The Greek myth of the Minotaur begins with King Minos of Crete. In defiance of an agreement he had with Poseidon, King Minos brought about the wrath of Poseidon, who cursed him, and the Minotaur was born. Learn the story of the Minotaur, the Labyrinth it guarded, and its defeat.
Crete was a powerful land, and King Minos was indebted to Poseidon for his position as King; he was supposed to sacrifice his best bull to honor and pacify Poseidon, the God of the Sea. But the bull was so beautiful Minos didn’t want to sacrifice it, and sent an inferior animal instead.
Poseidon knew what Minos had done, and decided to punish him by making Minos’ wife Pasiphae fall in love with the bull. She had Daedalus make a wooden cow and she hid in it, in the field where the bull was. They mated, and Pasiphae became pregnant.
The child, a son, was born with the body of a human, but the head of a bull: the Minotaur, meaning, the bull of Minos. King Minos was furious when the Minotaur was born, and had Daedalus build a prison to hold it. This prison took the form of a giant maze, the Labyrinth, which was so complicated, Daedalus himself had trouble finding his way out of it.
The Minotaur was a man-eater, and needed food, so King Minos looked for victims to serve to the Minotaur. As he was doing this, the Panathenaic Festival, a precursor to the Olympics, was taking place in Athens. King Minos’ son, and the Minotaur’s half-brother, Androgeus, was participating in those games. He was very successful, and other athletes at the games murdered him out of jealousy.
Minos declared war against Athens in retribution for his son’s death, and as a superior power, decided that 14 Athenian virgins, 7 male, 7 female, would be taken to Crete and locked in the Labyrinth with the Minotaur. Every nine years his navy travelled to Athens, collecting 14 people as sacrifices, and taking them to the Minotaur.
When the navy of Crete came to Athens the third time, Theseus, who was the son of a princess and both King Aegeas and Poseidon, was ready to stand up for Athens, defeat the Minotaur, and end Crete’s domination. He travelled with the others to Crete.
However, Minos’ daughter Ariadne saw Theseus and fell in love with him. She did not want him to be killed by the Minotaur, and decided to help him. She went to Daedalus, who had constructed the Labyrinth, and asked him for help. Daedalus gave her a ball of twine, which Ariadne gave to Theseus, on the condition he marry her if he survived.
When Theseus and the others chosen to be sacrificed to the Minotaur were locked in the Labyrinth, Theseus tied one end of the string to the door and unraveled it as he travelled through the maze. When he finally encountered the Minotaur, he was able to kill it, and with the help of the twine, find his way out.
Theseus, with Ariadne, and other Labyrinth survivors, sailed home to Athens, victorious. He becomes king, and is credited with making Athens a major city-state. Athens rose in power as Crete falls.
Sources:
The History Channel, Clash of the Gods, Minotaur
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur
