[535] Pausan. vii. 4, 5; Schol. Pindar. Nem. iv. 95; Hygin. fab. 44; Conon, Narr. 25; Ovid, Ibis, 291.—
“Vel tua maturet, sicut Minoia fata, Per caput infusæ fervidus humor aquæ.”
This story formed the subject of a lost drama of Sophoklês, Καμίκιοι or Μίνως; it was also told by Kallimachus, ἐν Αἰτίοις, as well as by Philostephanus (Schol. Iliad, ii. 145).
[536] This curious and very characteristic narrative is given by Herodot. vii. 169-171.
[537] Herodot. vii. 169. The answer ascribed to the Delphian oracle, on the question being put by the Krêtan envoys whether it would be better for them to aid the Greeks against Xerxês or not, is highly emphatic and poetical: Ὦ νήπιοι, ἐπιμέμφεσθε ὅσα ὑμῖν ἐκ τῶν Μενελέω τιμωρημάτων Μίνως ἔπεμψε μηνίων δακρύματα, ὅτι οἱ μὲν οὐ ξυνεξεπρήξαντο αὐτῷ τὸν ἐν Καμίκῳ θάνατον γενόμενον, ὑμεῖς δὲ κείνοισι τὴν ἐκ Σπάρτης ἁρπασθεῖσαν ὑπ᾽ ἀνδρὸς βαρβάρου γυναῖκα.
If such an answer was ever returned at all, I cannot but think that it must have been from some oracle in Krête itself, not from Delphi. The Delphian oracle could never have so far forgotten its obligations to the general cause of Greece, at that critical moment, which involved moreover the safety of all its own treasures, as to deter the Krêtans from giving assistance.
Such is the Minôs of the poets and logographers, with his legendary and romantic attributes: the familiar comrade of the great Zeus,—the judge among the dead in Hadês,—the husband of Pasiphaê, daughter of the god Hêlios,—the father of the goddess Ariadnê, as well as of Androgeos, who perishes and is worshipped at Athens,[538] and of the boy Glaukus, who is miraculously restored to life by a prophet,—the person beloved by Scylla, and the amorous pursuer of the nymph or goddess Britomartis,[539]—the proprietor of the Labyrinth and of the Minôtaur, 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 Dædalus to Kamikus, and the victim of the three ill-disposed daughters of Kokalus in a bath. With this strongly-marked portrait, the Minôs of Thucydidês and Aristotle has scarcely anything in common except the name. He is the first to acquire _Thalassokraty_, or command of the Ægean sea: he expels 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 attempts to conquer Sicily, but fails in the enterprise and perishes.[540] 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 Minôs.