Asteas was, together with his colleague Python, the pre-eminent vase-painter in early fourth-century Paestum. Wall painting, now lost, is likely to have been the inspiration. At right, Triton brandishes a helmsman's oar.Įxceptional on this vase are the shading on the sun (Helios) and bull. Below at left, is a local touch-Skylla, who lived in the Straits of Messina between Italy and Sicily. Eros and Aphrodite witness what they have set in motion. Then comes the messenger god, Hermes, with herald's staff (kerykeion). They recall the marine escort accorded to Poseidon in the Iliad: "and about him the sea beasts came up from their deep places and played in his path, and acknowledged their master, and the sea stood apart before him, rejoicing." Around the bull dance the denizens of the deep. Europa, apparently unperturbed and finely dressed, adjusts her veil in a bridal gesture. It is the sea voyage between Tyre and Crete that the artist illustrates.
There she bore to Zeus a number of sons, most famously Minos, king of Crete. He disguised himself in the form of a bull (or, as some versions relate, sent a bull), who attracted her attention and managed to carry her off across the sea to Crete. Europa, daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, was picking flowers in a meadow one spring morning when she was noticed by Zeus.
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