Not only Moschus. Aetiology in the 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, and tragedy (Homerus, Hesiodus, Eumelus, Stesichorus, Simonides, Bacchylides, Aeschylus), receives its most complete poetic exposition in the epyllion of the second century BC entitled with the name of the heroine and written by the poet Moschus of Syracuse. Alongside this important testimony there are several brief references to the myth in Hellenistic poetry, among which we will consider in particular Callimachus (frr. 407, 163; 622; 630 Pfeiffer), Apollonius of Rhodes (4.1641-1644), Lycophron (1283-1284), AP 15.21 (the Syrinx, Theocritus?). These passages, not sufficiently appreciated until now in the reconstruction of the tradition of the myth - also because of their often fragmentary nature -, deal in different ways with the aetiological theme, behind which it is possible to see political meanings.