Asterius the Minotaur

[3.1.1] Having now run over the family of Inachus and described them from Belus down to the Heraclids, we have next to speak of the house of Agenor.

Libya had by Poseidon two sons:

1. Belus
2. Agenor.

Belus reigned over the Egyptians and begat the aforesaid sons.

but Agenor went to Phoenicia, married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix.2 But some say that Europa was a daughter not of Agenor but of Phoenix.

Zeus loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the sea to Crete.4

There Zeus bedded with her, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys5

But according to Homer, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophon.6

On the disappearance of Europa her father Agenor sent out his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found Europa.

With them her mother, Telephassa, and Thasus, son of Poseidon, or according to Pherecydes, of Cilix, went forth in search of her.

But when, after diligent search, they could not find Europa, they gave up the thought of returning home, and took up their abode in divers places; Phoenix settled in Phoenicia; Cilix settled near Phoenicia, and all the country subject to himself near the river Pyramus he called Cilicia.

Cadmus and Telephassa took up their abode in Thrace and in like manner Thasus founded a city Thasus in an island off Thrace and dwelt there.8

[3.1.2] Asterius was the prince of the Cretans. He married Europa and brought up her children.

But when they were grown up, they quarrelled with each other for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of Apollo by Aria, daughter of Cleochus.

The boy was more friendly to Sarpedon, and so Minos went to war and had the better of it.

The others fled.

Miletus landed in Caria and there founded a city which he called Miletus after himself.

Sarpedon allied himself with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians.

After stipulating for a share of the country, he became king of Lycia.

Zeus granted him to live for 3 generations.

But some say that they loved Atymnius, the son of Zeus and Cassiepea, and that it was about him that they quarrelled.

Rhadamanthys legislated for the islanders12 but afterwards he fled to Boeotia and married Alcmena13; and since his departure from the world he acts as judge in Hades along with Minos. Minos, residing in Crete, passed laws, and married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun14 and Perseis;

But Asclepiades says that his wife was Crete, daughter of Asterius.

He begat:

• sons: Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, Androgeus
• daughters: Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne, Phaedra

By a nymph Paria, he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaus.

By Dexithea, he had Euxanthius.

[3.1.3] Asterius died childless, so Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed.

So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done.

He sacrificed to Poseidon praying that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared.

Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom.

But he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another.

[Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over almost all the islands.]17

[3.1.4] But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it.

In her love for the bull, she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect, who had been banished from Athens for murder.

He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze.

Then he introduced Pasiphae into it. The bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow.

She gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur.

He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human.

Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber “that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way.”

[3.2.1] But Catreus, son of Minos, had three daughters, Aerope, Clymene, and Apemosyne, and a son, Althaemenes.22 When Catreus inquired of the oracle how his life should end, the god said that he would die by the hand of one of his children.

Catreus hid the oracles, but Althaemenes heard of them, and fearing to be his father’s murderer, he set out from Crete with his sister Apemosyne, and put in at a place in Rhodes, and having taken possession of it he called it Cretinia.

Having ascended the mountain called Atabyrium, he beheld the islands round about; and descrying Crete also and calling to mind the gods of his fathers he founded an altar of Atabyrian Zeus.23 But not long afterwards he became the murderer of his sister.

For Hermes loved her, and as she fled from him and he could not catch her, because she excelled him in speed of foot, he spread fresh hides on the path, on which, returning from the spring, she slipped and so was deflowered. She revealed to her brother what had happened, but he, deeming the god a mere pretext, kicked her to death.

[3.2.2] And Catreus gave Aerope and Clymene to Nauplius to sell into foreign lands; and of these two Aerope became the wife of Plisthenes, who begat Agamemnon and Menelaus; and Clymene became the wife of Nauplius, who became the father of Oeax and Palamedes. But afterwards in the grip of old age Catreus yearned to transmit the kingdom to his son Althaemenes, and went for that purpose to Rhodes. And having landed from the ship with the heroes at a desert place of the island, he was chased by the cowherds, who imagined that they were pirates on a raid. He told them the truth, but they could not hear him for the barking of the dogs, and while they pelted him Althaemenes arrived and killed him with the cast of a javelin, not knowing him to be Catreus. Afterwards when he learned the truth, he prayed and disappeared in a chasm.