The White Bull
The story is based on the Greek mythological tale of Europa and the bull, where the white bull is the king of the Greek gods, Zeus, in disguise. Zeus, the sky and thunder god of the Olympic pantheon, often wore a disguise when romantically pursuing mortal women, so as to avoid the eye of his wife and sister, Hera.
Kratos (mythology)
Kratos or Cratos is the divine personification of strength in Greek mythology. He is the son of Pallas and Styx; he and his siblings Nike ("Victory"), Bia ("Force"), and Zelus ("Zeal") are all essentially personifications. Kratos is first mentioned alongside his siblings in Hesiod's "Theogony". According to Hesiod, Kratos and his siblings dwell with Zeus because their mother Styx came to him first to request a position in his regime, so he honored her and her children with exalted positions. Kratos and his sister Bia are best known for their appearance in the opening scene of Aeschylus's "Prometheus Bound". Acting as agents of Zeus, they lead the captive Titan Prometheus on stage. Kratos compels the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to a rock as punishment for his theft of fire. Kratos is characterized as brutal and merciless, repeatedly mocking both Hephaestus and Prometheus and advocating for the use of unnecessary violence. He defends Zeus's oppressive rule and predicts that Prometheus will never escape his bonds. In Aeschylus's "Libation Bearers", Electra calls upon Kratos, Dike ("Justice"), and Zeus to aid her brother Orestes in avenging the murder of their father Agamemnon. Kratos and Bia appear in a late fifth-century BC red-figure Attic "skyphos" of the punishment of Ixion, possibly based on a scene from a lost tragedy by Euripides. They also appear in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Romantic depictions and adaptations of the binding of Prometheus.