The two first Kings of _Crete_, who reigned after the coming of the _Curetes_, were _Asterius_ and _Minos_; and _Europa_ was the Queen of _Asterius_, and mother of _Minos_; and the _Idæan Curetes_ were her countrymen, and came with her and her brother _Alymnus_ into _Crete_, and dwelt in the _Idæan_ cave in her Reign, and there educated _Jupiter_, and found out iron, and made armour: and therefore these three, _Asterius_, _Europa_, and _Minos_, must be the _Saturn_, _Rhea_ and _Jupiter_ of the _Cretans_. _Minos_ is usually called the son of _Jupiter_; but this is in relation to the fable, that _Jupiter_ in the shape of a bull, the Ensign of the Ship, carried away _Europa_ from _Zidon_: for the _Phœnicians_, upon their first coming into _Greece_, gave the name of _Jao-pater_, _Jupiter_, to every King: and thus both _Minos_ and his father were _Jupiters_. _Echemenes_, an ancient author cited by _Athenæus_, [163] said that _Minos_ was that _Jupiter_ who committed the rape upon _Ganimede_; though others said more truly that it was _Tantalus_: _Minos_ alone was that _Jupiter_ who was most famous among the _Greeks_ for Dominion and Justice, being the greatest King in all _Greece_ in those days, and the only legislator. _Plutarch_ [164] tells us, that the people of _Naxus_, contrary to what others write, pretended that there were two _Minos's_, and two _Ariadnes_; and that the first _Ariadne_ married _Bacchus_, and the last was carried away by _Theseus_: but [165] _Homer_, _Hesiod_, _Thucydides_, _Herodotus_, and _Strabo_, knew but of one _Minos_; and _Homer_ describes him to be the son of _Jupiter_ and _Europa_, and the brother of _Rhadamanthus_ and _Sarpedon_, and the father of _Deucalion_ the _Argonaut_, and grandfather of _Idomeneus_ who warred at _Troy_, and that he was the legislator of Hell: _Herodotus_ [166] makes _Minos_ and _Rhadamanthus_ the sons of _Europa_, contemporary to _Ægeus_: and [167] _Apollodorus_ and _Hyginus_ say, that _Minos_, the father of _Androgeus_, _Ariadne_ and _Phædra_, was the son of _Jupiter_ and _Europa_, and brother of _Rhadamanthus_ and _Sarpedon_.