Online Encyclopedia

MINOS

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 555 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MINOS  , a semi-legendary

king of Crete, son of
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Zeus and Europa . By his wife, Pasiphae, he was the
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father of Ariadne,
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Deucalion,
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Phaedra and others . He reigned over Crete and the islands of the
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Aegean three generations before the Trojan War . He lived at
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Cnossus for periods of nine years, at the end of which he retired into a sacred cave, where he received instruction from Zeus in the legislation which he gave to the island . He was the author of the Cretan constitution and the founder of its
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naval supremacy (Herodotus iii . 122; Thucydides 4) . In Attic tradition and on the Athenian stage Minos is a cruel tyrant, the heartless exactor of the tribute of Athenian youths to feed the Minotaur (q.v.) . It seems possible that tribute children were actually exacted to take
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part in the gruesome shows of the Minoan bull-rings, of which we now have more than one
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illustration (see CRETE: Archaeology) . To reconcile the contradictory aspects of his character, two kings of the name of Minos were assumed by later poets and mythologists . Since Phoenician intercourse was in later times supposed to have played an important part in the development of Crete, Minos is sometimes called a Phoenician . There is no doubt that there is a considerable
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historical element in the legend;
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recent discoveries in Crete (q.v.) prove the existence of a
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civilization such as the legends imply, and render it probable that not only Athens, but
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Mycenae itself, was once subject to the kings of Cnossus, of whom Minos was greatest . In view of the splendour and wide influence of Minoan Crete, the age generally known as " Mycenaean " has been given the name of " Minoan " by Dr Arthur Evans as more properly descriptive (see CRETE) .

Minos himself is said to have died at Camicus in

Sicily, whither he had gone in pursuit of
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Daedalus, who had given Ariadne the
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clue by which she guided
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Theseus through the labyrinth . He was killed by the daughter of Cocalus, king of Agrigentum, who poured boiling
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water over him in the bath (Diod . Sic. iv . 79) . Subsequently his remains were sent back to the Cretans, who placed them in a sarcophagus, on which was inscribed: " The tomb of Minos, the son of Zeus." The earlier legend knows Minos as a beneficent ruler, legislator, and suppressor of piracy (Thucydides i . 4) . His constitution was said to have formed the basis of that of Lycurgus (
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Pausanias iii . 2, 4) . In accordance with this, after his
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death he became judge of the shades in the under-
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world (Odyssey, ix . 568); later he was associated with
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Aeacus and Rhadamanthus . The solar explanation of Minos as the sun-
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god has been thrown into the background by the recent discoveries . In any case a divine origin would naturally be claimed for him as a priest-king, and a divine atmosphere hangs about him .

The name of his wife, Pasiphae (" the all-shining "), is an epithet of the

moon-goddess . The name Minos seems to be philologically the
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equivalent of Minyas, the royal ancestor of the Minyans of Orchomenus, and his daughter Ariadne (" the ex- ceeding
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holy ") is a double of the native nature-goddess . (See CRETE: Archaeology.) On Cretan coins Minos is represented as bearded, wearing a diadem, curly-haired, haughty and dignified, like the traditional portraits of his reputed father, Zeus . On painted vases and sarcophagus bas-reliefs he frequently occurs with Aeacus and Rhadamanthus as judges of the under-world and in connexion with the Minotaur and Theseus .

End of Article: MINOS
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LAURENCE MINOT (fl. 1333—1352)

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