Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1105

Rh MINOS, king of Pontus, in b. c. 86, was betrayed by one of his confederates, and put to death. (Appian, MUhr. 48.) [W. B. D.J MFNIUS CERRI'NIUS, a Campanian, the son of Mima Paculla, was appointed by her one of the two hierophants of the Bacchanalia at Rome in B. c. 186. On the discovery of these orgies [His- PALA Fecenia, Herennius Cerrinius], Minius was arrested ; and, having confessed before the senate the impure and atrocious character of the rites over which he presided, was placed in close custody at Ardea. His final sentence is unknown. (Liv. xxxix. 13, 17, 19.) [W. B. D.] MINOS (MtVcos). 1. The son of Zeus and Europa, brother of Rhadamanthus, and king of Crete, where he is said to have given many and useful laws. After his death he became one of the judges of the shades in Hades. (Horn. IL xiii. 450, xiv. 322, Od. xi. 321, 567, xvii. 523, xix. 178; comp. Mii.etus.) He was the father of Deucalion and Ariadne ; and, according to ApoUodorus (iii. I. § 1, &c.), Sarpedon also was a brother of his. Diodorus (iv. 60 ; comp. Strab. x. p. 476, &c.) re- lates the following story about him. Tectamus, a son of Dorus, and a great-grandson of Deucalion, came to Crete with an Aeolian and Pelasgian colony ; and as king of the island, he became the father of Asterius, by a daughter of Cretheus. In the reign of Asterius, Zeus came to Crete with Europa, and became by her the father of Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus, Asterius afterwards married Europa ; and having no issue by her, he adopted her three sons. Thus Minos succeeded Asterius, and married Itone, daughter of Lyctius, by whom he had a son, Lycastus. The latter became, by Ida, the daughter of Corybas, the father of another Minos, whom, however, some also called a son of Zeus. It should be observed, that Homer and Hesiod know only of one Minos, the ruler of Cnossus, and the son and friend of Zeus ; and of this one they on the whole relate the same things, which later traditions assign to a second Minos, the grandson of the former ; for here, as in many other mythical traditions of Greece and other countries, a rationalistic criticism attempted to solve contradictions and difficulties in the stories about a person, by the assumption that the contra- dictory accounts must refer to two diiferent per- sonages. 2. A grandson of No. I, and a son of Lycastus and Ida, was likewise a king and law-giver of Crete. He is described as possessed of a powerful navy, as the husband of Pasiphae, a daughter of Helios, and as the father of Catrcus, Deucalion, Glaucus, Androgens, Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne, and Phaedra. (ApoUod. ii. 1. § 3.) He is said to have been killed in Sicily by king Cocalus, when he had gone thither in pursuit of Daedalus. (Herod, vii. 1 70 ; Strab. vi. pp. 273,279 ; Pans. vii. 4. § 5.) But the scholiast on Calliraachus {IJi/imi. in Jov. 8) speaks of his tomb in Crete. The detail of his history is related as follows. After the death of Asterius, Minos aimed at the supremacy of Crete, and declared that it was destined to him by the gods ; in proof of it, he said that any thing he prayed for was done. Accordingly, as he was offering up a sacrifice to Poseidon, he prayed that a bull might come forth from the sea, and promised to sacrifice the animal. The bull appeared, and Minos became king of Crete. Others say that Minos disputed the government with his brother, MINUCIA. 1091 Sarpedon, and conquered. (Herod, i. 173.) But Minos, who admired the beauty of the bull, did not sacrifice him, and substituted another in his place. Poseidon therefore rendered the bidl furious, and made Pasiphae conceive a love for the animal. Pasiphae concealed herself in an artificial cow made by Daedalus, and thus she became by the bull the mother of the Minotaurus, a monster which had the body of a man, but the head of a bull. Minos shut the monster up in the labyrinth. (ApoUod. iii. I. § 3, &c. ; comp. Daedalus.) Minos is further said to have divided Crete into three parts, each of which contained a capital, and to have ruled nine years. (Hom. Od.xix. 178 ; Strab. x. pp. 476, 479.) The Cretans traced their legal and political institutions to Minos, and he is said to have been instructed in the art of law-giving by Zeus himself; and the Spartan, Lycurgus, was believed to have taken the legislation of Minos as his model. (Paus. iii. 4. § 2 ; comp. Plat. JVHtu p. 319, b. ; Plut. De ser. Num. Find, 4 ; Val. Max. i. 2. § 1 ; Athen. xiii. p. 601.) In his time Crete was a powerful maritime state ; and Minos not only checked the piratical pursuits of his con- temporaries, but made himself master of the Greek islands of the Aegean. (Thuc. i. 4 ; Strab. i. p. 48 ; Diod. I. c.) The most ancient legends de- scribe Minos as a just and wise law-giver, whereas the later accounts represent him as an unjust and cruel tyrant. (Pliilostr. Fit. Apoll. iii. 25 ; CatuU. Epithal Pel. 75 ; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1699.) In order to avenge the wrong done to his son An- drogous [Androgeus] at Athens, he made war against the Athenians and Megarians. He sub- dued Megara, and compelled the Athenians, either every year or every nine years, to send him as a tribute seven youths and seven maidens, who were devoured in the labvrinth by the Minotaurus. (Apol- lod. iii. 15. § 8 ; Paus. i. 27. § 9, 44. § 5 ; Plut. Thes. 15 ; Diod. iv. 61 ; Ov. Met. vii, 456, &c. ; comp. Androgeus, Theseus.) [L. S.] MINOTAURUS ( yiivciTavpos), a monster with a human body and a bull's head, or, according to others, with the body of an ox and a human head ; is said to have been the offspring of the intercourse of Pasiphae with the bull sent from the sea to Minos, who shut him up in the Cnossian labyrinth, and fed him with the bodies of the youths and maidens whom the Athenians at fixed times were obliged to send to Minos as tribute. The monster was slain by Theseus. It was often represented by ancient artists either alone in the labyrinth, or engaged in the strutrgle with Theseus. (Paus. i. 24. § 2, 27, in fin. iii'. 18. § 7 ; Apollod. iii. ]. $ 4, 15. §8.) [L.S.] MINTA'NOR, the author of a lost treatise on music. (Fulgent. Mytliol. i. I ; Schol, ad Stai. TMa iii. 661.) [C. P.M.] MINTHA or MENTHA (Mti/0T7),a Cocythian nymph, and beloved by Hades, was metamorphosed by Demeter or Persephone into a plant called after her fxlvOT], or mint, or, according to others, she was changed into dust, from which Hades caused the mint plant to grow fniih. In the neighbourhood of Pylos there was a hill called after her, and at its foot there was a temple of Pluto, and a grove of Demeter, (Strab. viii. p. 344 ; Ov. Met. x. 729 ; Oppian, Hal. iii. 486 ; Schol. ad Nicand. Alex. 374.) [L. S.] MINU'CIA, one of the Vestal priestesses in B. c. 337. Her passion for gay attire made her