The Minotaur was monsters of Greek mythology, a half-man, half-bull creature born to Queen Pasiphaë of Crete, who conceived him after Poseidon cursed her to fall in love with a magnificent white bull. The creature was confined by King Minos in the Labyrinth, a vast maze designed by Daedalus, where it was fed a tribute of seven young men and seven young women sent every nine years (or, in some versions, every year) from Athens. The Minotaur was finally killed by Theseus, the prince of Athens, with the help of Minos’s daughter Ariadne. The Minotaur has become an enduring symbol of bestial appetites trapped by civilization, and the Labyrinth a symbol of confusion, complexity, and the unconscious.
The Minotaur is the half-man, half-bull creature of the Cretan myth, the son of Pasiphaë and the magnificent white bull sent to King Minos by Poseidon. The myth is the foundation story of Minoan Crete in the Greek imagination, and it is closely tied to the historical archaeology of Knossos, where the so-called labyrinth is a probable later Greek reading of the Minoan palace complex. The standard ancient source is the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus (3.1.3–3.3.1), which is the most complete account; Plutarch’s Life of Theseus gives the most complete version of the Theseus story; the Iliad contains the canonical reference to the Ariadne-Theseus thread (Book XVIII, the Shield of Achilles).
The Birth of the Minotaur
The Minotaur was the son of Pasiphaë, the wife of King Minos of Crete, and a magnificent white bull. Pasiphaë had fallen in love with the bull because Poseidon had cursed her. The cause was a dispute between Minos and Poseidon. Minos had prayed to Poseidon for a sign that he should be king of Crete, and Poseidon sent a beautiful white bull from the sea. Minos was to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon, but he refused and kept it for himself. Poseidon, in revenge, made Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull.
To satisfy her unnatural desire, Pasiphaë asked Daedalus, the great Athenian craftsman, to build her a hollow wooden cow. She climbed into the cow and mated with the bull. From this union was born the Minotaur, a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. The child was called the Minotaur, which means “the bull of Minos.”
The Labyrinth
The Minotaur was not a tame creature. He was a man-eater, and King Minos was determined to keep him confined. He asked Daedalus, the great Athenian craftsman who had designed the wooden cow, to build a prison for the creature. Daedalus designed the Labyrinth, a vast maze of winding passages and dead ends, with no exit, located beneath the palace of Knossos.
The Labyrinth was so complex that no one who entered it could find his way out, even Daedalus himself. The Minotaur was put into the Labyrinth, where he wandered, eating the tribute victims sent by Athens.
The Tribute of Athens
The tribute of Athens to Crete was the result of a different crime. Androgeus, the son of King Minos, had been killed while competing in the Panathenaic Games in Athens. Some sources say he was killed by the bull of Marathon, others that he was murdered by jealous Athenians. In any case, Minos blamed the Athenians and prayed to Zeus for vengeance. Zeus sent a plague and a famine on Athens, and Minos attacked the city, forcing it to become a tributary state of Crete.
The tribute was seven young men and seven young women, sent every nine years (or, in some versions, every year) to be fed to the Minotaur. The Athenians had no choice but to comply, and the tribute was a source of constant grief for the city.
Theseus and the Tribute
Theseus, the prince of Athens, was the son of King Aegeus. When the time came for the third tribute, Theseus volunteered to be one of the victims. His plan was to kill the Minotaur and end the tribute. He sailed to Crete with the other victims, with black sails as a sign of mourning, and promised his father that he would change them to white if he succeeded.
When Theseus arrived in Crete, he caught the eye of Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos. Ariadne fell in love with him and agreed to help him. She consulted Daedalus, who told her to give Theseus a ball of thread. Theseus tied one end of the thread at the entrance of the Labyrinth and unwound the rest as he went deeper into the maze.
At the center of the Labyrinth, Theseus found the Minotaur. The monster charged, but Theseus, with the favor of Athena, grabbed the creature by the horns and wrestled it. He then killed it, either by crushing it in a wrestling hold or by stabbing it with a sword (the source of the famous “Sword of Theseus” myth). The Minotaur was dead.
The Escape from the Labyrinth
Theseus followed the thread back out of the Labyrinth, finding his way to the entrance. He and the other Athenian victims, along with Ariadne, escaped from Crete and sailed for Athens. The Minotaur’s reign of terror was over, and the tribute of Athens ended.
The Abandonment of Ariadne
The most poignant part of the Minotaur myth is the abandonment of Ariadne. According to the most common version, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos while she slept. He either forgot her, was forced to leave her by the gods, or was unfaithful. According to another version, Dionysus appeared and claimed Ariadne as his bride.
Ariadne eventually married Dionysus and was made immortal. She was placed among the stars as the constellation Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, and her wedding with Dionysus was celebrated in the festivals of the Dionysia.
The Death of Aegeus
The most tragic part of the Theseus myth is the death of his father Aegeus. When Theseus sailed from Crete, he had agreed with Aegeus to hoist white sails on his ship if he was victorious. If he had failed, the ship would return with the black sails of mourning.
Theseus did kill the Minotaur, but in his joy, he forgot to change the sails. When Aegeus saw the black sails approaching from the citadel of Athens, he was overcome with grief and threw himself into the sea, which was thereafter called the Aegean Sea in his memory. The black-sails story has been retold in countless variations, and it has become one of the iconic tragic moments of Greek myth.
The Aftermath of the Minotaur’s Death
The Minotaur’s death did not end the troubles of Crete. King Minos was furious at Theseus for killing the creature and at Ariadne for helping him. He imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth. Daedalus, the great craftsman, fashioned wings of feathers and wax for himself and Icarus, and they escaped. Icarus, ignoring his father’s warning, flew too close to the sun, and the wax of his wings melted. He fell into the sea, which was called the Icarian Sea in his memory. Daedalus flew on to Sicily, where he was welcomed by King Cocalus.
The death of the Minotaur also did not end the legacy of the bull of Crete. The Minotaur’s father, the Cretan Bull, was captured by Heracles as his seventh Labor and released, and it roamed through Marathon, terrorizing the region, until it was finally killed by Theseus.
The Minotaur in Greek Art and Archaeology
The myth of the Minotaur was a popular subject in Greek art, particularly in pottery and sculpture. The bull-leaping frescoes of the Minoan palace at Knossos, dating to around 1500 BCE, show young men and women grasping the horns of bulls and vaulting over their backs. These images may have inspired the Minotaur myth, and they suggest a deep prehistoric connection between Crete and bull-worship.
The archaeological site of Knossos, excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in the early 20th century, has been called the Labyrinth. The palace of Knossos is a vast complex of corridors, staircases, and chambers, and it is easy to see how it could have inspired the myth of a vast and confusing maze. The “throne room” of the palace, the “queen’s megaron,” and the numerous storage rooms have all been interpreted in light of the Minotaur myth.
The Legacy of the Minotaur
The Minotaur is the subject of Mary Renault’s The King Must Die (1958) and the 2006 Stephen King novel The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, a recurring character in the Percy Jackson series, and a sympathetic character (Asterion) in the Hades video game (2018). The labyrinth motif has been a major image in the modern novel since Borges. For the broader modern reception, see our guide to Greek mythology in modern culture.
A Note on Reading This Profile
A note on reading this profile. The Minotaur of the Greek sources is a much more bestial figure than the Minotaur of the modern popular reception, which has been softened by many later retellings. The Bibliotheca of Apollodorus (3.1.3–3.3.1) is the most complete account, and the older version, in Bacchylides 17 (the Theseia), is shorter and more savage. The Asterion of the modern video game Hades (2018, Supergiant Games) is a sympathetic character, but the Greek Minotaur is not.