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Now Asterius, prince of the Cretans, married Europa and brought up her children.1 But when they were grown up, they quarrelled with each other;
for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of
Apollo by Aria, daughter of Cleochus.2 As the boy was more friendly to Sarpedon, Minos went to war and had
the better of it, and the others fled.
Miletus landed in Caria and there founded a city which he called Miletus after himself; and Sarpedon allied himself
with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and having stipulated for a share of the
country, he became king of Lycia.3 And Zeus granted him to live for
three generations. But some say that they loved Atymnius, the son of Zeus and Cassiepea,
and that it was about him that they quarrelled. Rhadamanthys legislated for the
islanders4 but
afterwards he fled to Boeotia and married
Alcmena5; and since his departure from the world he acts as judge in
Hades along with Minos. Minos, residing in Crete,
passed laws, and married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun6 and
Perseis; but Asclepiades says that his wife was Crete, daughter of Asterius. He begat sons, to wit, Catreus,7
Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeus: and daughters, to wit, Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne,
Phaedra; and by a nymph Paria he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaus; and by
Dexithea he had Euxanthius.
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1 Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. 12.292; Diod. 4.60.3 (who calls the king Asterius). On the place of Asterion or Asterius in Cretan mythology, see A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.543ff.
2 With the following legend of the foundation of Miletus compare Ant. Lib. 30; Paus. 7.2.5; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.186.
3 Compare Hdt. 1.173; Diod. 5.79.3; Strab. 12.8.5; Paus. 7.3.7. Sarpedon was worshipped as a hero in Lycia. See Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 552 vol. ii. p. 231.
4 Compare Diod. 5.79.1ff.
5 See above, Apollod. 2.4.11 note.
6 Daughter of the Sun; compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.999; Paus. 3.26.1, Paus. 5.25.9; Ant. Lib. 41; Mythographi Graeci, ed. Westermann, Appendix Narrationum, p. 379; Ov. Met. 9.736. Pausanias interpreted Pasiphae as the moon (Paus. 3.26.1), and this interpretation has been adopted by some modern scholars. The Cretan traditions concerning the marriage of Minos and Pasiphae seem to point to a ritual marriage performed every eight years at Cnossus by the king and queen as representatives respectively of the Sun and Moon. See The Dying God, pp. 70ff.; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.521ff. (who holds that Europa was originally a Cretan Earth-goddess responsible for the vegetation of the year).
7 Compare Paus. 8.53.4.
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