coming of the
_Curetes_, were _Asterius_ and _Minos_; and _Europa_ was the Queen of
_Asterius_, and mother of _Minos_; and the _Idaean Curetes_ were her
countrymen, and came with her and her brother _Alymnus_ into _Crete_, and
dwelt in the _Idaean_ cave in her Reign, and there educated _Jupiter_, and
found out iron, and made armour: and therefore these three, _Asterius_,
_Europa_, and _Minos_, must be the _Saturn_, _Rhea_ and _Jupiter_ of the
_Cretans_. _Minos_ is usually called the son of _Jupiter_; but this is in
relation to the fable, that _Jupiter_ in the shape of a bull, the Ensign of
the Ship, carried away _Europa_ from _Zidon_: for the _Phoenicians_, upon
their first coming into _Greece_, gave the name of _Jao-pater_, _Jupiter_,
to every King: and thus both _Minos_ and his father were _Jupiters_.
_Echemenes_, an ancient author cited by _Athenaeus_, [163] said that _Minos_
was that _Jupiter_ who committed the rape upon _Ganimede_; though others
said more truly that it was _Tantalus_: _Minos_ alone was that _Jupiter_
who was most famous among the _Greeks_ for Dominion and Justice, being the
greatest King in all _Greece_ in those days, and the only legislator.
_Plutarch_ [164] tells us, that the people of _Naxus_, contrary to what
others write, pretended that there were two _Minos's_, and two _Ariadnes_;
and that the first _Ariadne_ married _Bacchus_, and the last was carried
away by _Theseus_: but [165] _Homer_, _Hesiod_, _Thucydides_, _Herodotus_,
and _Strabo_, knew but of one _Minos_; and _Homer_ describes him to be the
son of _Jupiter_ and _Europa_, and the brother of _Rhadamanthus_ and
_Sarpedon_, and the father of _Deucalion_ the _Argonaut_, and grandfather
of _Idomeneus_ who warred at _Troy_, and that he was the legislator of
Hell: _Herodotus_ [166] makes _Minos_ and _Rhadamanthus_ the sons of
_Europa_, contemporary to _AEgeus_: and [167] _Apollodorus_ and _Hyginus_
say, that _Minos_, the father of _Androgeus_, _Ariadne_ and _Phaedra_, was
the son of _Jupiter_ and _Europa_, and brother of _Rhadamanthus_ and
_Sarpedon_.

_Lucian_ [168] lets us know that _Europa_ the mother of _Minos_ was
worshipped by the name of _Rhea_, the form of a woman sitting in a chariot
drawn by lions, with a drum in her hand, and a _Corona turrita_ on her
head, like _Astarte_ and _Isis_; and the _Cretans_ [169] anciently shewed
the house where this _Rhea_ lived: and [170] _Apollonius Rhodius_ tells us,
that _Saturn_, while he Reigned