Minos
In
Archeologist Sir
Literary Minos
Minos appears in Greek literature as the king of Knossos as early as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.[2] Thucydides tells us Minos was the most ancient man known to build a navy.[3] He reigned over Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea three generations before the Trojan War. He lived at Knossos for nine years, where he received instruction from Zeus in the legislation he gave to the island. He was the author of the Cretan constitution and the founder of its naval supremacy.[3][4]
On the Athenian stage, Minos is a cruel tyrant,[5] the heartless exactor of the tribute of Athenian youths to feed to the Minotaur; in revenge for the death of his son Androgeus during a riot (see Theseus).[6]
Later rationalization
To reconcile the contradictory aspects of his character, as well as to explain how Minos governed Crete over a period spanning so many generations, two kings by the name of Minos were assumed by later poets and rationalizing mythologists, such as Diodorus Siculus[7] and Plutarch— "putting aside the mythological element," as he claims— in his life of Theseus.[8]
According to this view, the first King Minos was the son of Zeus and Europa and the brother of Rhadamanthys and
Lycastus had a son named Minos, after his grandfather, born by Lycastus' wife,
Family
By his wife, Pasiphaë (or some say Crete), he fathered Ariadne, Androgeus, Deucalion, Phaedra, Glaucus, Catreus, Acacallis, and Xenodice.
By a nymph, Pareia, he had four sons, Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaus, who Heracles killed in revenge for the murder of the latter's two companions.
By
By Androgeneia of
Minos, along with his brothers,
Mythological Minos
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Asterion, king of Crete, adopted the three sons of Zeus and Europa: Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus. According to the Odyssey (Book XIX l. 203, as interpreted by Plato in Laws 624), Minos consulted with Zeus every nine years. He got his laws straight from Zeus himself. When Minos' son Androgeos won the Panathenaic Games, the king, Aegeus, sent him to Marathon to fight a bull, resulting in the death of Androgeos. Outraged, Minos went to Athens to avenge his son, and on the way, he camped at Megara, where Nisos lived. Learning that Nisos' strength came from his hair, Minos gained the love of Scylla and her aid in cutting off her father's hair so that he could conquer the city. After his triumph, he punished Scylla for her treachery against her father by tying her to a boat and dragging her until she drowned. On arriving in Attica, he asked Zeus to punish the city, and the god struck it with plague and hunger. An oracle told the Athenians to meet any of Minos' demands if they wanted to escape the punishment. Minos then asked Athens to send seven boys and seven girls to Crete every nine years to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, the offspring from the zoophilic encounter of Minos' wife Pasiphaë with a certain bull that the king refused to surrender to Poseidon, which he had placed within a labyrinth he commanded his architect Daedalus to build. The Minotaur was defeated by the hero Theseus with the help of Minos' daughter Ariadne.
Glaucus
Glaucus was playing with a ball[16] or mouse[17] and suddenly disappeared one day. The Curetes told the Cretans, "A marvelous creature has been born amongst you: whoever finds the true likeness of this creature will also find the child."
Three times a day, the calf changed color from white to red to black.
Searching for the boy, Polyidus saw an owl driving bees away from a wine cellar in Minos' palace. Inside the wine cellar was a cask of honey, with Glaucus dead inside. Minos demanded Glaucus be brought back to life, though Polyidus objected. Minos ordered Polyidus to be entombed with the body. When a snake appeared nearby, Polyidus killed it immediately. Another snake came for the first, and after seeing its mate dead, the second serpent left and brought back an herb, bringing the first snake back to life. Following this example, Polyidus used the same herb to resurrect Glaucus.
Minos refused to let Polyidus leave Crete until he taught Glaucus the art of divination. Polyidus did so, but then, at the last moment before leaving, he asked Glaucus to spit in his mouth. Glaucus did so and forgot everything he had been taught.
Poseidon, Daedalus and Pasiphaë
Minos justified his accession as king and prayed to
Theseus
Minos' son
Nisus
Minos was also part of the King
Death
Minos searched for Daedalus by traveling from city to city, asking a riddle; he presented a spiral seashell and asked for it to be strung all the way through. When he reached Camicus, Sicily, King Cocalus, knowing Daedalus would be able to solve the riddle, fetched the old man. He tied the string to an ant, which walked through the seashell, stringing it all the way through. Minos then knew Daedalus was in the court of King Cocalus and demanded he is handed over. Cocalus managed to convince him to take a bath first; then Cocalus' daughters and Daedalus, with Minos trapped in the tub, scalded him to death with boiling water.[23]
After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in
Minos in art
On Cretan coins, Minos is represented as bearded, wearing a
In Michelangelo's famous fresco, The Last Judgment (located in the Sistine Chapel), Minos appears as a judge of the underworld, surrounded by a crowd of devils. With his tail coiled around him and two donkey ears (symbol of stupidity), Minos judges the damned as they are brought down to hell (see Inferno, Second Circle).
In poetry
In the Aeneid of Virgil, Minos was the judge of those who had been given the death penalty on a false charge - Minos sits with a huge urn and decides whether a soul should go to Elysium or Tartarus with the help of a silent jury. Radamanthus, his brother, is a judge at Tartarus who decides upon suitable punishments for sinners there.[26]
In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy story Inferno, Minos is depicted as having a snake-like tail. He sits at the entrance to the second circle in the Inferno, which is the beginning of Hell proper. There, he judges the sins of each soul and assigns it to its appropriate punishment by indicating the circle to which it must descend. He does this by circling his tail around his body the appropriate number of times. He can also speak to clarify the soul's location within the circle indicated by the wrapping of his tail.[27]
Astronomy
Minor planet 6239 Minos is named after Minos.[28]
See also
- Minos, a dialogue attributed to Plato
- Menes a pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt
- Chinvat Bridge, the bridge of the dead in Persian cosmology
- Sraosha, Mithra and Rashnu, guardians and judges of souls in Zoroastrian tradition
Notes
- ^ Jennifer R. March, Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Oxbow Books, 2014[1998], p. 146
- ^ Homer, Iliad 13.450; Odyssey 11.321.
- ^ a b Thucydides, 1.4.
- ^ Herodotus 3.122
- ^ Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth. Second ed. With new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1998, p. 346.
- ^ William Godwin (1876). "Lives of the Necromancers". p. 40.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4. 60. 3
- ^ Plutarch, Theseus §16 notes the discrepancy: "on the Attic stage Minos is always vilified... and yet Minos is said to have been a king and a lawgiver..." Lemprière A Classical Dictionary, s.v. "Minos" and "Minos II".
- ^ Horace, Odes 4.7.21.
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 14
- Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library 3.1.2.
- ^ Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 13. 220ff.
- Hyginus, Poetical Astronomy 2. 34
- ^ Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Pholegandros
- ^ Apollodorus, Library 3.1.3.
- ^ Hyginus, Fabula 136.
- ^ Apollodorus, Library 3.3.1.
- ^ Bibliotheke 3.1.3; compare Diodorus Siculus 4.77.2 and John Tzetzes, Chiliades i.479ff. Lactantius Placidus, commentary on Statius, Thebaid v.431, according to whom the bull was sent, in answer to Minos's prayer, not by Poseidon but by Jupiter.
- ^ The act would have "returned" the bull to the god who sent it.
- ^ Bibliotheke 3.1.4.
- Sir James George Frazer, (Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation, 1921), commenting on Bibliotheke 3.1.4.
- ^ Bibliotheke 3.15.8
- ^ Graves, Robert (1960). The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books pp. 313–314[ISBN missing]
- ^ Plato, Gorgias 523a and 524b ff (trans. Lamb)
- ^ Morris Eaves; Robert N. Essick; Joseph Viscomi (eds.). "Illustrations to Dante's "Divine Comedy", object 9 (Butlin 812.9) "Minos"". William Blake Archive. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
- ^ Aeneid VI, 568–572).
- ^ Inferno V, 4–24; XXVII, 124–127).
- ISBN 978-3-540-29925-7.
References
- Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
- Herodotus, Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley, Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
- Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PhD in two volumes, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
- Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.
- Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
- Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Minos 1.", "Minos 2."
- Thucydides, Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices, Volume 1., Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
- Ziolkowski, Theodore, Minos and the Moderns: Cretan Myth in Twentieth-century Literature and Art. (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Pp. xii, 173 (Classical Presences).
- Kelides,Yianni Minos SA: A study of the mind. (Minos SA University: I love Greece Club, 2000 BC). Pp. xii, 173 (Classical Presences).
External links
- Media related to Minos at Wikimedia Commons
- The death of Minos in Sicily