Minos

How Minos became king

The ancient writer Apollodorus tells how Minos came to rule. The god Zeus carried Europa to Crete, and she bore him three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. Europa later married Asterius, a Cretan king, who raised the three boys.

When Asterius died without a son, Minos claimed the throne and said the gods had given it to him. To silence those who opposed him, he asked the god Poseidon for a sign. The bargain was clear. Poseidon would send an animal to prove that he backed the claim, and Minos would sacrifice it.

A magnificent bull rose from the sea. Minos took the kingdom. Then he put the bull among his own herds and killed another in its place.

That one choice won his authority and damaged his household. Minos could persuade his rivals that a god had chosen him. He could not keep the god’s proof and also escape the promise that came with it. Much of his story follows from that broken exchange.

The bull, Pasiphaë and the Minotaur

Poseidon answered the broken vow through Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos. Apollodorus says the god made the bull savage and made Pasiphaë desire it. Daedalus, a craftsman, built a hollow wooden cow that let her approach the animal. She bore a child named Asterius, known as the Minotaur. Minos then had Daedalus build the Labyrinth, a maze, and shut Pasiphaë’s son inside it.

The punishment was aimed at Minos, but it fell first on his wife and child. Minos kept the kingdom and made the result of his own decision a prisoner. He also kept Daedalus close, to solve each new problem. That lasted until the craftsman’s knowledge passed to Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, and gave the Athenian prince Theseus the way out.

Why Athens sent its young people

Another death carried the power of Minos beyond Crete. His son Androgeos died in Attica, the land around Athens. The Greek writer Plutarch says most writers made that death the cause of the tribute Athens later paid. Minos attacked the country. Barrenness and disease added to the pressure, and Athens agreed to send seven young men and seven young women every nine years.

This is the Minos whom Theseus meets only at a distance. The king does not enter the Labyrinth or fight the young Athenian. He sets the terms around both: the tribute, the maze and the secrecy Ariadne has to break. His rule works through other people’s bodies, from Pasiphaë and the Minotaur to the chosen families of Athens.

The king at Knossos in Homer

Homer gives Minos a different kind of authority. In the Odyssey, Crete holds 90 cities and many peoples, yet only one city is given a king by name. That city is great Knossos, where Minos rules as a companion of Zeus.

The poem uses a difficult word linked with nine years. Ancient and modern readers have taken it to mean a reign of nine years, a meeting with Zeus every ninth year, or even the age of Minos. The link between the king, the god and Knossos is certain. How often they met is not.

What the excavated city can show

Excavation at Knossos began in 1900. Work there now reaches beyond the palace at the centre of the site to the wider city, with finds from the Neolithic (late Stone Age), Minoan, Hellenistic and Roman periods. Those layers prove a city that lasted a very long time. They do not prove the life of a king from an epic poem.

The myth does not need archaeology to place Minos. Homer already puts him at Knossos. Apollodorus makes the throne of Crete the prize Minos won through Poseidon’s bull. The buildings found in the ground belong to the history of the city. The king belongs to the texts.

The judge of the dead

Death does not end the office of Minos. When the hero Odysseus visits the land of the dead, he sees the son of Zeus seated with a golden sceptre. The dead stand and sit around him, asking for his decisions. Homer says Minos is giving judgement, not receiving it.

The scene leaves the contradiction in place. The king who broke his own promise to Poseidon becomes the one others come to for rulings after death. In the wide-gated house of Hades, they are still waiting for Minos to decide.