Theseus and the Minotaur is the first of a trio of linked stories dealing with the Cretan bull, his offspring, the Minotaur, the hero Theseus, and a few other assorted characters which will be featured in the two posts following this one; Daedalus and Icarus, and Europa and Zeus, which also happens to be the names of the next two posts.
But we’ll start with Theseus and the Minotaur.
Theseus
Theseus is one of those characters that have a life full of incredible encounters. Like another prominent demigod hero in Greek myth, Heracles, Theseus’ story is full of adventure, characterized by multiple, episodic events, rather than one central story.
Theseus was the son of Aegeus, king of Athens. But some versions of the myth say that Poseidon was Thesus’ father. This is because after Theseus’ mother, Aethra, slept with Aegeus, she waded into the sea, poured a libation to Poseidon on the island of Sphairos, and then was possessed by the god of the sea during the night. This took place in Troezen, in the Peloponnese, not far from modern Nafplion.
There are a lot of interesting details to the story of Theseus. He grew up in Troezen, but ended up travelling to Athens as a young man to claim his birthright from his mortal father, King Aegeus. The short version is that Theseus could have chosen to sail to Athens, which was a quick, painless trip over the Saronic Gulf, but instead chose an overland route to test his mettle, defeating enemies in six encounters, known as the Six Labors of Theseus, which is somewhat similar in concept to the Twelve Labors of Heracles.
We’ll deal with the life of Theseus in detail in a later post.
The central story in the life of Theseus, however, is his slaying of the Minotaur on Crete, which is a standalone story separate from the Six Labors.
The Minotaur
The Minotaur was the fruit of the union of Pasiphae, wife of Minos, king of Crete, and the bull of Crete. The bull of Crete was given to Minos by Poseidon as a sign of favor to Minos during Minos’ struggle with his brothers over the control of the throne at Knossos. Minos had promised to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon, but, captivated by the snow-white bull’s beauty, he changed his mind, added the bull to his herd, and sacrificed an inferior specimen instead.
Poseidon wasn’t happy with this, so, with the help of Aphrodite, he caused Minos’ wife Pasiphae to fall in love with the bull. She became pregnant, and gave birth to a baby with the body of a human and the head and tail of a bull. Freak of nature that he was, the Minotaur could only get nourishment from human flesh. (The name “Minotaur” is a compound of Minos plus tauros- “bull”.)
After obtaining guidance from the oracle at Delphi, King Minos had his best craftsman, Daedalus, design a labyrinth, an impossibly complex maze which no one could escape, near Minos’ palace at Knossos to keep the creature under control.
Meanwhile, King Minos was angry at King Aegeus of Athens, blaming him for the death of Minos’ son, Androgeus. The Cretan bull had been tearing things up on the plain of Marathon outside of Athens. This subplot is interesting, by the way, because of its intersection of the stories of Heracles and hat of Theseus.
The rage of Poseidon for being short-shrifted by Minos was manifested in the Cretan bull, who started rampaging all over the Crete, tearing up vineyards, knocking down buildings, and the like. Heracles was sent by King Eurystheus of Tiryns on mainland Greece to Crete to capture the bull, which constituted Heracles’ his seventh labor.
Heracles successfully completed the assignment, shipping the bull off to King Eurystheus at his Mycenaean stronghold in the Peloponnese. Unfortunately, the bull broke out of his pen and rampaged all over Greece, eventually creating havoc on the plain of Marathon, just outside of Athens.
King Aegeus of Athens commanded Minos’ son Androgeus to capture the bull. Androgeus happened to be in Athens to compete in games sponsored by Aegeus. He came in first in every event. Minos suspected that Aegeus sent his boy to capture the bull because Androgeus had beaten all of his Athenian competitors in the games and Minos was embarrassed and angry. His reaction was similar to that of Adolf Hitler in the 1936 Munich Olympics when a black man, American Jesse Owens, beat the pants off all those perfect Aryan athletes in track and field events.
Long story short, the Cretan bull killed Androgeus, and an incensed Minos declared war on Athens, a war Minos won.
For reparations, Minos commanded Aegeus to send fourteen young men and women off to Crete every nine years to be devoured by the Minotaur, otherwise Minos would raze Athens. (As for the Cretan bull, father of the Minotaur, it was finally captured by Theseus, who then sacrificed the bull in Athens.)
Some of you know that the story of the young nobles being chosen to appease King Minos became the germ of the idea for the Hunger Games trilogy of books and movies.
Theseus And the Minotaur
Theseus was fed up with Athens being forced to sacrifice seven young men and seven maidens every nine years, so he volunteered to sail to Crete with the latest lot of unfortunates destined for the gruesome destiny of being torn to pieces and eaten alive by the monster. He did this by faith, since he would not be carrying any weapons while being led to the slaughter. He was proclaimed a hero by his fellow citizens, who had no idea that his real goal was to kill the Minotaur.
He told his father, King Aegeus, however. The sacrificial crew used a black sail while traveling to Crete because of the miserable nature of the voyage. “Look, father,” Theseus said. “I’m going to kill the Minotaur. If I’m successful, I’ll have the ship raise a white sail to let you know when we come back.”
The young people were paraded through Knossos on their way to the labyrinth. In a perfect fairy tale twist, the King Minos’ own daughter, Ariadne, saw Theseus as he passed by, and fell instantly in love with him. She sent for him and told him she would free him if he would take her back to Athens with him and marry her. Theseus liked this plan and agreed to it.
Ariadne went straight to Daedalus and asked him for plans of the labyrinth he had designed. Daedalus told her to give Theseus a ball of yarn which Theseus could unwind as he and his companions got deeper into the labyrinth. Eventually they came upon the Minotaur, who was sleeping.
Theseus fell upon the Minotaur and, in the absence of weapons, beat the creature to death with his fists. As Edith Hamilton writes in her classic, Mythology, dating from the 1940’s:
As an oak tree falls on the hillside
Crushing all that lies beneath,
So Theseus.
He presses- out the life, the brute's savage life, and now it lies dead.
Only the head sways slowly, but the horns are useless now.
After this it was a simple matter of returning by the way he and the others came, following the unwound yarn. Thus the young people were saved, the Minotaur was dead, and Theseus and Ariadne lived happily ever after, right? Well, this is the point at which Greek Myths and fairy tales part ways.
There are two versions of what happened next, neither of which is very happy.
In version one, on the way to Athens, they put in at the island of Naxos. While there, and while Ariadne was sleeping on shore, Theseus and the rest of his friends ditched her, sailing off while she slumbered.
In version two, the ship with everyone but Ariadne on it was blown out to sea by a fierce wind, and kept them at sea a long time. When Theseus returned, he learned that the heartbroken Ariadne had died, and he grieved for her.
Be that as it may, the story comes together again at the end, where King Aegeus, looking out to sea from the Acropolis, sees Theseus’ ship making for the port. The unfortunate twist in the story is that Theseus forgot to swap out the sails, and was still sailing with the black one.
Aegeus, thinking that Theseus was dead, took himself to a seaside cliff and threw himself off it into the sea, committing suicide. From that point on the sea in that part of the world would be called the Aegean. (Some versions have him throwing himself off the Acropolis directly.)
Theseus ascended to the throne, and by all accounts was a wise and just ruler. He informed the people of Athens that he did not want to rule over his people. He wanted the people to rule themselves equally. So he abdicated his authority as king, created a commonwealth, and had a council hall built where the citizens of Athens could assemble and vote. Theseus retained for himself the position of Commander in Chief. In this way Athens became to home of life, liberty and happiness in the world.
