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Battaglia Summary-04

The Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur reflects tensions between the Mycenaeans and Minoans. The myth depicts the Minotaur as having a bull's head and human body, reflecting the Mycenaean view of Minoans as barbaric. Theseus slays the Minotaur, reflecting the later Mycenaean invasion and takeover of the Minoan civilization.

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Emma Battaglia
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21 views3 pages

Battaglia Summary-04

The Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur reflects tensions between the Mycenaeans and Minoans. The myth depicts the Minotaur as having a bull's head and human body, reflecting the Mycenaean view of Minoans as barbaric. Theseus slays the Minotaur, reflecting the later Mycenaean invasion and takeover of the Minoan civilization.

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Emma Battaglia
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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E.

Battaglia

Although myths do not give an accurate account of the events that occurred within a

civilization, studying them alongside the history of a civilization can be helpful because they

might reflect certain aspects of that civilization.

The Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is one such myth: one of Minos’s sons was

wandering within Mycenaean borders when a some Mycenaeans came upon him and killed him.

News of his death eventually made its way back to Minos at Knossos. Minos, angered by the loss

of his son, decided to impose a wergild upon the people of Mycenae for the murder they had

committed. This wergild demanded that Mycenae provide live bodies to sustain the Minotaur—a

beast with the head of a bull and the body of a man—which dwelled within a labyrinth under the

palace at Knossos.1

Athens was to be the city to supply these “live boys and girls.”2 The people of Athens

sent their sons and daughters across the water to Crete for two horrible years. The Athenian

parents grew increasingly bitter over the apparent helplessness of their king Aegeus and his

inaction as the Athenians carried out the dreaded task of sending their children away to die at the

hand of a beast. Theseus, Aegeus’s son, however, had what his father lacked: the courage to take

up arms against King Minos’s tyranny, which had caused much suffering among the Athenians;

the courage to slay the Minotaur.3 Theseus joins the boys and girls on the boat headed for Crete,

promising Aegeus that if he survives, he would use a white sail coming back to Mycenae, but if

he was dead, they will use the black sail instead.4

When Theseus arrives at the Palace at Knossos, Ariadne took a fancy to Theseus and

gave him a ball of string. When he arrived at the labyrinth below the Palace at Knossos, he tied

the end of the ball of string to the door of the labyrinth and rolled it to find the centre of the
labyrinth and the Minotaur’s lair. Once he reached the Minotaur’s lair, he slayed the beast and

fled Crete taking the other prisoners with him. However, in the excitement of his victory, he

forgets to put up the white sails, and when he approaches the port of Mycenae, King Aegeus,

seeing the black sail, believes that Theseus did not survive, and commits suicide. When Theseus

arrived, his victory was met with sorrow.5

The myth of Theseus displays the Mycenaeans’—and later the Hellenes’—opinion of the

Minoans. The depiction of the Minotaur as a beast with the head of a bull and the body of a man

brings out the Mycenaean opinion that the Minoans were barbaric and uncivilized. The Minoans

worshipped bulls and the Palace at Knossos had many images, carvings, and sculptures depicting

them. The fact that the Hellenes chose to give the beast a bull’s head demonstrates a hatred of the

Minoans by putting the central aspect of the Minoan religion into a negative light.

The myth also reflects the competition between the Mycenaeans and the Minoans. The

Minoans dominated trade with Mycenae. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur reflects this

dominance with Minos’s wergild, carried out by the Athenians. The ships that sent the Athenian

boys and girls to Crete to feed the Minotaur reflect the goods that Mycenae sent to Crete. The

tense relations between Mycenae and the Minoans depicted in the myth reflect the historical

conflicts between these two cultures. Theseus’s invasion into Knossos and his subsequent

success in slaying the Minotaur reflects the invasion and take-over of the Minoan Civilization by

the Mycenaeans.6

Through studying myths like that of Theseus and the Minotaur, one can not only see

parallels between different aspects of a civilization’s culture and the events surrounding said

civilization, but also shed light on the attitudes and perspectives of the people within the

civilization.
1
1. Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007), 225.
2
2. Ibid.
3
3. Ibid.
4
4. Ibid.
5
5. Ibid, 226.
6
6. Ibid, 225-228.

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