the proprietor of the Labyrinth and of the Minotaur, and the
exacter of a periodical tribute of youths and maidens from Athens
as food for this monster, lastly, the follower of the fugitive
artist Daedalus to Kamikus, and the victim of the three ill-dis
posed daughters of Kokalus in a bath. With this strongly-
marked portrait, the Minos of Thucydidês and Aristotle has
scarcely anything in common except the name. He is the first
to acquire Thalassokraty, or command of the Ægaean sea : he ex-
pels the Karian inhabitants from the Cyclades islands, and sends
thither fresh colonists under his own sons ; he puts down piracy,
in order that he may receive his tribute regularly ; lastly, he at-
tempts to conquer Sicily, but fails in the enterprise and perishes.[1]
Here we have conjectures, derived from the analogy of the
Athenian maritime empire in the historical times, substituted in
place of the fabulous incidents, and attached to the name of
Minos.
In the fable, a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens is paid to him periodically by the Athenians ; in the historicized narrative this character of a tribute-collector is preserved, but the tribute is money collected from dependent islands;[2] and Aris-
- ↑
1 Thuycd. i. 4. (
Greek characters)
See also c. 8.
Aristot. Polit. ii. 7, 2, (Greek characters)
Ephorns (ap. Skymn. Chi. 542) repeated the same statement: he mentioned also the autochthonous king Kres.
- ↑ It is curious that Herodotus expressly denies this, and in language which shows that he had made special inquiries about it : he says that the Karians or Leleges in the islands (who were, according to Thucydides, expelled by Minos) paid no tribute to Minos, but manned his navy, i. e. they stood to Minos much in the same relation as Chios and Lesbos stood to Athena (Herodot. i. 171). One may trace here the influence of those discussions
the strange contradiction of the legends concerning Minos : I agree with Hoeckh (Kreta, ii. p. 93) that (
Greek characters) in this passage refers to the tribute exacted from Athens for the Minotaur.
