Red-Figure Calyx-Krater of the Abduction of Europa

Europa, daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, was picking flowers in a meadow one spring morning when she was noticed by Zeus. He disguised himself in the form of a bull (or, as some versions relate, sent a bull), who attracted her attention and managed to carry her off across the sea to Crete. There she bore to Zeus a number of sons, most famously Minos, king of Crete. It is after her that Europe is named.

It is the sea voyage between Tyre and Crete that the artist illustrates. Europa, apparently unperturbed and finely dressed, adjusts her veil in a bridal gesture. Around the bull dance the denizens of the deep. They recall the marine escort accorded to Poseidon in the Iliad: "and about him the sea beasts came up from their deep places and played in his path, and acknowledged their master, and the sea stood apart before him, rejoicing."

The gods appear in the upper register. Pothos (longing) leads the procession. Then comes the messenger god, Hermes, with herald's staff (kerykeion). Eros and Aphrodite witness what they have set in motion. Below at left, is a local touch-Skylla, who lived in the Straits of Messina between Italy and Sicily. Canine protomes emerge from her waist. At right, Triton brandishes a helmsman's oar.
Exceptional on this vase are the shading on the sun (Helios) and bull. Wall painting, now lost, is likely to have been the inspiration. Asteas was, together with his colleague Python, the pre-eminent vase-painter in early fourth-century Paestum.

The reverse depicts three revelers: the users, as it were, of this krater. The elaborately profiled foot is intended to be understood as including a stand. For metal vessels, as in some ceramic, these were made separately.