Editing Europa (consort of Zeus) (section)

== Cult ==
[[File:Terracotta Europa bull Staatliche Antikensammlungen.jpg|thumb|Terracotta figurine from [[Athens]], {{c.|460–480 BC}}]]

=== Astarte and Europa ===
In the territory of Phoenician [[Sidon]], [[Lucian of Samosata]] (2nd century AD) was informed that the temple of [[Astarte]], whom Lucian equated with the moon goddess, was sacred to Europa:

: There is likewise in Phœnicia a temple of great size owned by the Sidonians. They call it the temple of Astarte. I hold this Astarte to be no other than the moon-goddess. But according to the story of one of the priests this temple is sacred to Europa, the sister of Cadmus. She was the daughter of Agenor, and on her disappearance from Earth the Phœnicians honoured her with a temple and told a sacred legend about her; how that Zeus was enamoured of her for her beauty, and changing his form into that of a bull carried her off into Crete. This legend I heard from other Phœnicians as well; and the coinage current among the Sidonians bears upon it the effigy of Europa sitting upon a bull, none other than Zeus. Thus they do not agree that the temple in question is sacred to Europa.<ref name="encarta2008" /> {{verify source|date=February 2023}}

The paradox, as it seemed to Lucian, would be solved if Europa ''is'' Astarte in her guise as the full, "broad-faced" moon.

=== Interpretation ===
There were two competing myths<ref>''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]'' 3.1.1.</ref> relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to [[Crete]] (Kríti), where the [[Bull (mythology)|sacred bull]] was paramount. In the more familiar telling she was [[seduction|seduced]] by the [[deity|god]] [[Zeus]] in the form of a bull, who breathed from his mouth a [[Crocus sativus|saffron crocus]]<ref name="Hesiod"/> and carried her away to Crete on his back—to be welcomed by [[Asterion (king of Crete)|Asterion]],<ref group=note>According to the scholium on ''Iliad'' XII.292, noted in Karl Kerenyi (1996) ''Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life'' p. 105. {{ISBN |0691029156}}. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] rendered the name Asterion (2.31.1); in ''Bibliotheke'' (3.1.4) it is ''Asterion''.</ref> but according to the more literal, [[euhemerism|euhemerist]] version that begins the account of Persian-Hellene confrontations of [[Herodotus]],<ref group=note>Herodotus, ''Histories'' I.1; the act is made out to be a revenge for the previous "kidnapping" of [[Io (mythology)|Io]].</ref> she was [[kidnapping|kidnapped]] by [[Cretans]], who likewise were said to have taken her to Crete. The mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the [[Bull (mythology)|sacred bull]], which had been worshipped in the [[Levant]]. In 2012, an archaeological mission of the [[British Museum]] led by [[Lebanese people|Lebanese]] archaeologist, [[Claude Doumet-Serhal]], discovered at the site of the old American school in [[Sidon]], [[Lebanon]] currency that depicts Europa riding the bull with her veil flying all over like a bow, further proof of Europa's Phoenician origin.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lorientlejour.com/category/À+La+Une/article/767714/Et_si_Europe_etait_sidonienne_.html|title=The Designer: And if Europe was Sidonian?|publisher=Lorientjour.com|access-date=2012-11-28|archive-date=2013-05-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130525112335/http://www.lorientlejour.com/category/%C3%80+La+Une/article/767714/Et_si_Europe_etait_sidonienne_.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Europa does not seem to have been venerated directly in [[Cult (religion)|cult]] anywhere in classical Greece,<ref group=note>No public statue of Europa is mentioned by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] or any other Classical writer, but a headless statuette, closely draped in a cloak over a [[peplos]], of the type called "Amelung's Goddess", but inscribed "Europa", at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, seems to be a Roman copy of a lost Greek original, of {{c.|460 BC}}; an uninscribed statuette of the same type, from Hama, Syria, is in the Damascus Museum, and a full-size copy has been found in [[Baiae]]: {{cite journal | author=Martin Robertson| title=Europa | journal=Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes | publisher=JSTOR | volume=20 | issue=1/2 | year=1957 | jstor=i230424 | doi=10.2307/750147 | page=1| s2cid=244492052 }}; I. E. S. Edwards, ed. ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', plates to vols. V and VI 1970:illus. fig. 24.</ref> but at Lebadaea in [[Boeotia]], [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] noted in the 2nd century AD that ''Europa'' was the [[epithet]] of [[Demeter]]—"Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonios"—among the Olympians who were addressed by seekers at the cave sanctuary of [[Trophonios]] of [[Orchomenus (Boeotia)|Orchomenus]], to whom a [[chthonic]] cult and [[oracle]] were dedicated: {{qi|the [[Sacred grove|grove]] of Trophonios by the river Herkyna{{nbs}}... there is also a sanctuary of Demeter Europa{{nbs}}... the nurse of Trophonios.}}<ref>Pausanias, ''Guide to Greece'' 9.39.2–5.</ref>

The festival of [[Hellotia]] in Crete was celebrated in honour of Europa.<ref>{{SmithDGRBM|author=LS|title=Hellotia|volume=2|pages=378–379|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofgree02smituoft/page/378/mode/1up}} Via [[archive.org]].</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:alphabetic+letter=E:entry+group=1:entry=ellotia-cn|title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), EBUR, EBUR, ELLO'TIA|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>