Abduction of Europa

In Phoenicia, Agenor ruled in the city of Sidon (sometimes it was Tyre). Agenor was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and Libya. Agenor was also a brother of Belus, king of Egypt. He and his family were direct descendants of Io, daughter of the Argive river-god, Inachus. By his wife Telephassa (or Argiope), Agenor had one daughter named Europa (Εὐρώπη) and five sons: Cadmus, Phoenix, Cilix, Thasus, and Phineus (according to Homer, Europa was the daughter of Phoenix).

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The maiden Europa was playing with her companions in a meadow and having a picnic when they encountered a beautiful bull. But the bull was none other than Zeus himself. Aphrodite had caused him to fall in love with Europa, and he had transformed himself into a bull so that the god could get as close as possible to Europa. The girls were not frightened of the bull because he was so gentle, and the girls played around the disguised god.

When the bull lay before Europa's feet, the girls decided to sit on his back. When Europa mounted the bull's back, however, the bull immediately stood up before the other girls had a chance to climb on. The bull suddenly ran to the shore and straight out to sea. The bull hovered about above the waves, accompanied by dolphins, the sea gods, Poseidon and his son Triton. The strange procession frightened Europa as she was carried further and further from her homeland. It wasn't long before the land disappeared from the horizon.

Zeus, still in the form of the bull, reassured her that she should not be afraid of him. The bull told her that his name was Zeus, and that he was in love with her. He told the maiden that he was taking her to Crete, where she would bear him sons.

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Europa bore the thunder-god three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. Her son Minos became the powerful king of Crete, who established a strong navy and an empire in the Aegean Sea. Rhadamanthys was a famous Cretan lawgiver. Sarpedon migrated to Lycia, where he shared the kingdom with an Athenian prince named Lycus.

Agenor was distraught over his daughter's disappearance. Agenor was completely besotted with his daughter, so he ordered all of his sons to find their sister, "or else don't come back." All of her brothers didn't return home. Cadmus had travelled the furthest, all the way west, to Delphi. The oracle told Cadmus to stop looking for his sister and find a new home for himself. His journey took him to Boeotia, where he founded a city which he called Cadmeia, but it was later changed to Thebes.

You will find the full myth on Cadmus, in the House of Thebes.

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In the above tale, I named Europa as the daughter of Agenor. In the Cataglogues of Women, Europa was the daughter of Phoenix and granddaughter of Agenor and Cassiopea. This made her the sister of Phineus, the blind diviner that Jason and the Argonauts encountered at Salmydessus, a Thracian capital of Thynia.