ABSTRACT

Ariadne was the beautiful young daughter of Minos, who was king of the large Greek island of Crete. A son of his called Androgeos died during a visit to mainland Greece. Minos held the Athenians responsible for his death, and by way of punishment demanded that they sent to Crete each year a tribute of seven young women and seven young men, who were devoured by the monstrous Minotaur. Minos’ wife Pasiphae had been afflicted by a deity with an irresistible passion for a bull, which she gratified by getting the bull to mount her (concealed inside a fake wooden cow). The offspring of this mating was the savage Minotaur, which had the body of a man and the head of a bull, and was shut up in an inextricable maze called the Labyrinth.