MINOTAUR (Gr. Mcvcn -avpos, from

See also:

• MEWS, PETER (1619-1706)

Mews, and Taps,

See also:

• BULL
• BULL, GEORGE (1634–1710)
• BULL, JOHN (c. 1562–1628)
• BULL, OLE BORNEMANN (18ro-188o)

bull)  , in Greek mythology, a fabulous Cretan monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull . It was supposed to be the offspring of Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, and a snow-white bull, sent to Minos by Poseidon for sacrifice . Minos, instead of sacrificing it, spared its life, and Poseidon, as a punishment, inspired Pasiphae with an unnatural passion for it . The monster which was born was shut up in the Labyrinth (q.v.) . Now it happened that Androgeus, son of Minos, had been killed by the Athenians, who were jealous of the victories he had won at the Panathenaic festival . To avenge the death of his son, Minos demanded that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens should be sent every ninth year to be devoured by the Minotaur . When the third sacrifice came round Theseus volunteered to go, and with the help of Ariadne (q.v.) slew the Minotaur (Plutarch, Theseus, 15—19; Diod . Sic. i . 16, iv . 61; Apollodorus iii . 1, 15) . Some modern mythologists regard the Minotaur as a solar personification and a Greek adaptation of the Baal-Moloch of the Phoenicians .

The slaying of the Minotaur by Theseus in that

case indicates the abolition of such sacrifice by the advance of Greek civilization . According to A . B . Cook, Minos and Minotaur are only different forms of the same personage, representing the sun-god Zeus of the Cretans, who represented the sun as a bull . He and J . G . Frazer both explain Pasiphae's monstrous union as a sacred ceremony (ispbs yaµos), at which the queen of Cnossus was wedded to a bull-formed god, just as the wife of the tipXwv ,BaaiXsb in Athens was wedded to Dionysus . E . Pottier, who does not dispute the historical personality of Minos, in view of the story of Phalaris (q.v.) considers it probable that in Crete (where a bull-cult may have existed by the side of that of the double axe) victims were tortured by being shut up in the belly of a red-hot brazen bull . The story of Talos, the Cretan man of brass, who heated himself red-hot and clasped strangers in his embrace as soon as they landed on the island, is probably of similar origin . The contest between Theseus and the Minotaur was frequently represented in Greek art . A Cnossian didrachm exhibits on one side the labyrinth, on the other the Minotaur surrounded by a semicircle of small balls, probably intended for stars; it is to be noted that one of the monster's name, was Asterius .

See A . Conze, Theseus and Minotauros (1878); L . Stephani, De; Kampf zwischen Theseus and Minotauros (1842), with plates and

history of the legend; L . Preller, Griechische Mythologie; Helbig in Roscher's Lexicon der Mythologie; F . Durrbach in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des antiquites; A . B . Cook in Classical Review, xvii . 410; J . G . Frazer, Early History of the Kingship (1905) ; E . Pottier in La Revue de Paris (Feb . 1902) ; the story is told in Kingsley's Heroes .