Asterion (king of Crete) Asterion (king of Crete) In Greek mythology, Asterion (; Greek: , gen.: , literally "starry") or Asterius (; ) denotes two sacred kings of Crete. The first Asterion, the son of Tectamus (son of Dorus) and an unnamed daughter of Cretheus. His father sailed to Crete with some Aeolians and Pelasgians and became the ruler of the island. Asterius inherited the throne from his father and he was the king of Crete at the time when Europa was abducted by Zeus and brought to his kingdom. He married Europa and became the stepfather of her sons by Zeus, who assumed
Greek mythology writer styled as Pseudo-Hyginus, the "Imagines" of Philostratus the Elder and Philostratus the Younger, and the "Descriptions" of Callistratus. Finally, a number of Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, much derived from earlier now lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include Arnobius, Hesychius, the author of the "Suda", John Tzetzes, and Eustathius. They often treat mythology from a Christian moralizing perspective. The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by the German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the nineteenth century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in the twentieth