Religion, Death and Burial
Myths and Legends
Theseus and the Minotaur
According to Greek legend, Zeus seduced a Phoenician Princess named Europa. He then took her to the island of Crete and they had a son named Minos. Minos went on to become the king of Crete. He also married Pasiphae who was the daughter of Helios. According to Bacchylides, a Greek playwright, Minos controlled all of the seas that surrounded Crete.
Every year, Minos sacrificed the finest bull in his flock to the Greek gods. However, one year a magnificent bull appeared in his flock. However, Minos decided not to sacrifice this bull; instead, Minos sacrificed a lesser bull. The Gods became angry and Poseidon put a curse on Pasiphae. According to Apollodorus, Pasiphae asked Daedalus (an engineer) to build a wooden cow for her that was hollow on the inside. After Daedalus had built the cow, Pasiphae put some animal skin on it and hid inside it. After a short period of time, the magnificent bull appeared and made love to the “wooden cow”, i.e. Pasiphae!
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Asterius had the body of a man, but the head of a bull. As such, he was called the Minotaur. Minos did not like the Minotaur. As such, he asked Daedalus to build a giant maze, called a labyrinth, where he could imprison the bull.
Not long afterwards, Androgeos (the son of Minos and Pasiphae) went to Athens. However, Androgeos was killed by the Athenian King, Aegeus. According to Pausanias (a Greek historian), Minos sailed to Athens.He threatened to attack them unless they agreed to given him a tribute in return for the death of his son. The Athenians agreed to give Minos seven boys and seven girls every year as punishment for the death of Androgeos. Minos decided to feed these to the
The Minotaur, meaning Minos bull, was “a monster of dire appearance, having the body of a powerful man and the head of a bull” (Seltman 98). Against his newfound father’s request, Theseus leaves Athens in hopes of returning victorious against the bull-headed beast. In a heroic fashion, Theseus leaps over the next step in Campbell’s hero journey and never refuses his call to adventure. The next step to any hero’s journey is an encounter with a super natural aid, but Theseus’ story takes a moral mentor to gather resources needed for the rest of his journey (Robertson 269). Theseus encounters his unlikely mentor upon arriving to Crete; Minos daughter, Ariadne, instructs Theseus to take a ball of linen with him into the labyrinth in order to trace back his steps after defeating the Minotaur (Martin 129). Crossing the threshold, Theseus ties one end of his ball of linen to the front door and journeys into the unconquerable maze and towards the beast (129). Theseus passes through his first trial of navigating the labyrinth inwards with ease straight into danger. Walking
The Minotaur was a part man, part bull monster, and Polyphemus was a giant cyclopes. This paper will discuss how they are alike and different.
The monsters names are The Minotaur and the Polyphemus. The Minotaur is a Greek Monsters that lives in a maze called the Labyrinth. He is part man, part bull and the King of the Athenaeus had gave it sacrifices of 7 boys and 7 girls. He got defeated by Theseus the king's son he defeated him by using a wool of string which was given to him by the king's daughter. He made it through the maze and back out without getting eaten. The Cyclops name is Polyphemus he lives on an island where he lives in a cave and were he tends his sheep. But one day after walking his sheep he found “The Odysseus” and his men in his cave eating his food. He locked them in and ate them they escaped Polyphemus by stabbing his eye and Odysseus men escaped by hiding under
On an island called Crete there was a giant minotaur who would eat any human he came across. King Minos was asked by the people of his island to kill the minotaur but he decided to capture it so he could punish his enemies by letting them face the minotaur. He ordered Daedalus who was a skilled craftsman to build a labyrinth that would be impossible to escape. Daedalus completed the labyrinth and lured the minotaur inside with a giant piece of meat. The king figured he had no use for Daedalus after the labyrinth was complete so he threw Daedalus into the labyrinth with his son Icarus. He believed that Daedalus and Icarus would both be eaten by the minotaur. However, they escaped because Daedalus knew his way around the labyrinth since he built
His affair with a woman named Leto led to the birth of the twins Apollo and Artemis. Hera being the jealous wife she was, forced Leto to roam the earth in search of a place to give birth, for Hera had stopped her from gaining shelter on land or at sea. The only place she could go was to the isle of Delos in the middle of the Aegean Sea, for Delos was a floating island. This would be one of many of Hera’s revenges on her husband’s affairs. Zeus used many different disguises to seduce women. When he seduced the Spartan queen Leda, he transformed himself into a beautiful swan, and from the egg which Leda produced, two sets of twins were born. They were Polydeuces and Castor and Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy. He also visited princess Danae as a shower of gold, and from this, the hero Perseus was born. He kidnapped the Phoenician princess Europa, disguised as a bull, then carried her on his back to the island of Crete where she had three sons. They were Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. These were just some of his many children. Zeus had many Temples and festivals in his honor, the most famous was Olympia, the magnificent "Temple of Zeus", which held the gold and ivory statue of the enthroned Zeus, which was sculpted by Phidias. It was later to become one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". Also the Olympic Games and many other numerous festivals throughout Greece were held in
Daedalus: He is an architect that build the labyrinth that the Minotaur lived in under the order of King Minos of
named the minotaur. The minotaur lived in the center of a maze like structure called a
Daedalus was an Athenian artisan. One day his nephew Talos invented a special saw and since Daedalus was jealous, he threw him off Acropolis. When Athena saw him falling, he was made a partridge instead. Daedalus then left the island and headed to Crete. In Crete he showed King Minos the saw and he made a wooden cow costume for the queen, Pasiphae. After Daedalus built the Labyrinth to keep the Minotaur in, King Minos put Daedalus and his son Icarus in it. Icarus then suggested for his father to make wings for them so they can escape and soar away. They then flew out together and were noticed by different people. While Daedalus closed his eyes, Icarus was curious about the sun and, ignoring his father’s directions. After the sun evaporates
Have you ever heard of the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur? The Minotaur was a great beast, that lived on the Island of Crete, ruled by King Minos. The story of the Minotaur has been around for about 3,000 years. The tale of Theseus and the Minotaur is a fabulous story of terror, joy, and then sorrow. The story of Minotaur is arguably one of the most popular of the Greek myths, and has been alluded to in countless works of art, literature, and music.
Theseus, the leader of Athens, is going down a road and he sees four women crying on their knees. He asks them why they are crying and they say that their husbands were killed at the siege of Thebes and Creon, ruler of Thebes, would not let their husband’s remains be recovered from the field (912-951). He heard this and was so emotionally moved that he decided to march on Thebes and take back their bodies. He lead his army to Thebes and captured Thebes. After the battle he saw two men from Thebes who were barely alive named Arcite and Palamon. Theseus took them to his tent and had them healed but they were confined to a prison in Athens after Theseus withdrew from Thebes. While in the tower Palamon was pacing around his cell and he saw Emelye
When Minos learned Asterion’s true origin, he locked him in the catacombs under the castle. Asterion’s true origin was that he is half human, half bull and a real monster. Labyrinth was the castle he was locked in. The Monster is Revealed
Thales and Heraclitus, two Pre-Socratic philosophers, proposed two notable, but very different, belief systems to explain the world around them. Thales, the first Western philosopher, introduced a non-mythological way of viewing the world. Prior to Thales, the Greeks believed their gods controlled all natural forces. However, Thales philosophized that everything originated from some fundamental substance. He reasoned that this substance must be water. He based his belief on the idea that this fundamental substance needed to be both flexible and appear in different forms. Although, Thales' s water theory proved incorrect, his belief that the world could be explained in a simpler, non-divine manner opened the door for metaphysics and science.
Once upon a time in ancient Greece, there lived two brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus. These two brothers were among the kind of humans who often upsets or even angered the Gods due to the reckless behaviors. Prometheus was the more reckless and cunning of the two since he stole the fire from Hephaestus in the Isle of Lemnos. Zeus, the King of Gods, was so furious, and he wanted to punish the two brothers. He came up with a plan to give them a beautiful woman named Pandora to lure them.
King Minos hires Daedalus to build a labyrinth for the Minotaur, the Bull of Minos. The king was worried that Daedalus would reveal the secret of the labyrinth, so he kept him prisoner. Daedalus gets an idea of flying away. Daedalus makes wings for himself and for his son, Icarus. Daedalus warns him not to be reckless.
Several monsters such as the Minotaur, Medusa, and centaurs appear to be partially human. These monsters have human characteristics because the gods decided to create them that way. The Minotaur has the head of a bull with the body of a man. He was born as the offspring of Minos’ wife and a beautiful white bull sent by Poseidon (Hamilton 157). Poseidon forced Minos’ wife to love the bull. Their offspring was the