Theseus and the Minotaur
Theseus Stop 1 of 2
In brief
- King Minos of Crete kept a monstrous Minotaur (half man, half bull) locked in a labyrinth beneath his palace at Knossos.
- Every nine years, Athens was forced to send fourteen youths as sacrifice; Prince Theseus volunteered to end the tribute by slaying the beast.
- Princess Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread to retrace his steps, letting him kill the Minotaur and escape the maze.
King Minos's wife bore a monstrous child, half man and half bull, after the gods punished Minos for failing to honor Poseidon with a promised sacrifice. Unable to kill something born of the queen, Minos had the master craftsman Daedalus build an inescapable labyrinth beneath the palace at Knossos to contain it.
Because Minos's own son had died in Athens, he demanded a grim tribute: every nine years, Athens would send seven young men and seven young women to be fed to the Minotaur in its maze. When the third tribute came due, Prince Theseus volunteered himself, determined to end the sacrifice for good.
In Crete, Minos's daughter Ariadne fell in love with Theseus at first sight and secretly gave him a ball of thread, telling him to unwind it as he walked into the labyrinth so he could follow it back out again. Theseus found the Minotaur at the maze's heart, killed it with his bare hands, and traced the thread back to the entrance.
Theseus escaped Crete with Ariadne and the freed Athenian youths, ending Athens's debt to Minos forever. But the voyage home ended in its own tragedy: Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and in his grief forgot to change his ship's black sails to white, a mistake that would cost his father, King Aegeus, his life.
