EUROPA (or EUROPE), in Greek mythology, according to Homer (Iliad, xiv. 321), the daughter of Phoenix or, in a later story, of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. The beauty of Europa fired the love of Zeus, who approached her in the form of a white bull and carried her away from Phoenicia to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. She was worshipped under the name of Hellotis in Crete, where the festival Hellotia, at which her bones, wreathed in myrtle, were carried round, was held in her honour (Atheaaeus xv. p. 678). She apparently is a personification of the continent of Europe.
See Apollodorus iii. ; Ovid, Metam. ii. 833 ; Helbig in Roscher's Lexikon; Hild in Daremberg-Saglio.