Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Europa was the daughter of Agenor (or, in some stems, of Phoenix) of Tyre, sister of Cadmus. Zeus desired her. He sent Hermes to drive Agenor’s cattle from the mountain meadows down to the shore where she played with her companions, and himself took the shape of a tame, beautiful bull—white, with horns like a crescent. Europa and her maids adorned the bull; she climbed upon its back. The bull carried her into the sea and swam to Crete. There Zeus revealed himself and lay with her. She bore Minos, Rhadamanthys, and—according to Apollodorus—Sarpedon (other traditions vary Sarpedon’s parentage). Asterius (Asterion), king of Crete, married Europa and raised her sons. Minos later contended for the kingship, prayed to Poseidon for a confirming bull, and—failing to sacrifice it—brought on Pasiphaë’s passion and the Minotaur (cross-ref 054, 086). Rhadamanthys became a judge of the dead; Sarpedon, in Homeric tradition, a Lycian ally at Troy (sometimes with a different mother in the *Iliad*’s mortal timeline). Agenor’s command that Cadmus find Europa and not return without her launches the Cadmeian founding of Thebes (entry 090). The abduction is thus both a Cretan royal charter (Zeus’s sons on Crete) and the hinge that sends Phoenician Cadmus into Greece.