The idea of Europe is ancient, but what it is exactly is something almost as cloudy as the mythology that speaks of its origin. It's commonly understood as a geographical and cultural zone, and has become represented politically by the European Union. Yet with Turkey's renewed efforts to join the EU, and the idea that this would even be considered, causes some doubt as to what exactly Europe even is. From a geographical standpoint, Turkey is overwhelmingly outside of Europe.
Yet, for that matter, so is Cyprus, which lies only 100 kilometers, or about 60 miles, off the coast of Syria. It became a member of the EU in 2004. What are the origins of the idea of Europe, and what might Greek myths, poets, and philosophers tell us about its earliest conception? Hi friends, I'm Kevin MacLean. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and consider supporting the channel on Patreon, PayPal, or through YouTube Super Stickers. Your support helps me to make content like this, much thanks to all of my supporters.
To understand the basic origin of the ancient concept of Europe, we need to look first into the meaning of the word. Now one theory suggests that the name is of Semitic origin, adopted into Mycenaean Greek from another language. In Akkadian, the word erebu meant west or setting sun, and in Phoenician, ereb meant evening.
This would relate to the location of ancient Greece from the viewpoint of ancient peoples of Syria and Turkey, and so in the same way that Asia is likely named for the ancient Akkadian name for the sunrise, a double of the Greek-derived Anatolia, which refers to the place where the sun rises. Plausibly, the Mycenaeans began to refer to their own lands by the same that those they interacted with did. But many linguists don't agree with this theory.
Instead, there is another one, and one which I think is in fact more compelling based on comparative analysis. The name is a compound of ancient Greek ioros meaning wide and ops meaning face. It thus refers to a vast expanse of land as a wide face. Phrases like the wide earth or the broad earth are relatively frequent in the poetry of Homer.
Now this may mean that in the earliest conception, Europa was an earth goddess, perhaps the goddess of all land, who is transformed instead into a local land goddess, the origin of the land specifically inhabited by the Greeks and all those found to be connected to the same landmass. To understand this early conception of Europe requires an examination of the myths. It is first mentioned in the Iliad, where she is alluded to as the daughter of Phoenix and mother of Minos and Raramanthus. The Phoenix entered Greek myth during the Mycenaean period, inspired seemingly by the Egyptian Benu, a self-created divine bird existing at the beginning of the world that aided in creation. and is connected with the sun and spirits of the dead.
Now, the myth says she was enjoying an outing in the meadow when Zeus came to her in the form of a white bull. Eventually, she is induced to ride on his back, and he brings her across the sea to Crete, where he mates with her. Her son Minos, from their coupling, becomes a king of Crete, well remembered for the Minotaur labyrinth.
He and his brother Radamanthus both become judges of the dead in the underworld. This specific rendition of the myth is a local Cretan one, heavily laced with the symbolism of the bull, which had long been important in Crete, and interwoven with Egyptian myths, which were an especially important influence on the Cretans from even before the Mycenaean period. Her association with the phoenix, and by extension the Egyptian Benu, suggests that she originally was part of a creation myth.
This Cretan Europa is not the only Europa, however. There is a Europa believed to be the daughter of Okeanos and Tethys, and she was believed to be the sister of Thrake, a sorceress who gave her name to the land of Thrace. There was a Europa who was the wife of Danaeus, a significant ancestral figure, the progenitor of the Danaeans, the people of Argos, and one of the common names for the Greeks in the Iliad. According to some accounts, she was the mother of all 50 of his daughters. Another version has her the mother of Niobe, who is the mother of Argos, from whence the city is named.
There is a Europa who is the daughter of Titios, a giant born of Gaia, who becomes the lover of Poseidon. What all these different Europas have in common is that they can be understood to have some relation to the Earth. and to the founding peoples of particular places. Finally, the goddess Demeter was in Boeotia, known by the epithet Europa, giving firm support to the notion that this name was originally one born by a goddess of the earth, which in various localities is recalled in different ways. It is a very common misconception that Greek religion and mythological stories were neatly organized and universally agreed upon.
The reality was that every different place had their own traditions and their own stories about gods. When attempts were later made to create a genealogy of the gods and establish founding myths, many various local myths appear to have been fused into an overlapping and confusing web. Thus we have the case where Io, loved by Zeus and changed into a cow guarded by Argos, and who travelled across the sea in the form of a cow, being a primary ancestor of the Greeks.
And later, we have Europa, loved by Zeus in the form of a bull carried across the sea on the back of a bull, and a Europa connected to the founding of the city of Argos. It is plausible that archaically Io and Europa were the same goddess. The abduction of this goddess and the crossing of the water may represent Zeus entering into the underworld.
the realm where the Egyptian Bennu dwells, abducting the goddess of the fertile lands and bringing her up from the deep, crossing the waters or even originally coming from below the waters. It is part of an ancient creation myth, with Europa being an early name for the Earth Goddess. In Gaelic tradition, Ethniu and Boine, almost certainly the same goddess in origin, are imagined as cows.
Boine's name even means white cow. They are earth goddesses, but are likewise associated with the flowing waters, even equated with rivers themselves. And this appears to be a universal trait of Indo-European earth goddesses. They are primarily linked to the water.
Thus, in some local myths, Europa is a daughter. of Okeanos or is a river nymph, yet also known in Boeotia as a name for Demeter. Now when Zeus brings Europa to Crete, he is said to have given her three great gifts, a hound, lilaps meaning hurricane, that always caught his prey, a javelin that never missed its mark, and a bronze automaton named Talos. which would circle the island three times a day and protect Europa from invaders. Now some later Greek commentators remarked that Talos was the sun, and was a name for the sun in Crete.
And if so, the circling of Talos around Crete may be related to the circling of the sun around the earth, and probably stems from an ancient Cretan myth that had Crete at the center of the world. Europa likewise has, according to a number of sources, three sons who were sired by Zeus, Radamanthus, Minos, and by some accounts, and likely correctly, Iacus. All three were accounted the judges of the dead, but they seem to have divided this responsibility between the continents. Plato said, Now I, knowing all this before you, have appointed sons of my own to be judges, two from Asia, Minos and Radamanthus, and one from Europe, Iacus. These, when their life is ended, shall give judgment in the meadow at the dividing of the road.
Whence are the two ways leading? One to the isles of the blessed, and the other to Tartarus, and those who come from Asia shall Radamanthus try, and those from Europe Iacus, and to Minos I will give the privilege of the final decision, if the other two be in any doubt, that the judgment upon this journey of mankind may be supremely just. This connection between Europa and the underworld reinforces her ancient identity as an earth goddess. and potentially her first children were thought to be the first ancestral peoples born from the earth who became judges of those later generations that followed them into the realm of the dead.
One way the archaic nature of Europa manifests can be seen in the brothers and sisters that she is ascribed. Several sources mention Kylix as one of her brothers who gives his name to Asia Minor, called Kylikia. after him. Cilix had a son, Thassos, who then became king of the island of Thassos, and we might say is in fact the island itself. He also had a daughter named Thebe, who was also the mother of Mount Ida in Crete, together with Coribas, the origin of the Coribates, the armed dancers who were closely linked to the mythology of Zeus on Crete.
who was himself sometimes called the greatest Kourios. The goddess Gaia, the earth, brought Zeus to Crete as an infant, hid him in a cave, often one in Mount Ida, and he was cared for by the Aedian dactyles, or the Kuretes, depending on the version. They raised a ruckus so that Kronos would not hear the baby's cries. That the brother of Europa is ultimately the progenitor of Mount Ida, a mountain strongly linked to the great mother goddess known either as Cybella or Rhea, and also the beings who protected Zeus as an infant, supports the archaic identity of Europa as an ancient goddess of the land, if not Gaia herself. As mentioned earlier, another separate mythical Europa is sister of Thracia, who gives her name to Thrace.
Yet this also suggests that at the time of the creation of that myth, Europa was confined already to a more limited region. Likely, it began as the lands of the Greeks, but as the Greek awareness of the geography expanded, so did the concept of Europe, at least by the time of the poet Pindar. Around 500 BC, the boundaries of Europe extended into the far west. The poet said, Nightward, beyond Gadere, none may pass.
Turn back again to the mainland of Europe, the tackle of our ship. For it were impossible for me to go through until the end all the tale of the sons of Iacos. Gadere was located in Iberia, now known as Cadiz.
Near the Straits of Gibraltar, the Greeks called the Pillars of Heracles. The poet Euripides, writing around the mid-400s BC, says of it, When on that earlier day Zeus'famous son Heracles encircled with destruction the city of Troy, you came back to Europe with your share in this high renown. Aeschylus, in Prometheus bound, said, Next, just as the narrow...
portals of the harbor you shall reach, the Chimerian Isthmus. This you must leave with stout heart and pass through the channels of the Meotes, that even after among mankind there shall be great mention of your passing, and it shall be called after you the Bosporus. Then leaving the soil of Europe, you shall come to the Asian continent.
Greek historian Herodotus, also writing in the mid-400s, said that, Most of the Greeks in his time claimed that there were three divisions of the world, Europe, Asia, and Libya, which is now known as Africa. There is no significant geographical separation between Europe and Asia along the steppes, but it was considered that the Don River in Russia was the boundary which Herodotus knew as the Tanaeus. He spoke of the Scythians driving the Chimerians out of Europe and pursuing them into Asia. the land of Medea.
That corresponds to the region of the Caucasus, modern Georgia, Abkhazia, and the Russian Federation. On the far west, Herodotus maintained that the Celts at that time dwelt beyond the Pillars of Heracles and were the furthest west of all those who dwelt in Europe that he knew of. He admits, however, that he does not have full knowledge of the total extent of Europe in the westward direction.
for he is unsure about the existence of the so-called Tin Islands, though he grants that Tin in Greece did come from some far western extremity of Europe. The Tin Islands being referred to are Britain and possibly Ireland. Towards the end of the last ice age, since at least 14,000 years ago, there were several distinct groups of peoples inhabiting Europe.
In Western Europe, the most significant group is known as the Western Hunter-Gatherers. Genetic studies suggest that they had darker hair and complexion than modern Europeans, though they also carried the trait for blue eyes. These Hunter-Gatherers were responsible for the many mysterious and haunting cave paintings in France and are world-renowned.
Equally famed are those paintings in Spain and Portugal, though they may have been drawn by a separate and slightly earlier group, identified recently and still going by the unappealing name of Goyette Q2. They were largely displaced by the later spread of the western hunter-gatherers, but meanwhile, On the fringes of Eastern Europe, in the dense forest steppes of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, were the Eastern hunter-gatherers. It's believed that the majority of their lineage came from the ancient North Eurasians, who had traveled across the steppe forests from Asia.
They shared at least some common ancestors with those who crossed the Bering Strait and became known as the indigenous peoples of the Americas. These eastern hunter-gatherers had jeans for light skin and a variety of hair and eye colors, and they also carried male haplogroups R1a, R1b, and I2, the same haplogroups that would later become the dominant ones in much of Europe. Approximately 8,500 years ago, people who practiced agriculture began to migrate out of Anatolia.
They are typically called early European farmers or first farmers. Oddly enough, some of their ancestors seems to have been contributed by Western hunter-gatherers, but it was now their turn to migrate into Europe, largely displacing and replacing the Western hunter-gatherers as a dominant population in Western Europe. These early European farmers had dark hair and eyes and a light to intermediate complexion, comparable likely to groups in the Middle East today or in parts of Southern Europe. During the spread of these early farmers through Europe, some groups of eastern hunter-gatherers had merged with a group of Caucasian hunter-gatherers in the steppelands of southwestern Russia.
This group became known as the Western Stepherders as they transitioned from being hunter-gatherers and adopted a pastoral lifestyle. They learned how to ride horses, and they had unique cult practices as a core part of their culture. which practically necessitated expansion. That was the so-called Corios bands, werewolves. Young men set out from their communities as punishment, training, or in times of shortage, to survive in the wilds or to live by pillage, like the wolf raiding the flock.
These were the late stone age equivalent of the Vikings, but they were not simply raging warriors, but highly skilled in the arts. They built boats, they learned the secrets of copper, and they mastered the horse, and they may even have invented the wheel, which would become one of their most significant cult symbols that carried on in most of the descendant cultures they created. Through their expansion, several different late Neolithic cultures arose, most significantly the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures, whose ancestry is calculated to have been about 75 and 50 percent Western steppe herder respectively. As these groups spread out over hundreds of years, they gained territory, set up tribal alliances and hereditary kingships, and established the basis of most of the customs and languages that we know from the earliest written accounts of European people. However, these people did not affect Europe in an entirely universal manner.
Most native peoples of Europe are a mixture of Western hunter-gatherer, early European farmer, and Western stepperder ancestry. But the proportion of that ancestry varies greatly. Northern Europe was more sparsely populated, and there they gained more control. the local population was displaced or eliminated to a much greater degree. Norway has the highest percentage of Western stepperder ancestry, followed closely by Lithuanians and Estonians, who also have the smallest percentage of early Neolithic farmer ancestry.
Icelanders, Scottish, Belarusians, English, also have high levels of Western stepperder ancestry, between 50 and 40%. The Yet people of Southern Europe have a noticeably smaller proportion of Western stepper admixture. Greeks and Albanians have less than 20%.
The Spanish are not far behind, yet they also have another difference in that they're one of the few groups with almost no Western hunter-gatherer ancestry. Sardinians have the lowest rate of all with only perhaps 5% Western stepper ancestry. The Western steppe herders were not able to impact the South to the same degree because of the much larger population there, but through their dominant positions as victors in war, the elite social practices and culture, their organization and the core of their language and culture was spread throughout the populations, even when they were a relatively small genetic proportion of the population. In Greece, the Mycenaeans originated from such a group that descended down through the Balkans. The Proto-Greek language is a descendant of a common linguistic continuum of the Western stepperders, typically known as Proto-Indo-European.
They worshipped Zeus, cognate with Deos from the Vedas, and Jupiter of the Romans, but they only carried about 15% Western stepperder DNA. Genetically, they were primarily of early farmer ancestry. They can be described as Minoans with a dash of Yamnaya, and it's likely that this genetic difference also comes out in cultural aspects as well, which ancient Greeks themselves commented on when comparing themselves to other Europeans.
It's possible that it also is reflected in their mythology. which is thought to have been heavily influenced by Near Eastern examples. Now perhaps the root of this influence actually dates to the very origin of the Mycenaeans themselves, rather than being artificial copying.
In the process, many archaic Indo-European gods and goddesses become rather minor gods, heroes, or ancestral figures. In many respects, Germanic and Celtic myths are more comparable to Vedic or Iranian ones. than they are to Greek. The explanation for this may be found in the origin of those Eastern Indo-Europeans. A group from the Corded Ware culture migrated back across the steppe, eventually entering into modern Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
They are known as the Proto-Indo-Iranians, and they gave rise to the Vedic and Iranian cultures. Though they also became a relatively small genetic factor in the modern population, they are the origin of the Iranian languages as well as Sanskrit and its derivatives. Some ethnic groups in the region have comparable levels of Western steppe herder ancestry, as those in Southern Europe. with the highest percentages approaching 30% among some small ethnic groups in Pakistan. Modern Europeans, North or South, are not some pure race of Western steppe herders.
They are a unique blend of groups that create the basic genetic stock of their own regions. Now, out of that mix arose a certain degree of similarity, based on similar base populations with similar cultures, and a similar overlay of Western steppe herders. upherder ancestry and influence. And this basic common ancestral and cultural history, spanning back tens of thousands of years, is what made it possible for the ancient Greeks to begin to talk about the many and various peoples of Europe as European. As early as Herodotus, there is some evidence for a very rudimentary type of pan-European identity based on physical and cultural traits.
The historian says, And the Persians say that they, namely the people of Asia, when their women were carried away by force, had made it a matter of no account, but the Hellenes, on account of a woman of Lacedaemon, gathered together a great armament, and then came to Asia. and destroyed the dominion of Priam. And from that time forward, they had always considered the Hellenic race to be their enemy. For Asia and the barbarian races which dwell there, the Persians claim as belonging to them. But Europe and the Hellenic race, they consider to be parted off from them.
According to Herodotus, the Persians and other peoples of Asia considered their people different from the Greeks and from others who dwelt in Europe. This is also despite the fact that the Persians themselves ultimately had an Indo-European heritage. Aristotle had the following to say about the ethnic nature of Europeans and the Greeks.
The nations inhabiting the cold places and those of Europe are full of spirit, but somewhat deficient in intelligence and skill, so that they continue comparatively free, but lacking in political organization and capacity to rule their neighbors. The peoples of Asia, on the other hand, are intelligent and skillful in temperament, but lack spirit. so that they are in continuous subjugation and slavery.
But the Greek race participates in both characters, just as it occupies the middle position geographically, for it is both spirited and intelligent. Hence it continues to be free and to have very good political institutions, and to be capable of ruling all mankind if it attains constitutional unity. Aristotle's observation about the Greeks'position regarding other Europeans and Asians matches up not only with their geographical location, but their genetic and cultural lineage as well. The disinterestedness of ancient Europeans in establishing empires, due to their strong desire for liberty and autonomy, was a key feature of nearly all ancient European societies, according to the Greek sources. though the lack of empire building is likely due in part to the political and economic organization at the time.
It was remarked that they would consider themselves very great to gain leadership of all their own people, and gave little thought to trying to rule over others. That doesn't mean that they didn't fight wars, they certainly did, but that the nature of these wars was not the establishment of direct political rule over the other. but raiding, land seizures, and even personal disputes.
The rise of the Roman Empire changed this, but we can still see the traces of this inclination today in just how many small sovereign states are in Europe. While the elites in the Middle Ages, having broken free from the traditions of community rule, amassed huge power and wealth, and sought to emulate the ways of Rome, this ended in a massive... backlash by the people who rose up all across Europe in the early modern period and gave their lives for the sake of establishing nation-states, a state that was ideally a reflection of the ethnic group. Hippocrates, the famous physician responsible for the Hippocratic Oath, had the following to say on the European identity. Now I intend to compare Asia and Europe.
and to show how they differ in every respect, and how the nations of the one differ entirely in physique from the other. It would take too long to describe them all, so I will set forth in my view about the most important and the greatest differences. I hold that Asia differs very widely from Europe in the nature of all its inhabitants and of all its vegetation. The character of the inhabitants of Asia is milder and more gentle, while the European is more spirited and fierce. However, he was not of the opinion that all those dwelling in Europe were exactly the same.
He makes a point of this regarding the Scythians, saying, As to the physique of the other Scythians, in that they are like one another and not at all like others, there too live the Scythians, who are called nomads, because they have no houses, but live in wagons. The smallest have four wheels. and other six wheels.
and are constructed like houses, sometimes in two compartments and sometimes in three, which are proof against rain, snow, and wind. Because of their fat and the smoothness of their flesh, their physiques are similar, men's to men's and women's to women's. The Scythians are a ruddy race because of the cold, not through any fierceness in the sun's heat.
It is the cold that burns their white skin and turns it ruddy. The other people of Europe differ from one another both in stature and in shape. In such a climate arises wildness, unsociability, and spirit."Hippocrates and many others of his time had a very physical explanation for the development of humans. It is correct to say that he and many other pre-Christian Greeks believed in a type of environmental determinism which accounted for the differences between people. that the natural environment one lived in impacted the behaviors, personalities, and even the physical appearances, and in this way explained the various differences between people. So even though they recognized that all Europeans were different from each other, they were nonetheless similar enough that they were grouped together as Europeans, as contrasted with Asians or Libyans, as early as the 4th century BC. Since ancient times, Europe and Europeans have become even more culturally and ethnically integrated, but there still exist wide regional differences in culture, language, and biology that have their roots all the way back in the ancient Neolithic migrations, and in more recent migrations in the Roman and medieval period. Events in history have brought some nations closer together, while it has driven others further apart. Modern technology and industrial lifestyle has also had a culturally homogenizing effect on Europeans, as it has much of the world. The languages of ethnic Europeans are primarily derived from a common source, and many of their pre-Christian cultures and beliefs were likewise of the same origin. But they all have their own unique experiences over their thousands of years as a people with their own traditions. cultures, habits, and even unique appearances. Yet despite this diversity, the concept of Europe and Europeans is truly an ancient one. I hope you liked the video, and if you did, please like, share, and subscribe, and consider supporting me on Patreon, PayPal, or through YouTube Super Stickers. Much thanks again to all of my supporters, and as always, Stand tall.