Europa - A Revived Phoenician Myth To Repeat History

The Phoenician Land corresponds in the present day to Lebanon and the coastal line of Syria and Palestine.

The Land was invaded by many conquerors such as the Hyksos, the Egyptians, the Hittites, and others, eventually the Egyptians lost it to invaders from Asia and Europe.

The Assyrian Empire its control over the Levant, and many Phoenician cities lost their autonomy and became part of Assyrian provinces.

During the Wars between Greece and Persia, the Phoenicians played an important role helping the Persians with their Maritime Expertise, provided they do not bother them at their homeland.

The Land came under Alexander the Great, after he conquered the Persian King Darius, and a new political and social order raised.

When the Romans invaded the Levant, they just expanded all over East and West and formed and Empire which was basically a Western Empire which formed the first roots of Europe as a continent with many countries, having long hands that covered most parts of the Orient.

With the last West Roman emperor removed in 476, Southeastern Europe and some parts of the Mediterranean remained under the Eastern Roman Empire

Historically Europe was defined as between the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from Africa, and the Don, separating it from Asia

Europe is now generally defined by geographers as the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, with its boundaries marked by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the far east are usually taken to be the Urals, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the south-east, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe respectively. Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centered in the German principalities of central Europe.

The predominantly Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire became known in the west as the Byzantine Empire. Its capital was Constantinople. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia and brought the Christian church under state control.

Fatally weakened by the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantines fell in 1453 when they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire

For Homer, Europe was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later, Europa stood for central-north Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to the lands to the north.

In Greek Mythology, Europe the Continent was named after the Phoenician Princess Europa, who was abducted by Zeus who disguised as a bull, and attracted Europa to ride its back, then took her to Crete, where he laid her and she gave birth to three children. She became a goddess represented by the lunar cow.

Princess Europa was a sister to Cadmus, who taught the Alphabet to the Greeks,  and daughter of Agenor, and her outstanding beauty made Zeus be insanely in love with her.

Herodotus though had a different view, where it all began with Phoenician came with their trading ships to Argos, Ancient Greece.The King's daughter Io came down to buy some merchandise that the Phoenician brought with them,
She was persuaded to go on board to look for more items to buy, but the ship sailed away to Egypt.
Later some Greeks from Crete came to the Phoenician city Tyre and kidnapped the King's daughter Europa.

Herodotus recognized the story as relating to a political act of one culture on another. He thought that Cretans went to Phoenicia and captured a princess, perhaps in a bull-shaped vessel.
The myth may reveal the transfer of an important goddess cult from Phoenicia. Perhaps Aphrodite, who came from Phoenicia, is implicated.
The myth may mean that when Aphrodite came, she dominated the Minoan religion, just as Europa rides the bull.  Eventually the Minoan civilization was conquered by the Mycenaeans of the mainland.
The fact that Zeus rapes Europa implies that she does produce her effect on the Greek culture, as suggested by the fact that her sons become important components of Greek religion.

Herodotus puts Europa in a class with Ino and Helen. First Ino was a Greek princess stolen by Asians. Then Europa was an Asian princess stolen by Greeks and finally Helen was a Greek princess stolen by Asians. When the Greeks launched an army to regain Helen then the trading stopped.

The Persians considered the Greeks their enemies from the time of the destruction of Troy, and took the incident of the kidnapped prince Europe to retaliate from the Greeks, they later entered Europe.
There is no doubt that the Greeks took the myth from Syria to Cyprus to Crete to Greece.
And the story went on to the present days.   

The classical Greek alphabet, its order of letters, and their form, were borrowed from the Phoenician alphabet; alpha, beta, gamma, delta, are but Grecized sounds of the Phoenician language.
Cadmus, the legendary hero who came to Greece from Phoenicia and founded Thebes in Boeotia, is credited with the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet to the Greek language; in its Hellenized early form the alphabet is called Cadmeian. As Herodotus tells the story,

"The Phoenicians who came with Cadmus . . . introduced into Greece, after their settlement in the country, a number of accomplishments, of which the most important was writing, an art till then, I think, unknown to the Greeks. At first they used the same characters as all the other Phoenicians, but as time went on, and they changed their language, they also changed the shape of their letters. At that period most of the Greeks in the neighborhood were Ionians; they were taught these letters by the Phoenicians and adopted them, with a few alterations, for their own use, continuing to refer to them as the Phoenician characters—as was only right, as the Phoenicians had introduced them."

In early times Greek was also written from right to left, like Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic and Hebrew.

However, Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, preceded by several generations the Trojan War; on this the Greek tradition is unanimous. Tradition also has it that the Cadmeian alphabet originally consisted of sixteen letters and that four additional characters were introduced later, about the time of the Trojan War.

When his sister, Europa was carried away by Zeus in the form of a bull, he went to the oracle at Delphi to ask about her and was told she was happy and well, and he need not search for her any longer. Instead, he should stay in Greece and found a new kingdom, he was told. A white cow would lead him to a good site for a walled city.

When Cadmus left Delphi, he soon ran into a white cow. He followed her a long way, over hill and mountain, through valleys and across rivers. Finally, the cow lay down on a knoll in the middle of a large plain-the perfect spot for a walled city. Then Cadmus sent one of his men to get water from a nearby spring.
While he was gone, Cadmus sacrifice the cow to thank the gods. When the man he sent never returned, he sent two more men to see what had happened. They did not return either and he sent the rest of his men, a few at a time, after the others. Finally, he was left alone and went to see for himself what was keeping his men. When he reached the spring, he saw a dragon guarding the spring. At first, Cadmus was afraid it would eat him too, but the dragon was very sluggish and sleepy after eating so many men and Cadmus slew the dragon easily.
Now Cadmus had no men. He looked to the gods and since he had sacrificed the cow, Athena answered his plea. "Don't worry," said the goddess. "Just plow a field and sow the dragon's teeth in the furrows." Cadmus followed Athena's strange advice and as soon as the teeth were sown, fully grown warriors sprang up. They all ran at Cadmus and again he feared for his life, but again Athena stepped in. "Throw a rock among them!" she told Cadmus.
Again, Cadmus did as the goddess said, and at once the warriors fought each other fiercely, accusing their neighbor of being the thrower of the rock. In the end, only five remained living, and those were wounded badly. Cadmus nursed them back to health and they helped Cadmus establish the city of Thebes.

When the princess Europa disappeared from the coasts of Phoenicia on the back of a bull her father Agenor, son of King Belus of Egypt and Anchinoe, the daughter of the river god Nilus, sent his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found their sister.
However, nothing was ever found resembling the lost princess, except for the name of the land called Europa, which is that part of the inhabited world lying north of the Peloponnesus and beyond, for she, after having being conveyed through the sea by Zeus the bull, was set down by him, quite dry, upon the shore by Mount Dicte in Crete.

Her brother Phoenix gave up the search for Europa and settled in some part of Phoenicia, which was called after him, and so did Cilix, who became king in Cilicia, which is the southeasternmost coastal region of Asia Minor, and so did Thasus, who also gave up the search and settled in the island off Thrace, in the northern section of the Aegean Sea, founding a city Thasos. Also other relatives, brothers or perhaps cousins, went away in search of Europa. Cepheus, son of Belus or of Phoenix and father of Andromeda, the wife of Perseus settled in Ethiopia; and Phineus.

Some have said that Cadmus was taught initiatory rites by Iasion when he, in search of her sister Europa came to Samothrace, the island in the northern Aegean sea, and they suppose that it was here that Cadmus married Harmonia.

Cadmus, with Athena's help, became king, receiving Harmonia, daughter of Ares & Aphrodite, as wife from Zeus. She received, as a wedding present, a couple of interesting items, known as the Robe & Necklace of Harmonia, which provoked, through the ambitions, betrayals and other nonsensical behaviours of many men and women, a number of murders, wars and other tragedies including the utter ruin of the city that Cadmus founded, and that of those who possessed them.

Cadmus was one of the greatest men of his time, and that is why his wedding was magnificent, many gods and goddesses attending, besides the parents of the bride. And in his wedding day, they say, Cadmus attained the highest honour and prosperity a mortal man can receive, for he, like later Achilles' father Peleus, was able to hear the Muses sing.

Cadmus and Harmonia received a number of gifts from the gods: a jewel-set throne from Hera, a lyre or perhaps a scepter from Hermes, a crown from Hephaestus, a spear from Ares, the Robe & Necklace from Athena or perhaps Aphrodite or Hephaestus or even Europa, and sacred rites of the mother of the gods (Rhea) along with cymbals and kettledrums from Electra the Pleiade, who is said to have nursed Harmonia.

Some have said that Zeus gave Harmonia to Cadmus in recompense for having helped him to restore the harmony of the world, destroyed by Typhon's attack on heaven. For Pan, following Zeus' instructions, gave Cadmus a flute and disguised him as a shepherd, and Zeus asked Cadmus to bewitch Typhon's wits with a delusive tune. So when Cadmus tuned up, Typhon, attracted by the deceitful notes of the syrinx, appeared and Cadmus, through a stratagem, convinced him to bring the sinews of Zeus which Typhon had in his power, thus leading him to his doom. And when Zeus recovered his power, they say, he also informed Cadmus of his sister's fate.

However, the land where Cadmus founded his city was not empty when he arrived, for there a couple of nations, the Hyanteans and the Aonians, occupied Boeotia. Before them, it is said, the Ectenes, ruled by King Ogygus, lived in Boeotia, until they were decimated by pestilence and perished. Ogygus had two daughters, Aulis and Alalcomenia, after whom the Boeotian cities are called, and some say that Eleusinus, after whom the city of Eleusis in Attica is called, was his son. But according to others Eleusinus is the son of Hermes and Daira.

Cadmus, with the help of his Phoenician army, defeated both Hyanteans and Aonians, expelling the former nation and assimilating the latter, and some say that he also defeated the Temmicans, who were early inhabitants of Boeotia as well.

Well, it seems the real Europa is eternally lost.
The Old Continent has become a land of mixed conflicts and hatred.
The West is suffering from the phobia that the East will rise again to control the lands.
Syria still having its wild dreams.
Persia is still looking to avenge the Marathon War, and insisting to use the Phoenicians.
The Phoenicians are not able to take care of their own house, trapped in the middle between many powers, involved in unprofitable trades and scattered all over.
Cadmus who taught the Alpha Bet failed to read his own books, and Egypt certainly forgot him.

In the end we have to ask Zeus to give back the Magic Flute to Cadmus to enable him restore again the harmony of the world, since the Typhon this time is never leaving Phoenicia.

Sami Cherkaoui