Note 530 — Chapter XII · KRETAN LEGENDS.—MINOS AND HIS FAMILY.
Reading edition
For the general narrative and its discrepancies, see Plutarch, Thês. c. 15-19; Diodôr. iv. 60-62; Pausan. i. 17, 3; Ovid, Epist. Ariadn. Thês. 104. In that other portion of the work of Diodôrus which relates more especially to Krête, and is borrowed from Kretan logographers and historians (v. 64-80), he mentions nothing at all respecting the war of Minôs with Athens.
In the drama of Euripidês called Thêseus, the genuine story of the youths and maidens about to be offered as food to the Minotaur was introduced (Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 312).
Ariadnê figures in the Odyssey along with Thêseus: she is the daughter of Minôs, carried off by Thêseus from Krête, and killed by Artemis in the way home: there is no allusion to Minôtaur, or tribute, or self-devotion of Thêseus (Odyss. xi. 324). This is probably the oldest and simplest form of the legend—one of the many amorous (compare Theognis, 1232) adventures of Thêseus: the rest is added by post-Homeric poets.
The respect of Aristotle for Minôs induces him to adopt the hypothesis that the Athenian youths and maidens were not put to death in Krête, but grew old in servitude (Aristot. Fragm. Βοττιαίων Πολιτεία, p. 106. ed. Neumann. of the Fragments of the treatise Περὶ Πολιτειῶν, Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 298).