Theseus and the Minotaur According to Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca historica, Book IV) Medea married Aegeus (55.5). After “Theseus returned to Athens from Troezen, a charge of poisoning was brought against her and she was exiled from the city” so she went to Phoenicia (55.6). Theseus “emulated the Labours of Heracles”. He was the child of Poseidon and Aethra, daughter of Pittheus. Theseus was raised in Troezen, in the “home of Pittheus, his mother’s father”. After he found and took the “tokens” that Aegeus places under a rock, he went to Athens and on his way “he emulated the high achievements of Heracles” (59.1). Theseus then killed six evil beings (59.2-5). After that he wrestled the Marathonian bull that Heracles “brought from Crete to the Peloponnesus” for one of his labours and brought it to Aegeus in Athens who sacrificed it to Apollo (59.6). Tectamus, son of Dorus, son of Hellen, son of Deucalion, “sailed to Crete with Aeolians and Pelasgians and became king of the island. Then he married the daughter of Cretheus and from her he had Asterius. During this time, some say, Zeus “carried Europê from Phoenicia” “across to Crete” on “the back of a bull”. Then he laid with her and produced three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon (60.2). Asterius, king of Crete, married Europê and since he had no children by her “he adopted the sons of Zeus” and they succeeded him after he died. “Rhadamanthys gave the Cretans their laws” and Minos succeeded him to the throne and married Itonê, daughter of Lyctius, with whom he had Lycastus who in turn succeeded him and married Idê, daughter of Corybas, with whom he had the second Minos “who, as some writers record, was the son of Zeus” (60.3). Minos married Pasiphaê, daughter of Helios (“Helius”) and Crete (“Cretê”), from her he had Catreus, Androgeos and Ariadnê in addition to other children. Later, “Androgeos came to Athens at the time of the Panathenaic festival, while Aegeus was king, and” defeated all the contestants in the games, then became a “close friend of the sons of Pallas” (60.4). Daedalus was originally from Athens and he excelled in the art of building, making statues and working stones. He was also an inventor (76.1). Daedalus was admired for his abilities but “he had been condemned” for the murder of Talos, a son of his sister and a pupil of Daedalus (76.4). The kid was “more gifted than his teacher”, “invented the potter’s wheel" and “fashioned a saw out of iron” (76.5). Daedalus became jealous, killed the kid and was caught “in the act of burying him” (76.6). Daedalus was accused and judged “guilty of murder by the court of the Areopagites” and fled from Attica (76.7). Daedalus escaped Attica and went to Crete where he was admired for his artistic abilities and “became a friend of Minos who was king there” (77.1). Minos used to sacrifice the best bull from his herd to Poseidon every year. One time a “bull of extraordinary beauty” was born and sacrificed another that was inferior. Poseidon became angry at Minos and caused his wife Pasiphaê to fall in love with the bull (77.2). With the help of Daedalus, “Pasiphaê had intercourse with the bull and gave birth to the Minotaur”. “This creature, they say, was of double form, the upper parts of the body as far as the shoulders being those of a bull and the remaining parts those of a man” (77.3). Daedalus then built the labyrinth and that’s where the Minotaur was placed (77.4). Aegeus became suspicious of the friendship Androgeos had formed and he feared Minos may help the sons of Pallas take his power away and “plotted against the life of Androgeos”. When Androgeos went to Thebes to attend a festival, Aegeus had him slained by “certain natives of the region in the neighbourhood of Oenoê in Attica” (60.5). When Minos learned about what happened to his son he went to Athens demanding explanations. Nobody “paid any attention to him” so “he declared war against the Athenians”, cursed the city in the name of Zeus and called for “drought and famine throughout the state of the Athenians”. The drought came to Attica and Greece, the “crops were destroyed” and the leaders of the communities gathered to invoke the god (Zeus) to resolve the situation. The god answered “that they should go to Aeacus, the son of Zeus and Aeginê, the daughter of Asopus, and ask him to offer up prayers on their behalf” (61.1). Aeacus prayed and the drought stopped but it continued among the Athenians so the Athenians consulted the god once again to find a solution and learned that they should have done whatever Minos demanded (61.2). “The Athenians obeyed” and Minos demanded seven boys and seven girls to be sent to feed the Minotaur every nine years, as long as the monster lived. When the Athenians followed the request they got rid of the evils and Minos stopped the war against Athens. After nine years Minos went to Attica with a “great fleet and demanded and received the fourteen young people” (61.3). Theseus was about to sail to Crete and Aegeus agreed “with the captain of the vessel that if Theseus” would “overcome the Minotaur, they should sail back” and replace the black sails with white ones, in accordance to an established custom. When they arrived in Crete, Ariadnê, daughter of Minos, fell in love with Theseus who was “unusually handsome” and Theseus, after talking to her and “securing her assistance” slew the Minotaur and got safely away, since he had learned from her the way out of the labyrinth” (61.4). On “his way back to his native land he carried off Ariadnê and sailed out unobserved during the night”, later stopping at an island that “at that time was called Dia, but now is called Naxos”. Dionysus appeared on the island and, because Ariadnê was beautiful, he took her away from Theseus, married her and loved her very much. After her death he even “considered her worthy of immortal honours because of the affection he had for her” and placed her “among the stars in the so-called “Crown of Ariadnê” (61.5). Since Theseus was devastated by the loss of Ariadne who was “taken from him” he forgot what Aegeus requested and arrived in the “port in Attica with the black sails” (61.6). ”We are told” that Aegeus witnessed “the return of the ship and thinking that his son was dead” “ascended the acropolis and then”, in total despair, through himself down from it (61.7). According to Hyginus (Fabulae) “Europa was the daughter of Argiope and Agenor and she lived in Sidon. Jupiter (Zeus) turned himself into a bull” and “transported her from Sidon to Crete”. With her he fathered Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus (178). “Neptune (Poseidon) and Aegeus” (the son of Pandion) “both slept with Aethra” (Pittheus’ daughter) “in the temple of Minerva on the same night”. Neptune then let Augeus raise the child Aethra would eventually have. On his travel from Troezen to Athens, “he placed his sword under a stone”. He then instructed Aethra to send his son to look for him if he was able to lift the stone and take his father’s sword (which would have proved his son’s identity). “Aethra gave birth to Theseus”. When he grew up she showed him the stone, he took the sword and then she told him to go to Athens to Aegeus. Theseus followed the instructions and “killed all who plagued travelers along the road” (37). Theseus killed five people, two animals (including a boar, the bull of Marathon that Hercules brought from Crete) and a monster (the Minotaur in Cnossus) (38). Daedalus, son of Eupalamus, was a gifted “craftsman” and received his skills from Minerva (Athena). One day he threw “from the roof of his house” Perdix, his sister’s son. He did that because he was jealous of the talent of Perdix who “invented the saw”. For this reason Daedalus went into exile from Athens to Crete at the court of King Minos (39). Pasiphae, the daughter of the Sun (Helios) and the wife of Minos, did not sacrifice to Venus (Aphrodite) for many years. As a punishment, Venus made Pasiphae fall in love with a bull. When Daedalus arrived in Crete Pasiphae asked for his help. He built a wooden cow and “covered it with the hide of a real cow”. “Pasiphae got inside”, “slept with the bull” and later gave birth to the Minotaur who had the head of a bull and the body of a human. After that Daedalus built the labyrinth, a place from which leaving was impossible, and the Minotaur was placed in it. “When Minos found out about the whole affair” he put Daedalus into prison but Pasiphae freed him. “He made wings for himself and his son Icarus, put them on, and flew away. Icarus flew too high”. The sun’s heat melted the wax (that was keeping the wings together) and he crashed into the sea that was then “named Icarian after him”. “Daedalus flew all the way” to the “island of Sicily” to King Cocalus. “Others say that when Theseus killed the Minotaur, he took Daedalus back to his homeland, Athens” (40). Minos, son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Europa, “waged war against the Athenians because his son Androgeus was killed in a fight”.