,
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. relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to
Crete (Kríti), where the
sacred bull was paramount. In the more familiar telling she was
seduced by the
god Zeus in the form of a bull, who breathed from his mouth a
saffron crocus According to the more literal,
euhemerist version that begins the account of Persian-Hellene confrontations of
Herodotus, she was
kidnapped by
Cretans, who likewise were said to have taken her to Crete. The mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the
sacred bull, which had been worshipped in the
Levant. In 2012, an archaeological mission of the
British Museum led by
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. but at Lebadaea in
Boeotia,
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, to whom a
chthonic cult and
oracle were dedicated: "the
grove of Trophonios by the river Herkyna The festival of
Hellotia in Crete was celebrated in honour of Europa. == Argive genealogy ==