Minos
（
Μίνως). The son of Zeus and Europa, brother of
Rhadamanthus, was the king and legislator of Crete. After his death he became one of the
judges of the shades in Hades. He was the father of Deucalion and Ariadné; and,
according to Apollodorus, the brother of Sarpedon. Some traditions relate that Minos married
Itoné, daughter of Lyctius, by whom he had a son, Lycastus, and that the latter
became, by Ida, the father of another Minos. But it should be observed that Homer and Hesiod
know of only one Minos, the ruler of Cnossus, and the son and friend of Zeus; and that they
relate nearly the same things about him which later traditions assign to a second Minos, the
grandson of the former. In this case, as in many other mythical traditions, a rationalistic
criticism attempted to solve contradictions and difficulties in the stories about a person, by
assuming that the contradictory accounts must refer to two different personages.
Assuming, however, the fact of a second Minos, he was also a king and lawgiver of Crete. He
is described as the husband of Pasiphaë, a daughter of Helios; and as the father of
Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, Androgeos, Acallé, Xenodicé,
Ariadné, and Phaedra. After the death of Asterius, Minos aimed at the supremacy of
Crete, and declared that it was destined to him by the gods; in proof of which, he asserted
that the gods always answered his prayers. Accordingly, as he was offering up a sacrifice to
Poseidon, he prayed that a bull might come forth from the sea, and promised to sacrifice the
beast. The bull appeared and Minos became king of Crete. Minos, however, admiring the beauty
of the bull, did not sacrifice him, but substituted another in his place, whereupon Poseidon rendered the bull furious, and made Pasiphaë conceive a
passion for the animal. Daedalus enabled Pasiphaë to gratify her passion, and she
became by the bull the mother of the Minotaurus, a monster with a human body and a bull's
head, or, according to others, with a bull's body and a human head. The monster was kept in
the labyrinth at Cnossus, constructed by Daedalus. Daedalus fled from Crete to escape the
wrath of Minos and took refuge in Sicily. Minos followed him to Sicily, and was there slain by
Cocalus and his daughters.
Minos is further said to have divided Crete into three parts, and to have ruled nine years.
The Cretans traced their legal and political institutions to Minos. He is said to have been
instructed in the art of legislation by Zeus himself; and the Spartan Lycurgus was believed to
have taken the legislation of Minos as his model. In his time Crete was a powerful maritime
State; and Minos not only checked the piratical pursuits of his contemporaries, but made
himself master of the Greek islands of the Aegean. The most ancient legends describe Minos as
a just and wise lawgiver, whereas the later accounts represent him as an unjust and cruel
tyrant. In order to avenge the wrong done to his son
Androgeos (q.v.) at Athens, he made war against the Athenians and Megarians. He
subdued Megara, and compelled the Athenians either every year or every nine years to send him
as a tribute seven youths and seven maidens, who were devoured in the labyrinth by the
Minotaurus. The monster was slain by Theseus. See
Ariadné;
Theseus.
It is generally held that the tradition of Minos embodies a certain amount of historical
truth, and that there really was a king of that name who ruled Crete before the Dorian
migration, and developed a formidable sea-power, which he used in putting down piracy. Cf.
Thuc. i. 4, 8; Aristotle,
Polit. ii. 10; iv. 10; and see the article
Nisus.
