Shortly before his death, Asterius appointed Minos as his heir. Wanting to be convinced of the correctness of his choice, the elderly king went ashore and turned to the ruler of the heavily thundering sea with a prayer to give him a sacrificial bull as a sign of approval. And Poseidon threw out from the depths of the sea a bull of unprecedented beauty, which swam to the shore and came to the land of Crete.

So Minos became king, leaving Rhadamanthus out of work. Under him, Knossos became the capital of all Crete. Only two cities refused to submit to Minos.

The new king began his reign by retiring to Mount Ida, where Zeus dictated laws for his people. Thus, Minos was considered by the Greeks to be the first legislator. The Greeks had no idea about the laws of the eastern kings in the era of the formation of myths.

Minos was also seen as the first owner of a military fleet, which established the rule of Crete on the seas. As scientists of modern times have noticed, the myths about the conquests of Minos are confined to those places that were called “Minoa”. Such a place existed in Megara.

They said that King Nisus, the son of Ares, ruled in Megara. On the top of his head was a lock of hair the same purple color as his royal robe. Everyone knew that the king would die as soon as he lost his amazing lock of hair. Minos, who dreamed of conquering Megara, also knew about this. Nis had no sons, and after his death the city was easy to capture.

Minos sent a fleet to the shores of Attica, which bordered Megara, and entered into negotiations with Nysus's daughter Scylla, promising her a magnificent golden necklace if she cut off her father's purple lock. The greedy Skilla snuck into her father’s bedroom at night and, cutting off the hair on the top of his head, hurried to Minos to exchange it for a necklace. After that, she removed the massive chain that locked the entrance to the harbor. Ships entered the harbor, and, having captured the city, the soldiers killed its inhabitants. Skilla received the promised reward. But she did not rejoice at her acquisition for long. Minos considered it fair that she should receive retribution not only for her help, but also for her betrayal. Having tied a rope to the stern of his ship, he secured the other end around the traitor's lower back and threw her overboard. Skilla did not flounder in the waves for long - the heavy necklace quickly carried her to the bottom as an edification to everyone who, for the sake of the shine of gold, is ready to forget about loyalty and honor.

Minos and Keos were captured. Arriving there on fifty ships, Minos found only three girls, the king's daughters, on the island. It turned out that three days before, Zeus, with lightning strikes, destroyed the rest of the Telkhine islanders along with their king because they bewitched the crops with their evil gaze. Minos settled half of his army on Keos. He himself left an heir there. After all, one of the princesses fell in love with him and bore him a son.

The conquered lands were ruled by the numerous sons of Minos, who founded cities there. The ships of Minos sailed freely across all seas and entered any port as if it were their own: not a single ship could land on Crete. This was watched by the giant Talos, indestructible, like all the creatures of the copper generation to which he belonged. In his huge body blood flowed like molten lead. Three times a day he walked around the coast of Crete along a path trodden by copper feet and threw huge stones at the newcomers.

Minos also had a land army, divided into detachments of two to three dozen well-armed warriors. They were commanded by his sons.

While participating in campaigns or checking out his many possessions, Minos was a rare guest in his own palace, and his wife Pasiphae, daughter of Helios, fell in love with either one of the mighty bulls from her father’s herd, or a bull sent to Minos by Poseidon. In any case, everyone agreed that it was a bull, not a man.

Returning to the palace after another absence, Minos heard about the birth of his son and hurried to the queen’s chambers. Imagine his surprise and rage when he saw that the newborn had the body of a child, and the head of a young bull. Minos's first thought was to kill the freak, but, thinking that the bull that had entered into a relationship with his wife could belong to Poseidon, he did not dare to quarrel with the ruler of the seas. Minos began to look for a master who could build a dungeon for the growing monster, who received the name Minotaur.

Fortunately, the master appeared on his own. This was the Athenian Daedalus, who became famous as a builder in his homeland, but was forced to leave it for committing a crime. Showing Minos the potter's wheel and compass he had invented in Athens, Daedalus convinced the king that with the help of numerous slaves he would be able to glorify Crete for centuries.

Daedalus knew that no one knew better than the Egyptians how to build palaces and temples from eternal stone. His memory preserved as the most amazing of miracles the structure with twelve courtyards and three thousand chambers, which he saw in the city of crocodiles, which is higher than Lake Merida. There, in the underground half, were the tombs of priests and sacred crocodiles, turned into mummies and wrapped in fragrant linens. The Egyptians called this structure a labyrinth, and Daedalus decided that he would build for Minos, if not so majestic, then still a similar building.

And he built a labyrinth in Knossos with dungeons with countless passages and corridors. This did not happen either in Mycenae or in Thebes. Daedalus made just one entrance to the labyrinth, and it was impossible for anyone who found himself in its depths to get out of the tangle of corridors. Minos ordered to immediately take the Minotaur as deep as possible.

Now he was calm about his capital and could carry out his long-standing plan to enslave all of Greece. There was also a reason for war. The son of Minos Androgeus, who won the Panathenaic Games, aroused someone's envy and was killed.

The news of the death of his son found Minos in Paros, where he made sacrifices to the Charites along with his four sons, to whom he gave the island into possession. Throwing off the wreath from his head, interrupting the playing of the flute players, Minos rushed towards the ships. Soon a huge fleet surrounded Attica, surrounding it with a chain of ships like a boar. Famine and pestilence began in the besieged country because, as everyone was sure, Minos called on his father Zeus to punish the murderers of Androgeus. The Athenians turned to the Delphic oracle, and he ordered to submit to Minos, accepting all his conditions. Minos wished that the Athenians send seven young men and the same number of girls every four years to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus subsequently freed Athens from that shameful tribute.

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Europe, Cretan king.

The ancient world considered many heroes of its myths historical figures; some ancient historians considered this completely seriously, others with indifferent skepticism. But as for Minos, even the most critical authors were firmly convinced that he was the mighty king of Crete, who lived in his magnificent palace at Knossos. If there were any doubts, they concerned only the origin of Minos. For example, Thucydides considered him a Greek, but Herodotus denied this. According to myths, Minos was half Phoenician, as his mother was the daughter of the Sidonian king and his wife Telephassa. Minos received the royal scepter directly from Zeus and regularly met with him in the cave of Mount Dikta (where the supreme god was once born) to consult with him about the laws. Therefore, Minos was a wise and fair ruler. Being the king of an island power, Minos did not spend money on the construction of defensive structures, believing that the best defense for Crete would be a powerful fleet. Minos also created a number of strongholds on nearby and distant islands (and then on the coast of Greece) and became the true ruler of the seas. Under the protection of a navy that terrified enemies and pirates, Minos traded with numerous countries, which enriched Crete.

Minos maintained especially close and friendly ties with Athens. This is evidenced, among other things, by the participation of his son in the Athenian games. But when Androgeus once won these games, the Athenian king Aegeus, who fanatically supported his athletes, killed him out of envy. Then Minos set out with his navy on a campaign against Athens and, as punishment for the murder of his son, forced Aegeus to recognize Athens’ dependence on Crete. This dependence was expressed in the fact that every nine years Athens had to send seven boys and seven girls to Crete.

According to the law of retribution, the young Athenians faced death. Minos gave them to be torn to pieces by the monster Minotaur, born of Minos' wife, Pasiphae, from a sacred bull. The Minotaur looked accordingly: he had a human body and the head of a bull. He lived in a huge labyrinth, which the famous inventor and builder built on behalf of Minos. (You can read about the further fates of Pasiphae, the Minotaur, Daedalus in the corresponding articles, as well as the articles “Kokal” and “Theseus”.)

The end of Minos himself was sad: pursuing Daedalus, who had fled from him to Sicily, Minos decided to pay the Sicilian king a friendly visit from a position of strength (accompanied by all his navy), and there, in the palace of Cocala, Daedalus boiled Minos alive in the bath during his evening dress. The Sicilian court physician pronounced death from apoplexy, and Kokal buried Minos in Sicily with all the honors worthy of such an outstanding statesman.

This is how Minos, the mighty and glorious king of Crete, died, and all ancient historians were convinced of the veracity of this story, including Diodorus Siculus, who in the 1st century. BC e. accurately described the place where Minos was allegedly buried, citing the testimony of eyewitnesses present at the exhumation of Minos' mortal remains.

Of course, we could say that there is no point in trusting gullible ancient historians; It is quite enough what Homer and other poets said about Minos. However, everything is not so simple: modern researchers continue to be seriously interested in Minos. In 1900, the English archaeologist Evans discovered the ruins of a huge palace on Kefal Hill (5 kilometers from the main city of Crete, Heraklion). During the excavations, he discovered many rooms, staircases, columned halls, frescoes and ceramics, as well as many symbols in the form of bull horns and images of bulls, which confirmed the existence of the cult of the bull. Evans did not find a trace of the fortress walls, but there were remains of the ports that myths and historians talk about. Evans came to the conclusion that he had found the palace of the legendary Minos, which, in his opinion, is the Cretan labyrinth. Indeed, the plan of the palace resembles a genuine labyrinth, and Greek inscriptions confirm that the city of Knossos was once located here. For almost 30 years Evans continued excavations of the Knossos Palace and literally read its history from the stones. He divided it into three long period(from 3000 to 1200 BC), calling them Minoan. Other archaeologists have unearthed several more Cretan palaces that are mentioned in Greek myths in connection with Minos and his successors. Nowhere, however, have we found direct evidence of the historical existence of a Cretan king whose name was Minos. But the historical core of legends associated with this name was brought to light.

The exploration of ancient Crete and its attractions is far from over. In 1952, the Englishmen Ventris and Chadwick managed to decipher one of the three known types of Cretan writing, the so-called Linear B. It turned out that the texts were written in ancient Greek and belong to the so-called Younger Minoan period (approximately 1580-1200 BC). Only partial success has so far been achieved in deciphering another Cretan script, Linear A. The Cretan hieroglyphs still defy any attempts to decipher them. They date back to the 20th century. BC e., that is, half a thousand years older than the reign of Minos, according to Greek myths.

According to legends, Zeus is the patron of the sky, lightning and thunder - one of the main ancient Greek gods. He was very voluptuous and once kidnapped Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor. Soon she gave birth to three children, one of whom became the future ruler of Crete.

The mother of King Minos was very beautiful, and before leaving Crete, Zeus ordered Asterius, who was then the ruler of the island, to adopt the children of Europa and marry her. Before his death, the king decided to give the throne to Minos. And wanting to make sure that his choice was correct, he asked Poseidon for approval. In response to his prayers, a beautiful bull came ashore from the depths of the sea. This was confirmation from Poseidon that the decision was correct. And after the death of Asterius, Minos inherited the throne.

The new ruler of Crete began his reign by establishing certain laws. King Minos climbed Mount Ida. On it, Zeus dictated to him a set of laws that his son was supposed to follow. Thus Minos became the first Greek legislator. The new king of Crete sent his brother Rhadamanthus to establish laws in other lands. Subsequently, Zeus gave Minos a scepter and helped with advice.

Soon he subjugated part of the lands of Lycia and became the founder of the city of Miletus. On the southern side of Attica, Minos discovered large deposits of silver and, having captured the surrounding lands, built the city of Lavrion. Thanks to the new ruler, the seas were cleared of pirates and their refuges were destroyed. Minos became the first owner of a powerful navy.

It was not for nothing that the ruler was called wise. The Cretan king Minos did not waste funds on defensive structures. He decided that the best defense for the island was the navy. And strongholds were built on nearby islands. Thanks to the navy and the extermination of pirates, the inhabitants of Crete were able to trade with other countries. And due to this, the island became prosperous and rich.

The capital of Crete was the city of Knossos. In this city stood a magnificent palace, in which King Minos lived with his wife Pasiphae. They had many children, and some of them were honored to become heroes of legends and myths. Crete was guarded by the bull-headed copper guard Talos. This was a gift from Zeus to his son. Three times a day, Talos walked around the island, throwing stones at enemy ships (if they came close). In addition, Crete was also guarded by a navy.

Poseidon was waiting for a beautiful bull as a sacrifice. But Minos left the beast in his herd, and in return gave him a simple horse. Poseidon was greatly offended and instilled in Pasiphae a passion for the beautiful bull. Master Daedalus, expelled from Athens, was in the service of Minos. And by order of his wife he made a wooden cow. Pasiphae climbed into it and entered into an unnatural relationship with a beautiful bull.

She became pregnant and after due date The Minotaur was born. But his mother died during childbirth. Minos, seeing a baby with a bull's head, settled him in a labyrinth specially created by the master Daedalus.

Minos always maintained friendly and very close ties with Athens and its king Aegeus. Therefore, sports competitions were often organized between them. Androgeus, one of the sons of Minos, became a famous athlete. One day he defeated all the Athenian youths at the regular games. Ruler of Athens, former fanatic own athletes, decided to kill the young man in revenge.

The king sent Androgeus to hunt for the Marathon bull. It was certain death. Minos, having learned how his son died, decided to take revenge on the ruler of Athens. He went there with his war fleet. And he forced King Aegean to admit dependence on Crete. This was expressed in constant sacrifices. The king of Athens had to send seven young men and women to Knossos for nine years. They became victims of the Minotaur.

This continued until Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae, fell in love with Theseus, the son of Aegeus, the ruler of Athens. The girl gave her lover a ball of magic thread. Thanks to them, Theseus found the Minotaur and killed him. Then he was able to get out of the labyrinth in which the latter lived.

One more famous daughter Cretan king Minos - Phaedrus. She married Theseus, who promised to marry Ariadne. Phaedra's husband was highly respected due to his many exploits. Theseus had a son, Hippolytus, from his first marriage. And Phaedra was inflamed with love for him. Then the daughter of King Minos committed suicide. Perhaps to save the husband's honor, and according to other sources - out of fear of her husband.

King Minos was fair. When he decided to capture Megara, the son of Ares, King Nysus, was still ruling there. He had an amazing purple streak. She was Nysa's mascot. Minos offered the ruler's daughter, Scylla, a beautiful gold necklace for a purple lock cut from her father's head. And the girl brought Nysus's hair to Minos. The city was taken, the inhabitants were killed. And Skilla, having received the promised necklace, and, despite the assistance provided, was executed for treason as a warning to others.

He dreamed of conquering Minos and the island of Keos. He arrived there on 50 ships. But on the island he found only three royal daughters. As it turned out, Zeus helped his son. He killed all the inhabitants with lightning strikes along with the king, angry at the evil looks with which people bewitched the crops. So Keos became the possession of Minos. One of the king's daughters bore him a son, whom he left on the island as his heir. Minos also owned a land army. It was run by his sons.

Master Daedalus decided to leave the domain of Minos. And, despite his ban, he was able to escape to Sicily, to the city of Kamik. Minos went to look for Daedalus. Arriving in Kamik, he decided to use cunning to find out the whereabouts of the master. King Minos took the newt's shell and promised a good reward to the one who threaded the thread through the shell. Only Daedalus could do this.

And the king of Sicily Kokal, who sheltered the master, was seduced by the promised reward. He hoped that Daedalus would definitely help him. The master succeeded, but Minos was also convinced that he was in Sicily and demanded the extradition of the escaped subject. But Kokal’s daughters opposed this. Daedalus made amazing toys for them; the girls did not want the master to die.

As a result, he made a pipe in the roof of the bathhouse. And he poured boiling water into it while Minos was bathing. The Sicilian court physician announced that Minos had died of apoplexy. Thus the legendary and great ruler of Crete died ingloriously. His funeral was magnificent, worthy of kings. And the burial took place in Kamik, in the temple of Aphrodite. Then the remains of Minos were transported to Crete. According to legend, after his death the legendary ruler became a judge in the dead kingdom of Hades.

Only the English scientist Evans managed to obtain permission to excavate Cephalus Hill. And in the very first days, archaeologists were able to find confirmation of the legends about Minos. Frescoes depicting Zeus and the Minotaur were found. And also images of King Minos. Over time, the Palace of Knossos was also recreated. There was also a labyrinth of the Minotaur in the form of many winding corridors under the palace. But, apart from myths, legends and frescoes depicting Minos, direct evidence of his existence has not yet been found. However, this does not prevent the Greeks from telling tourists about their great ruler, showing sights that are associated with his name, and making very good income from this.

History of the ancient world [East, Greece, Rome] Nemirovsky Alexander Arkadievich

Power of Minos

Power of Minos

The first centers of statehood on the Balkan Peninsula arose already in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. However, around the 22nd century. BC e. this process was interrupted by the invasion of the Greek tribes of the Achaeans, who migrated here from the Danube regions of Europe. These tribes of Greek speakers were at a very low level social development and, having conquered almost all Balkan Peninsula, suspended the processes of class formation and the formation of statehood, which were experienced by the local pre-Greek population - the Pelasgians. His ethnicity has not yet been clarified. During the conquest, the Pelasgians were partially exterminated by the Achaeans, and partially assimilated with the conquerors, who were experiencing the stage of decomposition of primitive communal relations.

The Achaean conquest practically did not affect the island part of the Aegean archipelago. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. the population of the island of Crete experienced the same processes of formation of early statehood as in mainland Greece before the Achaean conquest. For several centuries, Crete was the center of intense changes in the field of socio-political and economic life, which led to the early formation and further flourishing of this island civilization.

In the second half of the 3rd – beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The inhabitants of Crete successfully developed almost all the land suitable for cultivation, and cattle breeding actively developed. The craft also achieved certain progress at this time. The beginnings of exchange appeared, and since the island itself was located at the intersection of many sea routes, its inhabitants began to participate in international exchange quite early. Already at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. The first early state formations appeared on the island - palace centers. Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of four - in Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, Kato Zakro. Each of them had a large palace as its political, economic and religious center, around which dozens of small rural settlements were grouped.

Period XXII–XVIII centuries. BC e. V general periodization Crete was called the “era of old palaces.” Almost nothing is known about this time, besides, around 1700 BC. e. the centers of the first early state formations on the island were destroyed everywhere, probably as a result of a huge destructive earthquake.

However, this natural disaster could not delay further development civilization on Crete. Since the 17th century BC e. here begins the so-called period of “new palaces”, about which much more is known.

The flourishing of civilization on Crete at this time is usually associated with the name of its legendary ruler, King Minos, who managed to unite the entire population of the island under his rule. It was Minos, as Greek legends say, who managed to begin the unification process and build a large fleet. Most likely, all this happened in the 16th century. BC e. Minos managed to destroy piracy in the Aegean Sea, subjugate many islands of the Aegean Sea to his power, and tribute was regularly collected from the conquered peoples. Minoan colonies were discovered not only in the Aegean, but also in the Peloponnese, Sicily, and on the coast of Syria.

Cretan warriors led by Minos made long sea voyages. The palaces and ordinary settlements of the island of this time did not have defensive walls; the residence of the supreme ruler of Crete and many of his overseas possessions, who settled in Knossos, was connected by convenient and reliable roads with guard posts at certain distances with Festus, Mallia, Kato Zakro. Here, in equally luxurious palaces that repeated the planning schemes of Knossos, sat dynasts subordinate or allied to him, possibly relatives of the ruler himself, and relations between them developed quite peacefully. The population of the island was protected from external threats by a natural barrier - the open sea. During the reign of representatives of this dynasty, the palace at Knossos became the administrative, political and economic center of the entire Cretan state.

The English archaeologist A. Evans, the discoverer of the Minoan civilization, spent several decades exploring this palace complex, which is the largest Cretan palace, rebuilt several times. It occupied a significant area, had several floors and included a complex of premises for the ruler and his family, a throne room where state, business and religious ceremonies took place, sanctuaries, rooms for servants, and artisans' workshops. The palace was equipped with a very advanced and well-thought-out system of water supply, lighting, and sewerage. The walls of its many rooms were covered with magnificent fresco paintings, reproducing the beauty surrounding nature and scenes from the life of Cretan society. There were baths in special rooms, and toilet rooms were located nearby. Drinking water was stored in tanks and arrived at the palace through ceramic pipes. Light entered the building through special light wells that cut through the entire building from top to bottom. In its basement there were storerooms - warehouses for handicraft products and food supplies.

Interestingly, the Greeks called the Palace of Knossos a labyrinth. According to ancient Greek legends, a labyrinth is a huge building with many rooms and corridors. A person who fell into it could no longer get out of the labyrinth without outside help and inevitably died, since in the depths of the palace lived a bloodthirsty Minotaur - half-bull, half-man. Excavations at the Palace of Knossos showed that these legends about the labyrinth had a certain basis. The Palace of Knossos is a huge building, which included about three hundred rooms for a wide variety of purposes. The interior layout of the palace was extremely complex and even confusing. However, despite all the chaos of the palace building, it is still perceived as a single architectural ensemble.

The structure-forming core of the palace architectural ensemble was, as it was before, in the “era of old palaces,” the central courtyard, which occupied a significant open space. Moreover, all Cretan palaces were almost identical from an architectural point of view this kind premises that organize around themselves all other structures of this kind of complexes. But not the entire population lived in the palace. Ordinary residents lived in small houses outside its territory. These houses varied in size, sometimes even two stories high, with storerooms, kitchens, and work areas usually located downstairs, and living and sleeping rooms upstairs.

Apparently, Cretan society in its heyday had a theocratic form of government, when the functions of both the king-ruler and the high priest, who had divine origin, were concentrated in the hands of the ruler. This form of government is quite close to the ancient Eastern type (for example, Egypt and Mesopotamia III - mid-II millennium BC), with the only difference that in the East religious power, although it belonged to the monarch, was still mediated by priests and had its own temples. In Crete, a purely priestly class did not form, and there were no temples to the gods as separate structures. For religious ceremonies, sanctuaries were used, which were very logically and skillfully linked from an architectural point of view to the layout of the palace complex. Therefore, most likely, mythology reflected the belief of the ancient Cretans in the divine essence of the king: after all, Minos was considered the son of Zeus, who directed all his activities.

However, the development of Minoan Crete at the end of the 15th century. BC e. was fatally interrupted by new natural disasters: A huge volcanic eruption on the neighboring island of Thera (modern Santorini) dealt him a fatal blow. All the palaces and rural settlements on the island were destroyed, covered with ashes and abandoned by the population. Since then, Crete has been losing its position as the leading political, economic and cultural center of the Aegean Sea basin. Taking advantage of these events, the Achaean Greeks invade the island from the territory of mainland Greece, without encountering any resistance, and Crete from the advanced center of the Mediterranean turns into a backward province of Achaean Greece.

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Chapter Twenty-Four King Minos in Crete

Chapter twenty-four

King Minos on Crete

In Crete, between 1720 and 1628 BC. e., the Minoans offer sacrifices to the god of the sea

North of the Nile Delta, in the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of a nameless muddy peninsula, not too far from the European mainland lay a long, mountainous island. Its inhabitants came here from Asia Minor a long time ago; By the time of the Hyksos, they also had a state, and the king, whose name we do not know, built his palace in the center of Knossos.

Knossos was located in the interior of the island, closer to the northern coast, in a strategic location from which it was convenient to monitor the eastern and western ends of the island. Shortly after construction was completed, other, slightly smaller palaces arose in other key locations: at Mallia, east of Knossos on the northernmost coast, and at Phaistos near south coast. ‹206›

Since these ancient people did not leave behind writing, we do not know the details of life in these palaces and the names of the rulers. But the palaces stood in the centers of large cities, surrounded by a network of roads and many houses. The people of these cities traded with civilizations overseas. Their brightly colored earthenware jars (possibly intended for transporting wine or oil) were found not only on the surrounding islands, but also on the banks of the Nile and in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Western Semites lived.

This people also practiced human sacrifice. Earthquakes regularly occurred on the mountainous island - one of them destroyed a temple located on a mountain, now called Mount Yuktas, and looking north, towards the sea. The skeletons in the ruins lay untouched for almost three thousand years - before archaeologists discovered this scene: a bound young man lies on his side on an altar of stone and clay, a bronze knife thrown over his body. In front of the altar is a man of about forty wearing a ceremonial ring and seal. A woman lies face down in the southwest corner of the room. ‹207›

Human sacrifices were not made very often. Other traces of such a sacrifice were found in only one place - in one of the houses in the western part of the city of Knossos, where two children were apparently not only sacrificed, but dismembered and cooked with snails during some kind of ritual festival. ‹208› The ruins do not tell us what the sacrifice meant or for what purpose it was performed.

And any attempts to figure it out are futile.

Around 1720, an earthquake destroyed the old palace at Knossos. A new one was built on top of it, using partial use of the previous ruins. This second palace had a more elaborate design. The prosperity of the inhabitants of Knossos increased to such an extent that their king began to need much greater luxury.

The Greeks, who named this island Crete, believed that a powerful king named Minos lived in Knossos during the days of the “Second Palace”. According to Greek myth, Minos was the stepson of a Cretan aristocrat. Wanting to rule the country, he told the inhabitants of Crete that he could prove that he had been chosen to rule by divine means, and whatever he asked the gods for, they would give it to him. People invited him to prove the correctness of this boast, and Minos asked Poseidon to send him a bull to slaughter. Immediately a magnificent bull emerged from the sea onto the Cretan shore. He was indeed so beautiful that Minos could not bring himself to sacrifice the bull; he sent the animal to his herd and sacrificed another bull in return.

Minoan civilization

The Cretans declared Minos king. But Poseidon was dissatisfied with Minos' greed and cursed his wife, Pasiphae, making her inflamed with passion for the bull. The legendary architect Daedalus created a device with which Pasiphae and the bull could make love: it was a wooden cow on wheels; Pasiphae later gave birth to a terrible child with a human body and the head of a bull. Minos, seeing the monster, hid it in a prison under the palace of Knossos. The prison that Daedalus built as punishment for helping Pasiphae was made so intricate, with a lot of passages and nooks and crannies, that Pasiphae's son Asterius (better known as the Minotaur) could not get out of it. In this prison, called the Labyrinth, the Minotaur lived until he grew up. Minos fed him human flesh; After defeating the Greeks, continental inhabitants, he ordered them to send seven boys and seven girls every year to be devoured by the Minotaur. ‹209›

This story appears in "Library", a Greek collection of stories from the second century BC. e. Behind the fog of this myth we can discern a civilization that left no other evidence behind.

Minos may well be the name not only of a legendary ruler, but of an entire line of kings who ruled at Knossos and gave their name to the earliest Cretan civilization. The spread of the story of the Minotaur, as well as the exchange of goods between cities, reflect the existence of international maritime trade carried out by the Minoans. The same is confirmed by the remains of objects from the Second Palace period, which are found throughout the ancient world. The lid of an alabaster jar found at Knossos is marked with the name of the third Hyksos king, and the Hyksos palace at Avaris contains on its walls the remains of frescoes painted in the Minoan style.

Contact with the eastern shores Mediterranean Sea was regular; perhaps the Minoans traded even with Mesopotamia. Some pictorial depictions of Gilgamesh and his battle with the Bull of Heaven (mostly seal paintings) are a legend that begins to appear on clay tablets between 1800 and 1500 BC. e., just at the rise of the Minoan civilization, they show us Gilgamesh, grappling with a half-man, half-bull wearing some kind of wrestling belt. The monster has the body of a bull and the head of a man - the opposite of the Minotaur's deformity, but the very similarity between the two monsters suggests that Minoan and Mesopotamian sailors exchanged their legends when meeting in port taverns. ‹210›

Although united Greek civilization Although the manner in which Minos theoretically demanded this annual tribute is a clear anachronism (there were only scattered settlements on the peninsula at that time), Minos' ability to demand something from abroad reflects the military power of Crete during the Second Palace period. "Library" tells us that Minos was “the first to gain dominion over the sea; he extended his rule to almost all the islands". Minoan settlements have been found on a number of nearby islands, including the islands of Melos, Kea and the small volcanic island of Thira. These settlements served not only as trading posts, but also as naval bases. The Greek historian Thucydides writes that Minos was the first king of antiquity who had a fleet:

“He became master of what is now called the Hellenic Sea, and ruled the Cyclades [islands in the northern Aegean Sea], to most of which he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians [settlers from the southwest of Asia Minor] and installing his sons as rulers; and thus did everything in his power to stop piracy in these waters - a necessary step that saved him his annual income. ‹211›

According to Herodotus, “the Carians remained on the islands, but became subjects of Minos, a mass of experienced sailors who managed his ships at his first request”. ‹212› The Minoan Empire was formed on water.

Around 1680 BC e. she reached the highest peak of her power. Pirates had always been a problem in the Mediterranean - Thucydides explains that Knossos was originally built inland, away from the sea precisely "on account of the prevalence of piracy" - but Minos' fleet put an end to sea robbery, at least in the waters around Crete. This new world meant that the peoples of the islands and shores became “it is easier to contact and enrich themselves, and their lives have become more settled”. ‹213› Trade flourished, new buildings were erected, painting and sculpture reached an unprecedented degree of sophistication.

But in the story of King Minos, there is a long-standing threat: a bull monster beneath the palace. This inescapable anger, only hidden underground, is a visible sign of the evil will of Poseidon. She threatens not only the people who pay tribute to Minos, but also Minos himself. This untamed, hungry force, literally speaking, undermines the foundation of his palace and requires constant sacrifice.

The palace at Knossos was decorated with frescoes: wall paintings were created by applying bright colors, made from coal, yellow ochre, iron ore and other minerals, directly onto a damp layer of lime plaster. In these frescoes, sacred bulls bow their horns, threatening, and the priests jump over the horns onto the back of the bull, and from there to the ground. The most famous bronze sculpture from the ruins of Knossos shows the same bull dancer, frozen in the most dangerous pose.

The ritual participants were probably young athletes willing to risk their lives. Perhaps the story of the Minotaur retains a very ancient form human sacrifice, in which the victims were not killed on the altar, but were placed face to face with the bull. Excavations of the so-called Bull Squares, the central squares in Knossos, where bull dances apparently took place, revealed many doors, staircases and corridors opening onto the site from the surrounding buildings - in short, a real labyrinth. ‹214› There is another connection between the story of the Minotaur and the religious rites of Crete. The Minotaur devoured fourteen victims at a time; An altar discovered at Knossos shows a picture of a ritual celebration of death.

But what kind of sacred anger required this kind of sacrifice?

In the later Greek version of the Minotaur story, Poseidon, the god of the sea, is also called the Lord of Earthquakes, and the bull is his sacred animal. The island of Crete and the sea around it are constantly shaken by tremors and the destructive waves that follow them. Only constant prayers to the Lord of earthquakes can prevent the danger that comes from the sea.

Around 1628, earthquakes in the Thira area became more frequent. The island was an active volcano, and its inhabitants have witnessed more than one eruption. But for many years the volcano was so calm that the only big city Thira, Akrotiri, was able to grow and begin to prosper. ‹215›

As eruptions became more frequent, the population of Akrotiri first tried to rebuild the walls destroyed by the earthquakes. When the shaking became stronger, people began to leave the city. When excavating the ruins, no human skeletons were found, and it seems that everything valuable was taken from the city - jewelry and silver. ‹216›

Soon the volcano in the center of the island began to spew out pumice. Apparently, the pumice that covers the ruins fell on top of it for quite a long time - which means that the eruption lasted quite a long time, from two months to two years. The top of the pumice is covered with a layer of ash, ejected at the moment of the last, most powerful explosion. The roar over Thira was heard for a long time, and the nearby islands listened to it with trembling. Two years is enough time to realize the inevitability of the impending catastrophe; it was quite enough to make sacrifices in the hope that the trouble would pass.

And then the volcano, figuratively speaking, turned the island inside out, covering the city with a layer of ash fifteen feet thick. Huge boulders flew out from the depths of the volcano and fell to the ground like giant hail. ‹217› An opening opened in the side of the island deep wound, allowing the sea to rush into the crater of the volcano. When the eruption eventually died down, Thira was no longer a round island with a volcano at its center - it became a ring of land around a huge submerged caldera.

This was the end of the Minoan city of Akrotiri, which remained buried in ash until excavations began in the 1960s. What is less clear is how much harm this gigantic eruption did to the Minoans of Crete. For some time after the eruption of Thera, the Minoan civilization continued to exist as usual. Then, apparently, the population of Crete began to decline; houses fell into disrepair, and trade gradually faded away.

Thira before and after the eruption

The ensuing decline can well be associated with a volcanic eruption. Apparently, the eruption on the island of Thira began in late June or early July - just before the harvest. ‹218› Wind-blown ash fell without reaching the western end of Crete, but covered the eastern half of the island, probably destroying almost the entire crop. Traces of ash on the shores of other islands from Thira suggest that the explosion of the island caused a tsunami, and the wave flooded the nearby islands. It may have reached over thirty feet in height when it struck the shores of Crete twenty-five minutes after the eruption. ‹219› Probably a huge cloud blocked the sun for some time. Then the thunderstorms began with heavy, deafening thunder, followed by a drop in temperature. For many months, sunsets remained bloody in color.

Even if the collapse of the Minoan culture was not directly caused by the volcanic eruption, the manifestations of the catastrophe themselves were apparently very similar in impact to the fall in the level of the Nile in Egypt. These signs clearly showed that Poseidon was angry, and the gods no longer patronized the royal house. It is very likely that the disaster was perceived as a harbinger of more strong manifestation divine wrath.

The Lord of Earthquakes cannot be treated lightly - he is always lurking in the depths, ready to put an end to man's fragile prosperity. It's better to get away from his wrath, and as soon as possible.

Comparative chronology for chapter 24

Egypt	Crete
Middle Kingdom (2040–1782 BC)
Eleventh Dynasty(2134–1991 BC)
Intef I–III
Mentuhetep I-III
	Proto-palatial period (2000–1720 BC)
Twelfth Dynasty(1991–1782 BC)
Amenemhet I
Amenemhet III
Amenemhet IV
Queen Sobekneferu
Second Transition period(1782–1570 BC)
Thirteenth Dynasty (1782–1640 BC)
	New Palace period (1720–1550 BC)
Fourteenth Dynasty(1700–1640 BC)	Minos
Capture of the Hyksos (1663 BC)
Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties
	Eruption of Thera (c. 1628 BC)
	Late Palace Period (1550–1350 BC)

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