Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/259

Rh the proprietor of the Labyrinth and of the Minotaur, 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 Daedalus to Kamikus, and the victim of the three ill-dis posed daughters of Kokalus in a bath. With this strongly- marked portrait, the Minos of Thucydidês and Aristotle has scarcely anything in common except the name. He is the first to acquire Thalassokraty, or command of the Ægaean sea : he ex- pels 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 at- tempts to conquer Sicily, but fails in the enterprise and perishes. 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 Minos.

In the fable, a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens is paid to him periodically by the Athenians ; in the historicized narrative this character of a tribute-collector is preserved, but the tribute is money collected from dependent islands; and Aris-