Here, my dear friends, I, Rhadamanthys, want to tell you about my mythological self,

Because you live in far-away lands, and 3000 years apart from the time when I dwelled on this earth,

And many things may be unknown to you.

Zeus is my father's name. First name and last name. And this is my story.

Agenor and Telephasse were a king and his queen in Sidon, Phoinikia, in a land today called Syria. They had three sons, Kadmos, Kilix, and Phoinix, and a beautiful daughter by the name of Europe. One day, when the princess was playing with her friends near the beach, Zeus saw her and he liked what he saw. Zeus never hesitates, and he wanted to seduce her. As a beautiful white bull he approached her, layed down on the beach and let her play with him.

She liked to pet the cute animal - aren't girls always that way? - and finally she dared to climb the bull, who immediately rose up and jumped onto the waves of the ocean and ran over the waters all the way to the island of Crete.

So far you may know the story already. But it is only one side of the truth. "Telephasse" means: "shining from far away", and "Europe" is "with bright forehead", and both are epiphanies of the moon goddess, older than Zeus. And then, Europe, together with her sister Asia, are Okeanids, the oceans that define the continents, and the bull became a sign of the zodiac.

Let us come back to the divine couple. Many are the stories told about their wedding. Some say it was in the Diktaean Cave; others claim it was under a sycamore tree in Gortys which was ever green after.

Zeus stayed with Europe for three full years, which is a long time for any one of Zeus' many extramarital affairs, and Europe gave birth to three sons: Minos, myself, and Sarpedon. Later, Zeus married Europe to Asterion, king of Crete, and so, in due time, Minos, my oldest brother, became king of Crete himself.

Don't let me digress into the stories about the bronze giant Talos, the staghound Lailaps or the thousand stories around my sister-in-law, the immortal sorceress Pasiphaë - you may know many of them already. But did you know that Pasiphaë, known mostly for her perverse love for a bull, also was a moon goddess, daughter of the sun god Helios? Pausanias even tells about a santuary for her in Lakedaimonia in 200AD. You may have noticed already that Asterion is the god of the starry sky and nobody else than Zeus himself.

I was one with Hephaistos and founded the city of Phaistos and a famous school there. One of the subjects in this school was the practice of laughter. Because, together with Palamedes, I Rhadamanthys am the inventor of laughter. [You have seen the images of Minoan men and women all having incredibly slim waists? This was partially due to laughter, as a recent Vanderbilt Study has shown.] I also taught men not to swear by the name of the gods but use animal names for this purpose. So next time you say: "Holy cow", you will think of me.

This was the Golden Age, when Minos ruled in Knossos and Kydonia, Sarpedon was king in Milatos, what is today Mallia (he later went to Asia Minor and founded Miletos), and I dwelled in Phaistos.

Later, like my younger brother Sarpedon I left Crete and brought the light of civilization to the islands and shores of the Aegean sea.

Some say, Minos, Sarpedon and I had a fight and Minos forced us to leave. This may be so, but for every thread of the story there are others as well. Some even believe that I am older than Minos and Hephaistos was my father. My name at least (Ραδαμανθυς) has been around longer than the greek language, and like Korinthos and similar place names refers to an unknown Aegean language.

I could tell you many more stories. I was told to have gone to Thebes and become Alkmene's husband. You know that Alkmene was Herakles' mother. Others later have called me the justest of all men. Maybe they overdid a bit. But so intense was the memory of my justice that centuries later the greek poets believed that Minos and myself, together with Aiakos, were appointed as the ultimate judges at the gates of the underworld.