History of the Ancient World: From the Origins of Civilization to the Fall of Rome Bower Susan Weiss

Chapter Twenty-Four King Minos on Crete

Chapter twenty-four

King Minos on Crete

In Crete, between 1720 and 1628 BC. e., the Minoans make sacrifices to the god of the sea

North of the Nile Delta, in the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of a nameless muddy peninsula, not too far from the European mainland lay a long, mountainous island. Its inhabitants came here from Asia Minor a long time ago; By the time of the Hyksos, they also had a state, and the king, whose name we do not know, built his palace in the center of Knossos.

Knossos was located in the interior of the island, closer to the northern coast, in a strategic location from which it was convenient to monitor the eastern and western ends of the island. Soon after completion, other, slightly smaller palaces arose at other key locations: at Mallia, east of Knossos on the northernmost coast, and at Phaistos, off the southern coast. ‹206›

Since these ancient people did not leave behind writing, we do not know the details of life in these palaces and the names of the rulers. But the palaces stood in the centers of large cities, surrounded by a network of roads and many houses. The people of these cities traded with civilizations overseas. Their brightly colored earthenware jars (possibly intended for transporting wine or oil) were found not only on the surrounding islands, but also on the banks of the Nile and in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Western Semites lived.

This people also practiced human sacrifice. Earthquakes regularly occurred on the mountainous island - one of them destroyed a temple located on a mountain, now called Mount Yuktas, and looking north, towards the sea. The skeletons in the ruins lay untouched for almost three thousand years - before archaeologists discovered this scene: a bound young man lies on his side on an altar of stone and clay, a bronze knife thrown over his body. In front of the altar is a man of about forty wearing a ceremonial ring and seal. A woman lies face down in the southwest corner of the room. ‹207›

Human sacrifices were not made very often. Other traces of such a sacrifice were found in only one place - in one of the houses in the western part of the city of Knossos, where two children were apparently not only sacrificed, but dismembered and cooked with snails during some kind of ritual festival. ‹208› The ruins do not tell us what the sacrifice meant or for what purpose it was performed.

And any attempts to figure it out are futile.

Around 1720, an earthquake destroyed the old palace at Knossos. A new one was built on top of it, using partial use of the previous ruins. This second palace had a more elaborate design. The prosperity of the inhabitants of Knossos increased to such an extent that their king began to need much greater luxury.

The Greeks, who named this island Crete, believed that a powerful king named Minos lived in Knossos during the days of the “Second Palace”. According to Greek myth, Minos was the stepson of a Cretan aristocrat. Wanting to rule the country, he told the inhabitants of Crete that he could prove that he had been chosen to rule by divine means, and whatever he asked the gods for, they would give it to him. People invited him to prove the correctness of this boast, and Minos asked Poseidon to send him a bull to slaughter. Immediately a magnificent bull emerged from the sea onto the Cretan shore. He was indeed so beautiful that Minos could not bring himself to sacrifice the bull; he sent the animal to his herd and sacrificed another bull in return.

Minoan civilization

The Cretans declared Minos king. But Poseidon was dissatisfied with Minos' greed and cursed his wife, Pasiphae, making her inflamed with passion for the bull. The legendary architect Daedalus created a device with which Pasiphae and the bull could make love: it was a wooden cow on wheels; Pasiphae later gave birth to a terrible child with a human body and the head of a bull. Minos, seeing the monster, hid it in a prison under the palace of Knossos. The prison that Daedalus built as punishment for helping Pasiphae was made so intricate, with a lot of passages and nooks and crannies, that Pasiphae's son Asterius (better known as the Minotaur) could not get out of it. In this prison, called the Labyrinth, the Minotaur lived until he grew up. Minos fed him human flesh; After defeating the Greeks, continental inhabitants, he ordered them to send seven young men and seven young women every year to be devoured by the Minotaur. ‹209›

This story appears in "Library", a Greek collection of stories from the second century BC. e. Behind the fog of this myth we can discern a civilization that left no other evidence behind.

Minos may well be the name not only of a legendary ruler, but of an entire line of kings who ruled at Knossos and gave their name to the earliest Cretan civilization. The spread of the story of the Minotaur, as well as the exchange of goods between cities, reflect the existence of international maritime trade carried out by the Minoans. The same is confirmed by the remains of objects from the Second Palace period, which are found throughout the ancient world. The lid of an alabaster jar found at Knossos is marked with the name of the third Hyksos king, and the Hyksos palace at Avaris contains on its walls the remains of frescoes painted in the Minoan style.

Contact with the eastern shores of the Mediterranean was regular; perhaps the Minoans traded even with Mesopotamia. Some pictorial depictions of Gilgamesh and his battle with the Bull of Heaven (mostly seal paintings) are a legend that begins to appear on clay tablets between 1800 and 1500 BC. e., just at the rise of the Minoan civilization, they show us Gilgamesh, grappling with a half-man, half-bull wearing some kind of wrestling belt. The monster has the body of a bull and the head of a man - the opposite of the Minotaur's deformity, but the very similarity between the two monsters suggests that Minoan and Mesopotamian sailors exchanged their legends when meeting in port taverns. ‹210›

Although the unified Greek civilization from which Minos theoretically demanded this annual tribute is a clear anachronism (there were only scattered settlements on the peninsula at that time), Minos's ability to demand things from abroad reflects the military power of Crete during the Second Palace period. "Library" tells us that Minos was “the first to gain dominion over the sea; he extended his rule to almost all the islands". Minoan settlements have been found on a number of nearby islands, including the islands of Melos, Kea and the small volcanic island of Thira. These settlements served not only as trading posts, but also as naval bases. The Greek historian Thucydides writes that Minos was the first king of antiquity who had a fleet:

“He became master of what is now called the Hellenic Sea, and ruled the Cyclades [islands in the northern Aegean Sea], to most of which he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians [settlers from the southwest of Asia Minor] and installing his sons as rulers; and thus did everything in his power to stop piracy in these waters - a necessary step that saved him his annual income. ‹211›

According to Herodotus, “the Carians remained on the islands, but became subjects of Minos, a mass of experienced sailors who managed his ships at his first request”. ‹212› The Minoan Empire was formed on water.

Around 1680 BC e. she reached the highest peak of her power. Pirates had always been a problem in the Mediterranean - Thucydides explains that Knossos was originally built inland, away from the sea precisely "on account of the prevalence of piracy" - but Minos' fleet put an end to maritime robbery, at least in the waters around Crete. This new world meant that the peoples of the islands and shores became “it is easier to contact and enrich themselves, and their lives have become more settled”. ‹213› Trade flourished, new buildings were erected, painting and sculpture reached an unprecedented degree of sophistication.

But in the story of King Minos, there is a long-standing threat: a bull monster under the palace. This inescapable anger, only hidden underground, is a visible sign of the evil will of Poseidon. She threatens not only the people who pay tribute to Minos, but also Minos himself. This untamed, hungry force, literally speaking, undermines the foundation of his palace and requires constant sacrifice.

The palace at Knossos was decorated with frescoes: wall paintings were created by applying bright colors made from coal, yellow ochre, iron ore and other minerals directly onto a damp layer of lime plaster. In these frescoes, sacred bulls bow their horns, threatening, and the priests jump over the horns onto the back of the bull, and from there to the ground. The most famous bronze sculpture from the ruins of Knossos shows the same bull dancer, frozen in the most dangerous pose.

The ritual participants were probably young athletes willing to risk their lives. Perhaps the story of the Minotaur preserves a very ancient form of human sacrifice, in which the victims were not killed on an altar, but were placed face to face with the bull. Excavations of the so-called Bull Squares, the central squares in Knossos, where bull dances apparently took place, revealed many doors, staircases and corridors opening onto the site from the surrounding buildings - in short, a real labyrinth. ‹214› There is another connection between the story of the Minotaur and the religious rites of Crete. The Minotaur devoured fourteen victims at a time; An altar discovered at Knossos shows a picture of a ritual celebration of death.

But what kind of sacred anger required this kind of sacrifice?

In the later Greek version of the Minotaur story, Poseidon, the god of the sea, is also called the Lord of Earthquakes, and the bull is his sacred animal. The island of Crete and the sea around it are constantly shaken by tremors and the destructive waves that follow them. Only constant prayers to the Lord of earthquakes can prevent the danger that comes from the sea.

Around 1628, earthquakes in the Thira area became more frequent. The island was an active volcano, and its inhabitants have witnessed more than one eruption. But for many years the volcano was so calm that Thera's only large city, Akrotiri, was able to grow and begin to prosper. ‹215›

As eruptions became more frequent, the population of Akrotiri first tried to rebuild the walls destroyed by the earthquakes. When the shaking became stronger, people began to leave the city. When excavating the ruins, no human skeletons were found, and it seems that everything valuable was taken from the city - jewelry and silver. ‹216›

Soon the volcano in the center of the island began to spew out pumice. Apparently, the pumice that covers the ruins fell on top of it for quite a long time - which means that the eruption lasted quite a long time, from two months to two years. The top of the pumice is covered with a layer of ash, ejected at the time of the last, most powerful explosion. The roar over Thira was heard for a long time, and the nearby islands listened to it with trembling. Two years is enough time to realize the inevitability of the impending catastrophe; it was quite enough to make sacrifices in the hope that the trouble would pass.

And then the volcano, figuratively speaking, turned the island inside out, covering the city with a layer of ash fifteen feet thick. Huge boulders flew out from the depths of the volcano and fell to the ground like giant hail. ‹217› A deep gash opened in the side of the island, allowing the sea to rush into the crater of the volcano. When the eruption eventually died down, Thira was no longer a round island with a volcano at its center - it became a ring of land around a huge submerged caldera.

This was the end of the Minoan city of Akrotiri, which remained buried in ash until excavations began in the 1960s. What is less clear is how much harm this gigantic eruption did to the Minoans of Crete. For some time after the eruption of Thera, the Minoan civilization continued to exist as usual. Then, apparently, the population of Crete began to decline; houses fell into disrepair, and trade gradually faded away.

Thira before and after the eruption

The ensuing decline can well be associated with a volcanic eruption. Apparently, the eruption on the island of Thira began in late June or early July - just before the harvest. ‹218› Wind-blown ash fell without reaching the western end of Crete, but covered the eastern half of the island, probably destroying almost the entire crop. Traces of ash on the shores of other islands from Thira suggest that the explosion of the island caused a tsunami, and the wave flooded the nearby islands. It may have reached over thirty feet in height when it struck the shores of Crete twenty-five minutes after the eruption. ‹219› Probably a huge cloud blocked the sun for some time. Then the thunderstorms began with heavy, deafening thunder, followed by a drop in temperature. For many months, the sunsets remained bloody in color.

Even if the collapse of the Minoan culture was not directly caused by the volcanic eruption, the manifestations of the catastrophe themselves were apparently very similar in impact to the fall in the level of the Nile in Egypt. These signs clearly showed that Poseidon was angry, and the gods no longer patronized the royal house. It seems likely that the disaster was seen as a harbinger of a greater manifestation of divine wrath.

The Lord of Earthquakes cannot be treated lightly - he always lurks in the depths, ready to put an end to man's fragile prosperity. It's better to get away from his wrath, and as soon as possible.

Comparative chronology for chapter 24

Egypt	Crete
Middle Kingdom (2040–1782 BC)
Eleventh Dynasty(2134–1991 BC)
Intef I–III
Mentuhetep I-III
	Proto-palatial period (2000–1720 BC)
Twelfth Dynasty(1991–1782 BC)
Amenemhet I
Amenemhet III
Amenemhet IV
Queen Sobekneferu
Second Intermediate Period (1782–1570 BC)
Thirteenth Dynasty (1782–1640 BC)
	New Palace period (1720–1550 BC)
Fourteenth Dynasty(1700–1640 BC)	Minos
Capture of the Hyksos (1663 BC)
Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties
	Eruption of Thera (c. 1628 BC)
	Late Palace Period (1550–1350 BC)

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King Minos

“Minos is waiting here, baring his terrible mouth;
Interrogation and the court decides at the door
And with the flicks of his tail he sends him to the torment."
"The Divine Comedy". Dante Alighieri

Usually they only know about Minos that he is the ruler of Crete, the stepfather of the bull-headed Minotaur, killed by the Greek hero Theseus. In reality, King Minos is a collective image, and the name itself was a common noun for the Cretan rulers. “Minos” was, at least, two - grandfather and grandson. In any case, they are best known from Greek myths; they were often confused, attributing to one the actions of the other.

The first of them, the son of the Cretan Zeus Asterius, that is, the Star (the professional clothing of wizards of all times was a dark blue robe with golden stars symbolizing eternity) and the Phoenician of Europe. From his father he inherited magical power over the island, became famous as a legislator, and after death, together with his two brothers, his brother Radamanthos and his half-brother Aeakos, he became the judge of the souls of the dead.

Already in ancient times, utter fables were told about the life of Minos the Younger. Apollodorus especially told a lot about him in the “Mythological Library”. The writer said that Minos wanted to become the king of Crete and asked for help from Poseidon - let, they say, the lord of the waters send a sea bull, which would become a sign of Minos’s chosenness. For this, the king promised to sacrifice the poor animal to Poseidon.

God fulfilled everything, and Minos, having deceived him, stabbed another, very unsightly, bull. Poseidon was angry and, wanting to take revenge on the treacherous Cretan, instilled in his horned messenger a passion for the king’s wife, Pasiphae. She, too, did not remain indifferent to the powerful artiodactyl. Then, how Apollodorus, endowed with a rich imagination, narrates what happened: “Having fallen in love with this bull, she took as her assistant the builder Daedalus, who was expelled from Athens after a murder committed there.

Daedalus made a wooden cow on wheels, hollowed it out from the inside and covered his product with freshly skinned cow skin. Having put it out in the meadow where the bull usually passes, he allowed Pasiphae to enter this wooden cow. The bull that appeared got along with her as with a real cow, and Pasiphae gave birth to Asterius, nicknamed the Minotaur. He had the head of a bull, but all the other parts of his body were human. Minos imprisoned him in a labyrinth, acting in accordance with the oracles he had received, and ordered him to be guarded there.”

Here we need to stop to reconstruct the real course of events. The fact is that the veneration of the bull as a productive force was developed not only in Crete. In Egypt they worshiped the sacred white bull Apis. The main Phoenician god Baal often appeared in the form of a mighty bull, and at other times wore a helmet with steep horns. Among the Greeks, the wife of the archon-king went to Bucolina - the temple of Dionysus, the shepherd of bulls, and entered into a ritual marriage with him. Aristotle in the Athenian Polity testifies that his compatriots borrowed this ritual from Crete. Do not forget that the Cretan ruler Zeus Asterius kidnapped the Phoenician princess, turning into a powerful artiodactyl.

Therefore, the son of Pasiphae was named Asterius - in honor of the ancestor bull. The nickname Minotaur simply means “the bull of Minos.” The monstrous head is a ritual helmet, like the Phoenician Baal. The young priest of Zeus the bull lived in a special temple - a labyrinth. Probably Such dedication imposed certain restrictions - the Minotaur could not succeed his father.

Minos did not have to bother about this: he was the head of a large family, four legitimate sons and four daughters. There were also five guys who lived on the side.

The most beloved and, obviously, heir, Androgeus, suffered a difficult fate. He brilliantly won the Panathenaic Games in Athens, and then went to Thebes to compete in strength and dexterity there, but on the way he was killed in an ambush by the less fortunate who were jealous of him participants in the competition. The Greeks laid the blame for the death of the Cretan prince on the mad Marathon bull.

Minos did not believe this simple lie and, having gathered his entire large fleet, rushed to storm the Greek capital. As a result of the siege, famine and pestilence began in the city. Wanting to avoid misfortunes, the Hellenes made bloody human sacrifices: five beautiful girls were slaughtered at the grave of the Cyclops Gerest, recently moved to Athens from Sparta.

The monstrous crime did not save the situation and the Athenians asked the soothsayer for an oracle on how they could be saved. God answered through her lips: for the crime they committed, they must suffer severe punishment, and what exactly would be determined by Minos. And the Cretan determined that Athens should once every nine years ( term for the re-election of the king-magician) to send to him seven young maidens and seven strong youths, as the myth says, “to be devoured by the Minotaur.” In fact, they became temple slaves: bulls, as you know, do not eat human flesh.

Twice King Aegeus sent mournful tribute to the island, and only twenty-one years later his illegitimate son, the great hero Theseus, arrived in Athens. It was he who went to Crete to fight the monster.
The ancient writer Philochorus, author of the “History of Attica,” describes further events in such a way that Theseus fought with the Minotaur during a competition organized by Minos, and the king’s daughter Ariadne, seeing the handsome Greek man, fell in love with him at first sight. So there was no wandering through the labyrinth in search of a cannibal monster, nor the famous thread of Ariadne, with the help of which the hero got out into freedom.

Taking advantage of the turmoil, the creator of the labyrinth, the fugitive Athenian criminal Daedalus, flew off the island on homemade wings. At the same time, his son Daedalus, born of a Cretan slave, died.

Minos, having barely survived the loss of his daughter, rushed in pursuit of Daedalus. He hoped to find the fugitive using a cunning trick: wherever he arrived, he invited everyone to pass a thread through a complexly curled sea shell. The king knew that only one person could cope with such a task in the world - the one he was looking for.

Finally, in the Sicilian city of Kamik, the local ruler Kokal solved the puzzle. Immediately Minos demanded that Daedalus be handed over to him. Kokal agreed, but suggested that the Cretan go to the bathhouse first. And as soon as the magician king was there, the Sicilian princesses scalded the guest with boiling water: they did not want they parted with the master who made beautiful dolls for them. Minos immediately died from the burns he received and was buried in the local temple of Artemis. Later, his remains were transported to Crete, and the soul of the magician king (grandson or grandfather - it is not known) began a centuries-old and difficult work in the post-mortem judgment. He sits on the throne, surrounded by brothers, clutching a golden scepter, and listens to endless stories of sorrow.

The Christian tradition portrays the Cretan king as a terrible monster. Dante writes in The Divine Comedy:
" - Barely a soul that has fallen away from God,
He will appear before him with his story,
He, strictly distinguishing sins,
The abode of Hell assigns her
The tail curls around the body so many times,
How many steps should she go down?

But already in modern times, the Cretan was represented differently: Rodin’s famous sculpture “The Thinker” was often called “Minos.” A fair judge, indeed, had something to think about before passing judgment on the soul of the deceased.

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Shortly before his death, Asterius appointed Minos as his heir. Wanting to be convinced of the correctness of his choice, the elderly king went ashore and turned to the ruler of the heavily thundering sea with a prayer to give him a sacrificial bull as a sign of approval. And Poseidon threw out from the depths of the sea a bull of unprecedented beauty, which swam to the shore and came to the land of Crete.

So Minos became king, leaving Rhadamanthus out of work. Under him, Knossos became the capital of all Crete. Only two cities refused to submit to Minos.

The new king began his reign by retiring to Mount Ida, where Zeus dictated laws for his people. Thus, Minos was considered by the Greeks to be the first legislator. The Greeks had no idea about the laws of the eastern kings in the era of the formation of myths.

Minos was also seen as the first owner of a military fleet, which established the rule of Crete on the seas. As scientists of modern times have noticed, the myths about the conquests of Minos are confined to those places that were called “Minoa”. Such a place existed in Megara.

They said that King Nisus, the son of Ares, ruled in Megara. On the top of his head was a lock of hair the same purple color as his royal robe. Everyone knew that the king would die as soon as he lost his amazing lock of hair. Minos, who dreamed of conquering Megara, also knew about this. Nis had no sons, and after his death the city was easy to capture.

Minos sent a fleet to the shores of Attica, which bordered Megara, and entered into negotiations with Nysus's daughter Scylla, promising her a magnificent golden necklace if she cut off her father's purple lock. The greedy Skilla snuck into her father's bedroom at night and, cutting off the hair on the top of his head, hurried to Minos to exchange it for a necklace. After that, she removed the massive chain that locked the entrance to the harbor. Ships entered the harbor, and, having captured the city, the soldiers killed its inhabitants. Skilla received the promised reward. But she did not rejoice at her acquisition for long. Minos considered it fair that she should receive retribution not only for her help, but also for her betrayal. Having tied a rope to the stern of his ship, he secured the other end around the traitor's lower back and threw her overboard. Skilla did not flounder in the waves for long - the heavy necklace quickly carried her to the bottom as an edification to everyone who, for the sake of the shine of gold, is ready to forget about loyalty and honor.

Minos and Keos were captured. Arriving there on fifty ships, Minos found only three girls, the king's daughters, on the island. It turned out that three days before, Zeus, with lightning strikes, destroyed the rest of the Telkhine islanders along with their king because they bewitched the crops with their evil gaze. Minos settled half of his army on Keos. He himself left an heir there. After all, one of the princesses fell in love with him and bore him a son.

The conquered lands were ruled by the numerous sons of Minos, who founded cities there. The ships of Minos sailed freely across all seas and entered any port as if it were their own: not a single ship could land on Crete. This was watched by the giant Talos, indestructible, like all the creatures of the copper generation to which he belonged. Blood flowed through his huge body like molten lead. Three times a day he walked around the coast of Crete along a path trodden by copper feet and threw huge stones at the newcomers.

Minos also had a land army, divided into detachments of two to three dozen well-armed warriors. They were commanded by his sons.

While participating in campaigns or checking out his many possessions, Minos was a rare guest in his own palace, and his wife Pasiphae, daughter of Helios, fell in love with either one of the mighty bulls from her father’s herd, or a bull sent to Minos by Poseidon. In any case, everyone agreed that it was a bull, not a man.

Returning to the palace after another absence, Minos heard about the birth of his son and hurried to the queen’s chambers. Imagine his surprise and rage when he saw that the newborn had the body of a child, and the head of a young bull. Minos's first thought was to kill the freak, but, thinking that the bull that had entered into a relationship with his wife could belong to Poseidon, he did not dare to quarrel with the ruler of the seas. Minos began to look for a master who could build a dungeon for the growing monster, who received the name Minotaur.

Fortunately, the master appeared on his own. This was the Athenian Daedalus, who became famous as a builder in his homeland, but was forced to leave it for committing a crime. Showing Minos the potter's wheel and compass he had invented in Athens, Daedalus convinced the king that with the help of numerous slaves he would be able to glorify Crete for centuries.

Daedalus knew that no one knew better than the Egyptians how to build palaces and temples from eternal stone. His memory preserved as the most amazing of miracles the structure with twelve courtyards and three thousand chambers, which he saw in the city of crocodiles, which is higher than Lake Merida. There, in the underground half, were the tombs of priests and sacred crocodiles, turned into mummies and wrapped in fragrant linens. The Egyptians called this structure a labyrinth, and Daedalus decided that he would build for Minos, if not so majestic, then still a similar building.

And he built a labyrinth in Knossos with dungeons with countless passages and corridors. This did not happen either in Mycenae or in Thebes. Daedalus made just one entrance to the labyrinth, and it was impossible for anyone who found himself in its depths to get out of the tangle of corridors. Minos ordered to immediately take the Minotaur as deep as possible.

Now he was calm about his capital and could carry out his long-standing plan to enslave all of Greece. There was also a reason for war. The son of Minos Androgeus, who won the Panathenaic Games, aroused someone's envy and was killed.

The news of the death of his son found Minos in Paros, where he made sacrifices to the Charites along with his four sons, to whom he gave the island into possession. Throwing off the wreath from his head, interrupting the playing of the flute players, Minos rushed towards the ships. Soon a huge fleet surrounded Attica, surrounding it with a chain of ships like a boar. Famine and pestilence began in the besieged country because, as everyone was sure, Minos called on his father Zeus to punish the murderers of Androgeus. The Athenians turned to the Delphic oracle, and he ordered to submit to Minos, accepting all his conditions. Minos wished that the Athenians send seven young men and the same number of girls every four years to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus subsequently freed Athens from that shameful tribute.

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King Minos

“Minos is waiting here, baring his terrible mouth;
Interrogation and the court decides at the door
And with the flicks of his tail he sends him to the torment."
"The Divine Comedy". Dante Alighieri

Minos did not have to bother about this: he was the head of a large family, four legitimate sons and four daughters. There were also five guys who lived on the side.

MINOS - King of ancient Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, husband of Pasiphae. Minos - (Minos, Μίνως). Abstract:Minos is a king. And the king often has to give up himself in the name of duty, the good of the state, and, ultimately, for the sake of survival in intrigues and conspiracies. Will Minos retain until the end of his life what he valued in himself as a young man: the ability to love, sympathize and suffer, the ability to live without fear of trials?

Minos succeeded Asterius and became famous as a wise ruler. When Minos succeeded Asterius on the throne of Knossos, he became famous throughout the world as the wisest of rulers. First, Minos united Crete and gave its inhabitants a single law. Then he sent Rhadamanthus to impose the law on other lands.

Before the appearance of the Ionians, Megaris also belonged to Minos. In the south of Attica, Minos discovered rich deposits of silver, captured the surrounding lands and founded the city of Lavrion on them. Minos cleared all the surrounding seas of pirates, and destroyed their shelters on the islands. Minos lived in a magnificent palace in Knossos, the capital of Crete. In addition to the fleet, the island of Crete was guarded by a bull-headed copper guard named Talos, whom Zeus gave to Minos.

Minos - the legendary king of Crete

One day the god Poseidon sent Minos a beautiful bull from the sea so that Minos would sacrifice the bull to him. One of Minos' sons, Androgeus, was a famous athlete. Minos decided to take revenge on Aegeus and, with the support of his fleet, conquered Athens, forced Aegeus to send seven girls and seven boys to Knossos every nine years, where they would be sacrificed to the Minotaur.

Theseus received from Minos' daughter Ariadne, who fell in love with him, a magical ball of thread (option: Daedalus gave this ball to Theseus). Daedalus, meanwhile, decided to leave Minos, but the king forbade him to leave Crete (option: for helping Theseus, Minos imprisoned Daedalus in a labyrinth, and he had no choice but to try to arrange an escape). Daedalus fled Crete, making wings for himself and his son Icarus from feathers held together with wax. Minos went in search of Daedalus.

Sailing to the Sicilian city of Kamik, Minos invited its king Kokal to solve a puzzle. The master tied a thread to an ant and let it fall into the neck of the sink. They found a way to get rid of Minos. Daedalus built a pipe in the roof of the bathhouse and, when Minos was bathing in it, poured boiling water on him (option: Minos, while bathing, died a natural death). Thus Minos died. His companions gave the king a magnificent funeral and buried him in the temple of Aphrodite in Kamik, and later the remains of Minos were moved to Crete. After his death, Minos became a judge in the kingdom of the dead.

MINOS, in Greek mythology, one of the three sons of Zeus (see ZEUS) and Europa (see EUROPE (in mythology)), was born on the island of Crete and adopted by the Cretan king Asterius. The wife of Minos was Pasiphae (see PASIFAYA), who, due to an unnatural relationship with a bull, gave birth to the Minotaur (see MINOTAUR), who was imprisoned by the king in the labyrinth. After the death of the son of Minos and Pasiphae Androgeus at a competition in Athens, Minos demanded that the Athenians pay tribute: once every nine years they sent seven young men and women to Crete, who were eaten by the Minotaur.

After his death, Minos became, along with Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, one of the judges of the underworld. After large-scale research into Minoan culture began in the 20th century, a semi-historical face began to be seen in Minos; the Knossos palace in Crete was called the “labyrinth”.

Ancient tradition portrays him as a wise ruler who owned Crete and, with the help of a strong fleet, extended power to other islands. From time immemorial, the Queen of Crete was the embodiment of Britomartis. May be. But since childhood, looking at my mother returning from the sacraments, I believed that something disgusting and shameful was happening in the grove.

Myth about the birth of King Minos

In the first row stood old women with snakes, in the second - flutists and girls with timbrels. From the thicket, nymphs and satyrs peered curiously at the mystery; the trees glowed in the darkness. Shaking off the priestesses and not waiting for a second attack, I, crushing the bushes, rushed into the oak grove. Minos! - the goddess whispered with only her lips. I entered her and mastered her a myriad of times, until Britomartis fainted.

Afterwards, Minos subjugated some of the lands of Lycia, where Sarpedon began to rule, and also founded the city of Miletus, which he named after his favorite, who became the king of the city. Talos ran around Crete three times a day and threw stones at enemy ships approaching the island.

Since then, sacrifices to the Charites were performed without wreaths or music. So Theseus was able to find the sleeping monster and kill it, and then safely get out of the labyrinth. Icarus, who rose too close to the sun, fell into the sea, and Daedalus flew to the coast of Asia Minor, from where he later moved to Sicily.

He took with him a newt shell and promised a reward to anyone who could thread a thread through the shell, because he was sure that only Daedalus could solve this problem. And on the other side of the shell he made a hole and smeared it with honey, which served as bait for the ant.

See what “Minos” is in other dictionaries:

Knossos, according to legend, is the first legislator in Crete, the creator of a powerful maritime power. According to Plato’s “Laws,” he talked with Zeus in the Idean cave once every nine years. Throughout the Mediterranean, Minos with his powerful fleet searched for the escaped Daedalus. Or will the authorities change it? The dictionary is at the end of the text. Before you begin reading this book, I want to warn you: I willingly exercised the writer's right to speculation and fiction.

Columns of the Knossos Palace

In apology, I want to say that the Greeks themselves perceived their myths not as dogma, but as a guide to action, introducing their own changes and interpretations into the plots. She spoke, listened and flew deeper. They looked at us arrogantly and distantly, proud of their closeness to the Goddess, the guardian of Crete, the Great Mother Britomartis-Diktina.

Today the sacred marriage of the goddess Crete Britomartis with the new king was to take place. Our stepfather, the godlike Asterius, son of Tectamus, died, tired out over the years. I passionately desired this destiny for myself. Although in many ways I found Rhadamanthus wiser and more reasonable. Stay here and do not dare leave the clearing until the high priestesses arrive here and the test begins.

Minos - (Minwz) the mythical king of Crete, to whom everything that is known from the history of this island over the last two centuries before the Trojan War is transferred. Before leaving Crete, Zeus ordered Asterius, who was then king of Crete, to take Europa as his wife and adopt his children: Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. The goddess had to decide who was more pleasing to her as a new husband and anact of Crete: me, Minos, the eldest of the brothers, the middle one - Rhadamanthus, or the youngest - Sarpedon.