Europe is not an obvious data nor very old; it was born slowly from the evolution of people various, a long time separate, and of a remarkable accumulation of myths, legends and illusions.
Myths and legends The Greek world constituted, starting from VIIe front century J. - C., imaginary durable. For Hésiode, in VIIIe front century J. - C., first to quote the word “Europe”, the world, beyond the Peloponnese, is consisted “those of Europe and all those of the islands bathed by the waves”. Hérodote (Ve front century J. - C.), the “father of the history” of Old, brings back the first the fable of the Europe princess (in Eurôpê Greek), girl of Agénor (king de Libye or of Phénicie), relationship remote of Didon and the Carthaginians, removed and led in Crete by Zeus, transformed into bull, which equips it with a long descent. In Ier front century J. - C., Latin Cicéron, Horace and Ovide are made the echo of this legend.
With the advent of Christianity, the Bible becomes for a long time the only reference; a literal reading of the crowned text locates between Libya and Indus the paramount couple from which would come all the known people. Into Ve and VIe centuries of our era, the “tables of the nations”, which make an inventory of the people of the Earth starting from the descent of Noah, integrate little by little Troyens, Enée, Ulysses, the Greeks and Latin in a common mould: the posterity of Japhet, one of the sons of Noah.
With the Life century, however, holy Isidore of Seville, bishop and large compiler, author of a true encyclopedia entitled Etymologies, or Origins, takes again the legend of the princess removed by Zeus. He describes geographical Europe like an area separated well from other Asian and Scandinavian areas by Tanaïs - old name of the Gift, which he somewhat confuses with the Danube -, drawing southernmost and Mediterranean Europe, populated reasonable people, perfectly distinct from a North where the men cannot, because it cold, to have the same characteristics. The theologists and the scholars of the Middle Ages will be numerous - such Remi of Auxerre, with Xe century - to take again the account of Isidore of Seville. A certain idea of Europe roots thus in the spirits, which holds the awakening of any civilization to Mediterranean space.