the Mycenaean royal goddesses, Hera
Queen of Heaven and Athene the shield-goddess.
This curious myth-complex is perhaps of little interest in itself, but
I have discussed it at some length as evidence for the cult of a prehellenic
sun-goddess in the presumed area of the Minoan 'empire'-Crete, the
Cyclades, Attica, and the Saronic gulf. I have found no variant in the
Mycenaean Peloponnese, as yet.
One remaining feature of the Pasiphae version of Europa is worth
noticing. It is clear that this is in fact an Athenian distortion of the true
Cretan myth, almost a deliberate parody, inspired by a hostility to
'Minos' with its roots deep in immemorial folk-tradition. How far its
details are the deliberate invention of tragedians is hard to tell (but surely
3871.1

66

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at least the wooden cow?); but there seems no reason to doubt that at
some remote period Athens was subject to kings of Knossos and was
compelled to supply young athletes, of both sexes, to be trained for the
bull-dance. But this does not in itself explain the substitution of Poseidon for Zeus as god of the sacred bull, nor the motif of Minos' cheating
over the sacrifice.
I have already pointed out (Greece & Rome, N.S. xii, no. I [1965]) that
exactly the same theme of Poseidon's anger at being cheated of his due
by a king is found in the myth of Laomedon of Troy, and that there it
can be confidently connected with a genuine tradition of the Troy VI
earthquake. Here the implication is surely the same. But the tradition
is distorted or disarranged as we have it-it hardly makes sense to make
the Athenian tribute to the cruel Minotaur the result of a disastrous
earthquake in Crete itself, which would surely be rather the occasion for
Athens to revolt and end it. And in any case Knossos seems to have had
so many great earthquakes that there is no way of linking the Athenian
tradition with any particular one. All we can say is that Athens always
remembered a great Cretan earthquake, and mixed it up inextricably
with the Minotaur tradition since it too went to prove how very wicked
Minos was. What Minos really did to enrage the Earthshaker was of
course unknown, but it was safe to assume with him that it would be
something to do with bull-sacrifices, and would certainly be something
both as mean and as stupid as it was wicked.

VERSION
Mr. JonesI
'There's been an accident!'they said,
'Your servant'scut in half; he's dead!'
'Indeed!' said Mr. Jones, 'and please
Send me the half that's got my keys.'
HARRY GRAHAM

'Accipe, vera loquor, caedem, Damasippe, cruentam;

'Membraiacent famuli dimidiatatui!'
Nuntius haec. dominus dictis immobilis, 'esto:
Quae retinet claves pars referendameas!'
HERBERT H. HUXLEY

x Mr. Jones is reprinted from Ruthless Rhymesfor Heartless Homes by Harry Graham,

by kind permissionof the publishers,EdwardArnold Ltd.