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Know the Myth of the Minotaur

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Myth of the Minotaur: short summary

In the Ancient Greece Myths were very common, there being an endless number of different stories where truth and mythology come together to form great stories, some with greater reality than others. One of these stories is the one that surrounds the Minotaur, a classic monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, and his confrontation in Crete against Theseus. To get to know this character better, today in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we are going to offer you a short summary of the myth of the Minotaur.

The Minotaur was son of the Bull of Crete and Pasiphae. The first being a bull brought to life by Poseidon, which had to be stopped by Heracles due to the problems they caused in Crete. While Pasiphae was a daughter of Helios and a nymph, she was married to King Minos of Crete.

There are many different versions of why both parents had the Minotaur. The most widespread version is that King Minos asked Poseidon for help In order for the people to acclaim him as his new king, the god of the sea answered his prayers, taking the Bull of Crete out of the sea and asking him to sacrifice it in his honor.

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Minos sacrificed another bull, since he had been in awe of the great bull, and Poseidon took revenge on the king by making his wife Pasífae fell in love with the Cretan Bull.

Here we leave you a list of the Gods of Greek mythology more important.

Myth of the Minotaur: short summary - Origin of the Minotaur according to Ancient Greece

Image: Slideshare

To continue with this short summary of the myth of the Minotaur we must talk about how this beast got to the labyrinth and what its role was once there.

From the beginning, the Minotaur became a huge problem, as it could only be fed by human food, growing little by little, and getting even wilder. That is why the Cretans spoke with Daedalus, the best craftsman in all of Greece, and the only person they considered that he was capable of creating something to stop the Minotaur.

Daedalus created the Cretan Labyrinth to stop the beast, being a huge structure full of paths that intersect with each other, leaving the Minotaur in the center of it.

Around the same time, Minos attacked and surrendered Athens, because the Athenians had killed the son of the king of Crete. As a tribute, Minos asked that every certain time the Athenians should send 7 maids and 7 male adolescents to the labyrinth, so that they were sacrificed by the Minotaur.

Myth of the Minotaur: short summary - The Minotaur and the labyrinth

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This tradition lasted many years, in which 14 Athenians were sacrificed to the minotaur and it was not until the arrival of Theseus that all this ended. Theseus was a king of Athens, son of Poseidon or Aegean, depending on the sources we consult, considered one of the greatest heroes in all of Greek mythology. Theseus' idea was to kill the Minotaur, thereby achieving free the people from him from the punishment imposed by King Minos.

There are different stories about how Theseus came to enter the labyrinth, one of them tells that Theseus offered himself as one of the sacrifices to enter, while other stories speak that it was Minos who chose Theseus, since he was a very important figure of Athens.

Upon reaching Crete, Theseus and the rest of the sacrifices met King Minos and his daughter Ariadne, who fell madly in love with Theseus. Ariadne asked Theseus not to enter the labyrinth, but Theseus was sure that he could kill the Minotaur. Ariadne trusted that Theseus could kill the beast, but she feared that later he would not be able to escape, so she asked Daedalus for help, who He said that Theseus should enter the labyrinth with a ball of wool, so when he killed the Minotaur he should only follow the thread until he left the labyrinth. labyrinth.

Theseus went through the whole labyrinth until he reached where the Minotaur was, killing him with great effort. After this, the Greek hero followed the thread of the ball that Ariadne had given him, leaving the labyrinth alive. After killing him, Theseus fled from Crete, being accompanied by the Athenians who had traveled with him and by Ariadne.

Myth of the Minotaur: short summary - Theseus and the end of the Minotaur

Image: SlidePlayer

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