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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jochen1, post: 3568496, member: 103829&quot;]<b>Dear Friends of ancient mythology!</b></p><p><b>&nbsp;</b></p><p>Here we have the story of one of Zeus&#039; many infamous deeds, the abduction of Europa. But if we look at Europa she seems to estimate the abduction!</p><p><br /></p><p><b>The Coin:</b></p><p>Phoenicia, Sidon, Elagabal, AD 218-222</p><p>AE 27, 11.8g</p><p>Obv.: IMP C M AV ANT - ONINVS AVG</p><p>Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.</p><p>Rev.: SI - DON. / COL MET</p><p>in l. and r. field A - P</p><p>Europa, nude to hips, head r., sitting on bull, leaping r., holding with one hand</p><p>horn of bull and with the other hand veil, blowing in the wind over her head.</p><p>Ref.: BMC 235</p><p>rare, F/about VF</p><p>[ATTACH=full]949775[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Note:</b></p><p>COL MET = Colonia Metropolis</p><p>A - P = Aurelia Pia</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Mythology:</b></p><p>Europa was the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor and his wife Telephassa. Her brothers were Kadmos, Phoinix, Kilix, Thasos and Phineus.</p><p><br /></p><p>Zeus fell in love with Europa and gave order to Hermes to drove Agenor&#039;s cattle to the coast of Tyros where Europa together with her companions used to promenade. Zeus for himself joined the herd in the shape of a snow-white bull with a big neck fold and small gemlike horns. Europa was overwhelmed by his beauty. When she found him gentle like a lamb she overcame her fear and began to play with him. She put flowers in his mouth and hung girlands over his horns. Finely she climbed on his shoulders and trotted down with him to the sea-coast. Suddenly he swam away and she looked full of amazement back to the remaining coast. With one hand she hold his right horn, with the other a basket with flowers. Near of Gortynas on Crete he went on land, transformed himself to an eagle and raped Europa in a willow bush at a well. Other say this happened under a evergreen sycamore tree. There are coins too which show this scene. She gave birth to three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. After that Europa married another husband, Asterion, who raised her Children.</p><p><b> </b></p><p><b>Background:</b></p><p>As always the facts behind the myth are more complicated as the myth itself.</p><p>Beside the heroine Europa who is the protagonist of our story there was a nymph, the Okeanid Europa, acoording to her the Greek named the continent. The connection between the Okeanid Europa and the continent was already mysterious to Herodot.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In Boiotia Europa was an Earth Goddess, hidden and saved by Zeus in a cave near Teumessos. Here Demeter had the surname Europa. This proved his high age. The Boiotian Europa very early was connected with the other Europa abducted by Zeus and then mother of Minos. Doubtless the myth goes back to Minoic circumstances: sacrifying bulls, bull games with the participation of women, the cult of the heaven&#039;s bull, the experience of the sea. The holy sycamore tree with the <i>hieros gamos </i>(the holy marriage) is mentioned by Pliny.</p><p><br /></p><p>The etymology is unclear until now. Mostly the Semitic word for &#039;evening&#039; (Greek <i>erebos</i>) is seen as origin of the name Europa. Nevertheless a Greek origin is not excluded (Greek <i>euruopa</i> = &#039;widely sounding or looking&#039;). The Greek at first recognized Europa as the Greek mainland in contrast to the Peleponnesos and the islands. After the Persian wars the term was expanded to whole Greece. Already from the 7th century BC on this name adhered at the Middle Hellas and then was kept as regional and local name in Macedonia and Thessalia until the end of ancient times. There were some cities in Thessalia and Macedonia and a river in Thessalia with this name. So the word Europa was linked from the beginning of time to the peninsula of the Balkans and Pindos. Behind these facts all other explanations have to retreat, even mythological ones! Herodot has differentiated between 3 continents: Europa, Asia and Libyen. Middle and Norther Europe however were unknown to him. Of the course of the river Istros he had only vague ideas. As border between Europa and Asia from Herodot on the river Tanais (the todays river Don) was seen. Whereas Europa once was seen as the biggest continent at the end of ancient times it was realistic seen as the smallest.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>History of Art:</b></p><p>Several ancient depictions of a woman on the back of a bull could be connected to the myth of Europa (Metope of temple Y in Selinunt, about 560 BC; Palermo, MA - metope of the house of treasures of the Sikyons, 1st half of the 6th century BC; Delphi, Mus. - Hydria of the Berlin painter, about 500 BC; Oxford, AM). The same type of picture indeed was used for the abduction of a mainad by the bull of Dionysos, but ivy and grape-vine could be used for determination. In the Middle Ages the abduction of Europa was seen in conjunction with the constellation of Taurus but was seen too as allegory of the triumph of love over chastity. Referring to the &#039;Ovide moralise&#039; from the beginning of the 14th century AD the transformation of Zeus into the bull resembles the incarnation of Christ, and the abduction of Europa the elevation of the human soul to God.</p><p><br /></p><p>As in ancient times so in the Baroque too, which has often handled this subject, Europa and her companions with the crowned bull were shown at the beach, so by Poussin (drawing, about 1649/50; Stockholm, NM) and before by Veronese (1573; Venice, Palace of the Doges), but most often the bull is shown already in the waves of the sea with Europa who - appaled or calm - hold tight the horns of that bull (Tizian, 1559-62; Boston/Mass., GM). Depictions of Europa are found within the work of Rubens (about 1630, Prado), Rembrandt (1632; Malibu, GM), Claude Lorrain (1647; Amsterdam, RM) and Boucher (1734; London, WC - 1747; Louvre) to name only some of them. Ingres has taken as paradigm fo his picture in the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge a greek Vase.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Sources:</b></p><p><b>&nbsp;</b>(1) Ovid, Metamorphosen II, 27</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Literature:</b></p><p><b>&nbsp;</b>(1) Der kleine Pauly</p><p>(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon</p><p>(3) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie</p><p>(4) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, Reclam</p><p><br /></p><p>I have attached the following:</p><p>(1) A pic of the famous wall painting &#039;The abduction of Europa&#039; from the Casa de Nave in Pompeji, about 1st century BC, now in the National Museum.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]949776[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>(2) The pic from a cut-out of the famous floor mosaic of Sparta, now in the Archaeological Museum in Sparta</p><p>[ATTACH=full]949777[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>(3) The pic of the Greek 2 Euro piece which shows a cut-out of the above mosaic in Sparta.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]949778[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Best regards[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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