Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer)

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[p. 297]

I. Having now run over the family of Inachus and described them from Belus down to the Heraclids, we have next to speak of the house of Agenor. For as I have said,¹ 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.² But some say that Europa was a daughter [p. 299] not of Agenor but of Phoenix.³ Zeus loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the sea to Crete.⁴ There Zeus bedded with her, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys;⁵ but according to Homer, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophon.⁶ 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 [p. 301] according to Pherecydes, of Cilix,⁷ 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.⁸

¹ See above, Apollod. 2.1.4.

² The ancients were not agreed as to the genealogies of these mythical ancestors of the Phoenicians, Cilicians, and Thebans. See the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.178, iii.1186. Among the authorities whose divergent views are reported in these passages by the Scholiast are Hesiod, Pherecydes, Asclepiades, and Antimachus. Moschus ii.40, 42 agrees with Apollodorus that the mother of Europa was Telephassa, but differs from him as to her father (see below). According to Hyginus, Fab. 6, 178, the mother who bore Cadmus and Europa to Agenor was not Telephassa but Argiope. According to Euripides, Agenor had three sons, Cilix, Phoenix, and Thasus. See Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 6. Pausanias agrees with regard to Thasus, saying that the natives of Thasos were Phoenicians by descent and traced their origin to this Thasus, son of Agenor (Paus. 5.25.12). In saying this, Pausanias followed Herodotus, who tells us that the Phoenician colonists of Thasos discovered wonderful gold mines there, which the historian had visited (Hdt. 6.46ff.), and that they had founded a sanctuary of Herakles in the island (Hdt. 2.44). Herodotus also (Hdt. 7.91) represents Cilix as a son of the Phoenician Agenor, and he tells us (Hdt. 4.147) that Cadmus, son of Agenor, left a Phoenician colony in the island of Thera. Diodorus Siculus reports (Diod. 5.59.2ff.) that Cadmus, son of Agenor, planted a Phoenician colony in Rhodes, and that the descendants of the colonists continued to hold the hereditary priesthood of Poseidon, whose worship had been instituted by Cadmus. He mentions also that in the sanctuary of Athena at Lindus, in Rhodes, there was a tripod of ancient style bearing a Phoenician inscription. The statement has been confirmed in recent years by the discovery of the official record of the temple of Lindian Athena in Rhodes. For in this record, engraved on a marble slab, there occurs the following entry: “Cadmus (dedicated) a bronze tripod engraved with Phoenician letters, as Polyzalus relates in the fourth book of the histories.” See Chr. Blinkenberg, La Chronique du temple Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912), p. 324. However, from such legends all that we can safely infer is that the Greeks traced a blood relationship between the Phoenicians and Cilicians, and recognised a Phoenician element in some of the Greek islands and parts of the mainland. If Europa was, as seems possible, a personification of the moon in the shape of a cow (see The Dying God, p. 88), we might perhaps interpret the quest of the sons of Agenor for their lost sister as a mythical description of Phoenician mariners steering westward towards the moon which they saw with her silver horns setting in the sea.

³ Europa was a daughter of Phoenix, according to Hom. Il. 14.321ff.); Bacch. 16.29ff. p. 376, ed. Jebb, and Moschus ii.7. So, too, the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xii.292 calls Europa a daughter of Phoenix. The Scholiast on Plat. Tim. 24e speaks of Europa as a daughter of Agenor, or of Phoenix, or of Tityus. Some said that Cadmus also was a son, not of Agenor, but of Phoenix (Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1186).

⁴ Compare Moschus ii.77ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xii.292; Diod. 5.78.1; Lucian, Dial. Marin. xv.; id. De dea Syria 4; Ov. Met. 2.836ff.; Ovid, Fasti v.603ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 178; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 47, 100 (First Vatican Mythographer 148; Second Vatican Mythographer 76). The connexion which the myth of Zeus and Europa indicates between Phoenicia and Crete receives a certain confirmation from the worship at Gaza of a god called Marnas, who was popularly identified with the Cretan Zeus. His name was thought to be derived from a Cretan word marna, meaning “maiden”; so that, as Mr. G. F. Hill has pointed out, marnas might signify “young man.” The city is also said to have been called Minoa, after Minos. See Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Gaza. The worship of Marnas, “the Cretan Zeus,” persisted at Gaza till 402 A.D., when it was finally suppressed and his sanctuary, the Marneion, destroyed. See Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, 64-71, pp. 73-82, G. F. Hill's translation (Oxford, 1913). From this work (ch. 19, p. 24) we learn that Marnas was regarded as the lord of rain, and that prayer and sacrifice were offered to him in time of drought. As to the god and his relation to Crete, see G. F. Hill's introduction to his translation, pp. xxxii.-xxxviii.

⁵ Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. xii.292; Hyginus, Fab. 178.

⁶ Hom. Il. 2.198ff.

⁷ According to some writers, Thasus was a son of Agenor. See Frazer on Apollod. 3.1.1.

⁸ Apollodorus probably meant to say that Thasus colonized the island of Thasos. The text may be corrupt. See Critical Note. For the traces of the Phoenicians in Thasos, Apollod. 3.1.1 note.

Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone:
* [806-943]

Cross references from Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898):
europa [Eurōpa]

This text is based on the following book(s):
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
OCLC: 28280131
ISBN: 0674991354, 0674991362

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