The Minotaur: The Greek Myth Of Ancient Greece

Greek Myths

Day 1

The Minotaur: The Minotaur was a creature that from his shoulders down was a man, and from his shoulders up was a bull. But understand that the bull head was not the size of a man’s head. It was three times as wide as an adult man’s shoulders. This myth comes from the island of Crete. If you know your geography, Crete is an island off the coast of Greece in the Mediterranean sea. Now, Greece and Crete were enemies and often fought great battles. But Crete was just a tiny island nation compared to Greece and so the king of Crete, Minos, called on Poseidon, the god of the sea – since the island was surrounded by water - to come to his aid. Minos stood down on the beach and called to Poseidon promising he would do anything in order to be protected from attack

How would you react if you had a minotaur for a son? He thought about sending the minotaur away, but realized that it would just upset Poseidon more, and he didn’t want his island to go sinking to the bottom of the sea. He thought about training the minotaur to be a soldier to fight against the Greeks. This seemed like a great idea, until they discovered the minotaur had a slight problem. He like to eat human flesh. So the Minotaur went tearing around the island eating everyone he came across. This really upset Minos and he decided that something must be done. So he had a labyrinth built beneath the city. For those of you who have never been in a labyrinth, it is a giant maze that is nearly impossible to solve. Thus the minotaur was trapped beneath the city. However, the minotaur was not happy with this arrangement and tried beating down the walls of the labyrinth. This was not good because if the labyrinth fell, all of the city would fall with it. And Minos didn’t really want to sink to the bottom of the sea. So, he thought and thought and decided that maybe they should start sacrificing to the minotaur to keep him