Not only Moschus. Hellenistic versions of the myth of Europa and the bull

The myth of Europa and the bull, attested in archaic and classical greek epic, lyric, tragedy (Homer, Hesiod, Eumelus, Stesichorus, Simonides, Bacchylides, Aeschylus), receives, as is known, his most complete poetic exposition in the epyllion of the second century BC by the poet Moschus entitled to the heroine. Next to this important witness there are in the Hellenistic and early Imperial poetry several references to it, in Antimachus (fr. 3 Wyss/Matthews), Callimachus (fr. 622 Pfeiffer), Apollonius of Rhodes (III 1179, IV 1643), Lycophron (1283-1284; 1296-1301), Euphorio (SH 431), Eratosthenes (Cat. 14), Nicander (Cyn.? fr. 97b Schneider), Antipater of Thessalonica (AP V 109) as well as in some epigrams of uncertain authorship (AP XV 21 [Theocritus?], AP XVI 200 [Moschus?], AP IX 453). The purpose of this paper is to examine these passages, not sufficiently valued until now in the reconstruction of the tradition of the myth - also because of their character often fragmentary-, for the opportunity they offer to study the continuity of patterns and variations (eg. the problem of the relationship between the name of the heroine and the continent; the projection in the myth of the historical Europe-Asia conflict; the adoption of rationalizing or pathetic / sentimental narrative modes) from the Archaic and Classical to the Hellenistic age and, through it, their reception in the presentation of the myth in Greek and Latin literature of the imperial age (among others Horace, Ovid, Martial, until Achilles Tatius and Nonnus). In this context, particular consideration will be given to the specific reuses, in an ironic, witty or epideictic way, of the mythical story in Graeco-Roman epigram, in accordance with the standards and typical modes of communication of the genre.