[7]
The seventh labour he enjoined on him was to bring the Cretan bull.1 Acusilaus says that this was the bull that
ferried across Europa for Zeus; but some say it was the bull that Poseidon sent up from
the sea when Minos promised to sacrifice to Poseidon what should appear out of the sea.
And they say that when he saw the beauty of the bull he sent it away to the herds and
sacrificed another to Poseidon; at which the god was angry and made the bull savage. To
attack this bull Hercules came to Crete, and
when, in reply to his request for aid, Minos told him to fight and catch the bull for
himself, he caught it and brought it to Eurystheus, and having shown it to him he let it
afterwards go free. But the bull roamed to Sparta and all Arcadia, and
traversing the Isthmus arrived at Marathon in Attica and harried the inhabitants.
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1 As to the Cretan bull see Diod. 4.13.4; Paus. 1.27.9ff., Paus. 5.10.9; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.293- 298 （who seems to follow Apollodorus）; Hyginus, Fab. 30.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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