In the middle of the labyrinth, Theseus confronted the
beast and killed it with a blow from his father’s golden
sword. He then retraced his steps with the body of the
Minotaur by following Ariadne’s thread, until he finally
emerged from the entrance to the maze. His fellow
Athenians rejoiced when they saw that Theseus had been
victorious and quickly ran to their ship to set sail for home,
Theseus taking Ariadne with him. In the excitement, they
forgot to hoist the white sails to signal Theseus’s success.TRAGIC ENDINGS
On the way home, they called at the island of Naxos for
water. When they returned to the ship, Theseus
abandoned Ariadne on the island, sailing away
without her. Some say that he did this since
he already had a wife at home; others
that Dionysus spotted Ariadne on the
island, fell in love with her, and put a
spell on Theseus, making him forget
her. After marrying Ariadne, Dionysus
gave her a crown made of seven stars.
As the ship approached Athens, Aegeus
was watching anxiously for his son from a
clif-top. He saw the black sails from afar
and assumed that Theseus had been killed.
Overcome with grief, he flung himself into
the sea, never to know of his son’s success.The Minotaur was a monstrous flesh-eating creature, half man,
half bull. Minos, the King of Crete, kept it imprisoned in a
labyrinth near his palace. According to a treaty between Minos
and Aegeus, the King of Athens, 14 young people had to be sent
every year from Athens to be devoured by it. But the Greek hero
Theseus resolved to kill the creature and put an end to the carnage.THE MYTH
The sea god Poseidon once gave a white bull, known as
the Cretan Bull, to King Minos. However, when the king
decided to keep the beast rather than sacrificing it, Poseidon
was angered. He asked Aphrodite, the goddess of love,
to make Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull
as punishment. This union produced a beast called the
Minotaur, which had a monstrous appetite for human flesh.
King Minos wanted to avenge the death of his son at the
hands of the Athenians. He waged a war on King Aegeus
of Athens and won. As compensation, he demanded that
14 young people be sent from Athens each year to feed
the Minotaur. Aegeus’s son, Theseus, decided to go to Crete
as one of the ill-fated people, and kill the beast. The ship
carrying Theseus and the other victims set sail from Athens
with black sails, and the hero promised his father that he
would return with white sails hoisted on his ship
if he succeeded in killing the Minotaur.THESEUS ON CRETE
When the Athenians arrived at Crete,
Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, saw Theseus
and fell in love with him. She knew
that Theseus would need help in finding
his way out of the impenetrable labyrinth,
once he had slain the creature. So Ariadne
gave him a spindle wound with woollen
thread. As Theseus made his way into the
labyrinth, he unwound the thread behind
him, so that it would mark his winding path
and show him how to exit the labyrinth.Theseus and the Minotaur
Theseus kills the Minotaur
The Minotaur almost managed to
defeat Theseus in battle, but the
hero fought courageously and
stabbed the monster with his sword.CLASSICAL EUROPE Leaving the labyrinth
The central portion of this vessel from Greece
shows Theseus dragging his dead victim out
of its prison as he retraces his steps through
the labyrinth using Ariadne’s thread.36