Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Marriage of the Sun and Moon in Crete 531

careful to put it in her hand even when she is crossing the sea
on the bull's back (fig. 405)1. The Hellenistic poet devotes twenty-
six lines to an elaborate description of it2. Is it over-rash to

Fig. 405.

conjecture that the very name ^Europe or Eiiropeia was a cult-title
rightly or wrongly taken to mean the goddess ' of Flourishing
Willow-withies3'?

Numismatique de la Crete ancienne Macon 1890 i. 177 pi. 16, 14 f., Head Hist, num.?
p. 467). But the name occurs nowhere else, and no other magistrate ever inscribed
his name on coins of Gortyna. Hence it is tempting to regard 9IB0S as a term
connected with some religious festival. If so, Europe's basket may give us the clue:
cp. Hesych. s.vv. di^rj ' irXenTov ri /a/3wToei5es, u>s yXwaaoKoixeXov, difiajvos' ki(3wtos.
Kuirpiot. On this group of words see H. van Herwerden Lexicon Graecum suppletorium
et dialecticum Lugduni Batavorum 1902 p. 370 Append. 1904 p. 102.

1 A red-figured amphora of archaising style from the Campana collection, now at
St Petersburg (Stephani Vasensamml. St. Petersburg ii. 241 f. no. 1637 and in the
Compte-rendu St. Pet. 1866 pp. 107, 118 f., Atlas pi. 5, 1—3, O. Jahn op. cit. p. 22 f.).

2 Mosch. 2. j$7_^62.

3 The nameQ3u/)a>7r?7 has been regarded by recent writers (1) as Pelasgian and there-
fore un-Greek (A."FTck Vorgriechische Ortsnamen Gottingen 1905 p. 21): (2) as
Phoenician and akin to the Semitic ereb_, ' western ' (H. van Herwerden Lexicon
Graectim suppletorium et dialecticum Lugduni Batavorum 1902 p. 950), cp. Hesych. s.vv.
Ykbp&Trt)' x^Pa TVS Svaetos. rj (TKoreivrj and evpwirov ' <tkot€lv6v. tt\<xtv and see Gruppe
Gr. Myth. Pel. pp. 252 Europa, die 'finstere,' 867 von Europa, wahrscheinlich der
' Verfinsterten': (3), as a Greek compound of evpvs and oir, 'eye,' equivalent in meaning
to YivpvoTn] (J. Escher-Burkli in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. vi. 1287).

None of these solutions is altogether satisfactory. I assume that ^vpth-Kt), whatever
its real origin, was at one time understood or misunderstood by the Greeks as the
feminine of eii-puiros, sl compound of eu and p&Tres, ' willow-withies,' cp. eii-piiros from
efi 4-, pLTrr\.

34—2