Minos

The son of Zeus and Europa.

Minos was undoubtedly a real person but the man and the myth are difficult, if not impossible, to separate; we know that he was the king of the island of Crete prior to the Trojan War (circa 1250 BCE) but at that point, everything else is conjecture or fable.

The most popular story concerning Minos would have us believe that he ordered the master craftsman, Daedalus, to construct the famous labyrinth to house the bull-man known as the Minotaur; when Minos asked Poseidon (lord of the Sea) for a sacrificial animal, Poseidon sent him a perfect bull for the sacrifice; Minos was awed by the beauty of the bull and refused to sacrifice it as he had intended; Poseidon was furious and punished Minos by causing his wife, Pasiphae, to have a child that was half-bull, half-man and called Minos’ Bull, i.e. the Minotaur.

When Minos’ son Androgeus went to the first Panathenaic Games in Athens he attracted the ire of the king, Aegeus, by winning all the prizes; Aegeus had Androgeus killed and Minos waged war on Athens to avenge his son; peace was won only with the promise that Athens would send seven young men and seven young women every year to Crete in order to be slain by the ungodly Minotaur.

The youths were placed in the labyrinth and the Minotaur would hunt them down and savagely kill them; the tradition continued for three years until Aegeus’ son, Theseus, voluntarily entered the labyrinth and killed the Minotaur; Theseus was given a spool of thread by Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, which he unwound as he entered the labyrinth and was thus able to retrace his steps and escape the intricate maze; that story is, as Plutarkh (Plutarch) relates, what happens when you peak the ire of an eloquent and unforgiving group of people such as the Athenians.

Regardless of the details of Minos’ life, he was in fact an influential and powerful ruler and his reputation passed from the clouded annals of prehistory into Greek history; Minos died on the island of Sicily in an unsuccessful attempt to re-capture Daedalus.

Minos’ brothers were: Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon.

• Histories, book 7, chapter 170
• Lives, Theseus