Minos

Minos was the legendary king of Crete, a son of Zeus and Europa. He is remembered for the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, for the tribute he forced on Athens after the death of his son Androgeos, and, after his death, as one of the judges of the dead in the underworld.

Birth and Kingship

Zeus carried Europa to Crete in the form of a bull, and she bore him Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus (Apollodorus, Library 3.1.1–2). Homer already knows this parentage: in the Iliad Zeus names Europa, the daughter of Phoenix, as the mother of Minos and Rhadamanthus (Iliad 14.321–322), and Idomeneus boasts that Zeus begot Minos to be a watcher over Crete (Iliad 13.449–453). Asterius, the king of Crete, married Europa and brought up her sons. The brothers later quarrelled over a boy named Miletus, and Minos drove Sarpedon and Miletus from the island (Library 3.1.2).

When Asterius died childless, Minos wished to rule, but his claim was disputed. He said that the gods had given him the kingdom and that whatever he prayed for would come to pass. Sacrificing to Poseidon, he prayed that a bull would rise from the sea and promised to sacrifice it. Poseidon sent a fine bull, and Minos won the kingdom (Library 3.1.3). A sentence in Apollodorus’ text, which may be a later addition, adds that he was the first to hold dominion over the sea and extended his rule over almost all the islands (3.1.3).

Lawgiver

Minos gave laws to Crete (Library 3.1.2). The Odyssey calls Cnossus the city “where Minos reigned and held converse with great Zeus” every nine years (Odyssey 19.178–179), and Plato’s dialogue Minos treats Minos and Rhadamanthus as the authors of the most ancient laws in Greece, while admitting that Athenian tradition remembered Minos as harsh and unjust (Plato, Minos 318d–321b).

Wife and Children

Minos married Pasiphae, daughter of Helios and Perseis; Asclepiades said instead that his wife was Crete, daughter of Asterius. His sons by Pasiphae were Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus and Androgeos, and his daughters Acacallis, Xenodice, Ariadne and Phaedra. By the nymph Paria he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses and Philolaus, and by Dexithea a son Euxanthius (Library 3.1.2). Through Deucalion he was the grandfather of Idomeneus, who led the Cretans to Troy (Iliad 13.451–453).

The Bull, Pasiphae and the Minotaur

Minos kept Poseidon’s bull among his herds and sacrificed a different one. Angry, Poseidon made the animal savage and caused Pasiphae to desire it. The craftsman Daedalus, an Athenian exiled for murder, built a wooden cow in which she lay, and from this union she bore Asterius, called the Minotaur, a child with a bull’s face and a man’s body. In obedience to oracles Minos shut the creature in the Labyrinth, a building of winding passages that Daedalus made, from which no one who entered could find the way out (Library 3.1.3–4).

Androgeos and the Athenian Tribute

Androgeos won every contest at the Panathenaic games in Athens. King Aegeus sent him against the bull of Marathon, which killed him; some said instead that rival competitors ambushed him on the road to Thebes (Library 3.15.7); Hyginus has him killed in battle during a war between Minos and Athens (Fabulae 41). Minos, master of the sea, attacked Athens with a fleet and captured Megara, whose king Nisus was betrayed by his daughter Scylla. When he could not take Athens, he prayed to Zeus for vengeance, and famine and plague struck the city. An oracle told the Athenians to give Minos whatever satisfaction he chose, and he ordered them to send seven youths and seven maidens, without weapons, as food for the Minotaur (Library 3.15.8). Plutarch (Theseus 15) says the tribute was due every nine years.

Theseus and Ariadne

The Athenian hero Theseus came to Crete among the victims. Minos’ daughter Ariadne fell in love with him and, on Daedalus’ advice, gave him a clue of thread. Theseus fastened it at the door, killed the Minotaur and found his way out (Apollodorus, Epitome 1.8–9). When Minos learned of the escape he shut Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth, but Daedalus made wings and the two flew away; Icarus fell into the sea that bears his name (Epitome 1.12–13).

Death in Sicily

Minos pursued Daedalus from country to country, carrying a spiral shell and promising a reward to anyone who could pass a thread through it. At Camicus in Sicily, King Cocalus took the shell and gave it to Daedalus, who threaded it with an ant, and so Minos knew where the craftsman was hiding. Cocalus promised to hand him over and gave Minos a feast, but after his bath Minos was done to death by Cocalus’ daughters; some said he died when boiling water was poured over him (Epitome 1.14–15). Diodorus Siculus tells it as a campaign: Minos, master of the seas, landed in Sicily at the place later called Minoa after him and demanded Daedalus; Cocalus received him as a guest and killed him by keeping him too long in the hot bath, then returned the body saying he had slipped; the Cretans buried their king in a two-storeyed tomb with a shrine of Aphrodite above the hidden bones (Diodorus 4.79.1–3).

Judge of the Dead

In the Odyssey, Odysseus sees Minos in the house of Hades, “the glorious son of Zeus, golden sceptre in hand,” giving judgment to the dead, who sit and stand around him (Odyssey 11.568–571). Apollodorus says that after his death Minos acts as judge in Hades together with his brother Rhadamanthus (Library 3.1.2), and in Plato’s Gorgias Zeus appoints three of his sons as judges of the dead: Minos and Rhadamanthus from Asia and Aeacus from Europe (Gorgias 523e–524a).

See Also: Zeus, Europa, Poseidon, Pasiphae, Minotaur, Daedalus, Icarus, Theseus Adventures, Ariadne, Rhadamanthus, Aeacus