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In Phenicye is another grete temple that men of Sidon kepen. Thei seyn, it is of Astarte, and Astarte, I trowe, is Luna the Mone.The Emperor Elagabalus, being the Sun, brought — Astarte the Moon from Phoenicia and wedded her (Herodian 5, 6, 3-5). But she was not originally or at any time primarily the moon; and in Babylonia, as Ishtar, she had for her emblem a star, the planet Venus (Baudissin, 19). Clay (p. 47) believes that the name Ashera, Ashirta, Ishtar, is that of a mortal woman, an early queen of Hallab (Aleppo). But oon of the prestes tolde me, it belongeth to Europe, Cadmus suster. Sche was Agenor the Kinges daughter; and after that sche vanisched, Phenicyens yafen hir that temple for worschipe and maden a storie of hir, that sithe sche was fair, love coveytede hir, and transformed his lyknesse in to a bole, and than ravissched hir awey and bar hir on his bac to Crete. That same storie I herde of othere Phenicyens also; and the moneye that Sidonyes usen hath Europe sittynge on the bole that is Iove.The coins are described in Head, Historia Nummorum, 2nd ed., pp. 797 sg. The temple itself contained, in later days at least, a painting of the Europa episode (Achilles Tatius 1, 1). The story was also localized at Tyre, where the house of Agenor and the bower of Europa were shown (Arrian, Anab. 2, 24, 2; Nonnus, Dionys. 40, 353 sqq.) and where in the eighth century (Malalas, p. 31) the people still mourned the abduction in a feast called the ak) ayer, The name Europa is considered Greek; whether this particular myth is Cretan or Phoenician in origin the evidence does not seem sufficient to determine. Natheles wille thei not avowen that the temple is of Europe.
