Tribute to Minos and the Voyage to Crete
Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/053-tribute-minos-voyage-crete-apollodorus
Cycle: Heroes — Theseus
Version line: Apollodorean (Androgeus’s death; Athenian tribute of youths and maidens; Theseus volunteers)
Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 3.15.7–8; *Epitome* 1.7–9; Plutarch, *Life of Theseus* 15–17
Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/053-tribute-minos-voyage-crete-apollodorus.md
Characters
- Aegeus — responsible for Androgeus’s death in the Attic version; agrees to the tribute; sets the sail-signal
- Amphitrite — in Bacchylides 17, authenticate Theseus underwater
- Androgeus — son of Minos; killed in Attica; cause of the war and tribute
- Asterion — monster that receives the tribute in the Labyrinth
- Fourteen Athenian youths and maidens — tribute victims; companions of Theseus
- Minos — king of Crete; exacts the tribute after Androgeus’s death; master of the sea
- Pallantidai — rival context for Androgeus’s death in some tellings
- Pasiphaë — mother of the Minotaur (background to the tribute’s purpose)
- Theseus — volunteers among the tribute; sails for Crete; (in Bacchylides) proves Poseidon’s paternity at sea
Places
- Labyrinth — Daedalus’s prison for the Minotaur (next entry)
- Oenone — Minos’s court; destination of the tribute
- Olympia — city under tribute; departure of the black-sailed ship
- Rhamnus — alternate site of Androgeus’s death by the bull
- Sea between Athens and Crete — Bacchylides’s dive; Minos’s maritime empire
Themes
Narrative
Androgeus, son of Minos, came to Athens and won the Panathenaic games (or was sent against the Marathonian bull). Aegeus, jealous or fearing conspiracy with the Pallantidai, had him killed—or Androgeus died fighting the bull. Minos, already master of the sea, made war on Athens. After plague and famine, the Athenians consulted an oracle and submitted to Minos’s terms: every nine years (or every year, in some counts) they must send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete as tribute, to be shut in the Labyrinth for the Minotaur—the bull-headed offspring of Pasiphaë and the Cretan bull.
When the third tribute (or the due sailing) came round, the victims were chosen by lot. Theseus volunteered to go, either by lot among the others or as a free substitute, promising Aegeus he would end the tribute. Aegeus gave the ship a white (or red) sail to hoist on return if Theseus lived, and kept a black sail as the default of mourning; Theseus was to change the sail if he survived. The ship sailed from Athens under a black sail. On the voyage Bacchylides has Minos challenge Theseus’s claim to be Poseidon’s son; Theseus dives for a ring, and amphitrites and dolphins of the sea-god’s house prove him. The ship reached Cnossus. The tribute voyage thus opens the Labyrinth adventure and plants the sail-signal that will kill Aegeus on the return.