Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/255

 THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR. 223 becomes especially memorable, from its having postponed for thirty days the death of the lamented Socrates. 1 The legend respecting Theseus, and his heroic; rescue of the seven noble youths and maidens from the jaws of the Minotaur, was thus both commemorated and certified to the Athenian public, by the annual holy ceremony and by the unquestioned identity of the vessel employed in it. There were indeed many varieties in the mode of narrating the incident; and some of the Attic logographers tried to rationalize the fable by transforming the Minotaur into a general or a powerful athlete, named Taurus, whom Theseus vanquished in Krete.' 2 But this altered version never overbore the old fanciful character of the tale as maintain- ed by the poets. A great number of other religious ceremonies and customs, as well as several chapels or sacred enclosures in honor of different heroes, were connected with different acts and special ordinances of Theseus. To every Athenian who took 1 Plato, Phaidon, c. 2, 3 ; Xcnoph. Memor. iv. 8. 2. Plato especially notic- ed rove 6lf ITTTO. kKelvov^, the seven youths and the seven maidens whom Theseus conveyed to Krete and brought back safely : this number seems an old and constant feature in the legend, maintained by Sappho and Bacchy- lides as well as by Euripides (Here. Fur. 1318). See Servius ad Virgil JEncid. vi. 21. 2 For the general narrative and its discrepancies, sec Plutarch, Thes c. 15-19; Diodor. iv. 60-G2; Pausan. i. 17,3; Ovid, Epist. Ariadn. Thes 104. In that other portion of the work of Diodorus which relates more es- pecially to Krete. and is borrowed from Kretan logographers and historians (v. 64-80), he mentions nothing at all respecting the war of Minos with Athens. In the drama of Euripides called Theseus, the genuine story of the youths and maidens about to be offered as food to the Minotaur was introduced (Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 312). Ariadne figures in the Odyssey along with Theseus : she is the daughter of Minos, carried off by Theseus from Krete, and killed by Artemis in the way home : there is no allusion to Minotaur, or tribute, or self-devotion of The 1 - seus (Odyss. xi. 324). This is probably the oldest and simplest form of the legend one of the many amorous (compare Theognis, 1232) adventures of Theseus : the rest is added by post-Homeric poets. The respect of Aristotle for Minos induces him to adopt the hypothesis that the Athenian youths and maidens were not put to death in Krete, but grew old in servitude (Aristot. Fragm. "RorTiaiuv HoXtreia, p. 106. ed Neumann, of the Fragments of the treatise Tlepl Ho/Urauv. Plutarch, Quzes* Graec. p. 298).