Half man and half bull, the Minotaur is one of the most famous, and scariest, monsters of Greek mythology.The story goes that it was trapped in a great labyrinth beneath Knossos on the island of Crete and feasted on human flesh until it was slain by the hero Theseus with the help of the princess Ariadne. But what exactly was the minotaur? What did the Ancients Greeks perceive it to be? In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes talks to Caroline Lawrence to delve deep into this mythology, and the complex and enduring legacy the Minotaur still holds in modern media today.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, it was produced by Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here.
Chapter 1: What is the Minotaur in Greek mythology?
It is one of the most famous and scariest monsters of Greek mythology. A creature half man and half bull trapped in a great labyrinth beneath Knossos on the island of Crete. Its story is a familiar one, a bloodthirsty beast that feasted on human flesh until it was slain by the hero Theseus with the help of the princess Ariadne. But what exactly was the Minotaur?
How popular was its story in ancient times and how has it endured and evolved over the centuries down to the present day in formats varying from 19th century oil paintings to brand new TV series retelling the Greek myths? It's The Ancients on History Hit.
Chapter 2: How did the Minotaur's story evolve over time?
I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we're delving deep into the Minotaur's story, this creature's mythological life and legacy down to the present day. Our guest for this episode is the wonderful, best-selling author Caroline Lawrence. Caroline has written many brilliant children's books over the years, thrilling adventure stories set in the Greek and Roman worlds.
Most recently, she has written a new book all about the gods, goddesses, heroes, and monsters of Greek mythology, including the Minotaur. It was such a pleasure to record this interview with Caroline, and I hope you enjoy it. Caroline, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast.
Tristan, it is wonderful to be here.
And what a topic. I mean, in the past on The Ancients, we've done quite a bit of Greek mythology. We've done the gods and goddesses. We've done heroes like Heracles and Jason and the Argonauts. But Caroline, we've rarely done monsters and we've never done the Minotaur. And it feels like monsters, they are such a big part of Greek mythology.
Absolutely. Yeah, they're a wonderful part of Greek mythology. I think one of the things that we love about Greek myths are the amazing images that you don't get in any other culture or storytelling or scenario. And I just, you know, when I think of Greek myths, I think of things like a giant wooden horse standing in the middle of a flaming city. Who thought that up? That's amazing.
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Chapter 3: What role do monsters play in Greek mythology?
Or something like, I asked my husband, I just asked him, I said, when I say Greek mythology, what images come to mind? He said, the judgment of Paris, you know, this shepherd standing in front of three goddesses, often nude, judging them during a beauty contest. Things like just the birth of Aphrodite, things like that. And
When I think about it, I have to say, I think about it a lot from Greek vases and the primary sources, but for me, when I was growing up, The Greek myths were Ray Harryhausen films. And some of those films, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts about Jason, Clash of the Titans about Perseus, have some of the most stunning imagery that will never leave my head.
So the Greek myths, just amazing, amazing.
And it's interesting, you know, those monster depictions, as you say, that's kind of the imagination that they have. I mean, I think maybe like the chimera or something like that, especially when they mix different animals together to create these fascinating, I mean, hybrid, scary monsters. And of course, the Minotaur is just one of them.
But Caroline, I'm guessing in your latest book, you must have had to cover so many of those different monsters and the different myths that they're associated with and the complex stories of those various creatures too.
Well, my latest book is called Pantheon, and it's actually about the 12 Olympians, or actually there were 14. So I do the 14 major gods, but I thought I couldn't leave out the minor gods. And then I thought, well, I've got to include the heroes. And I'm afraid the monsters come right at the end, and I don't do them all. But I do do quite a few.
And in a way, the whole book is kind of just a little introduction. And I often say that I kind of boil down these complex mythological characters to their essence, to the kind of stock cubes of who and what they were. So I just give a little paragraph on each. So it's perfect for the attention span of today's reader, just a little box about each one.
And I think one of the things about monsters, I was thinking about why do we like monsters? What do monsters in myths do? And I think it's a combination of observation and imagination. And the first thing that struck me is my real passion is putting myself back into the ancient world and imagining what it would have been like to live back then.
And one of the first things is deformity in animals or in people, which is a kind of horrible thing, isn't it? I'll never forget once in San Francisco, when I was quite young, a teenager, I saw a two-headed snake. And it was alive. It was moving around. And it was just repulsive. It was so... deeply horrible that I'll never forget that.
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Chapter 4: What is the origin story of the Minotaur?
The bull is so beautiful that he cannot bear to sacrifice it. He puts it into his herd and gets an inferior substitute and sacrifices that. Uh-oh indeed.
Not a good idea, yeah.
Not a good idea. And these monsters often come as a result of some crime against the gods or hubris or something. So Poseidon is not happy, and he's furious, and as punishment, he arranges for Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, to fall in love with that bull. So Peisiphae is trying to think about how she can get it on with that bull.
And she asks an exile from Athens named Daedalus, the very clever inventor, if he can come up with an idea. And he comes up. He makes a hollow frame of a cow, covers it with cowhide, and she can hide inside. so that she can mate with the bull. So that's one of his inventions.
And nine months later, a little baby is born, and that baby has the body of a child, according to most depictions and accounts, and the head of a bull.
I mean, Caroline, as you mentioned earlier, and so we won't hang on this topic very long, but you did mention earlier kind of that bestiality side of some of these myths. And this is like a prime example of it, isn't it, with the whole origin story of the Minotaur.
And it's interesting how that is used to explain the creation of hybrid monsters when those monsters are to do partly with human beings.
Exactly. And now this baby is born and we have a wonderful vase that's in Paris at the moment. And it shows Paisa Phi with a little toddler Minos on her lap. And he's got little horns. And I think they suckled kids till they were quite old, like four or five and even older sometimes. in that period. And at first you think, oh, she loves her little baby, her little Minotaur.
But if you look closely, her mouth is turned down and she's not quite touching him. And so I wonder if there's something of a revulsion. She thinks, what have I done? And her husband Minos, of course, he's married to this woman and she gives birth to this monster. He's horrified. And he consults an oracle and
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Chapter 5: How is the Minotaur depicted in ancient sources?
Chapter 6: What is the significance of bulls in ancient cultures?
And I think there's a wonderful line in Euripides about a baby born of mixed and sterile form, a mixture of man and bull of dual nature. So again, you've got this kind of hybrid creature.
I'm glad you mentioned two of those great tragic playwrights there as well, Caroline in Sophocles and Euripides. So good to highlight them as well. But let's move on. As you've hinted at already, let's move on to the origin story. Caroline, what is the origin story of the Minotaur?
The origin story starts with Europa. Well, I mean, you can go back almost to as far as you want. Starts with Europa. Now she was a Phoenician princess from Tyre, which is modern Lebanon. So that's really interesting. She's like a Semitic person. Her ancestor, not her mother, but a few generations back, might have been Io. Io was a nymph that Zeus loved.
Zeus is going to factor, as we know, big in all the myths because he's always desiring nymphs, girls, women, goddesses, whatever. Sure enough, he spotted Io and desired her. And he went to seduce her or whatever. And then he heard Hera coming. So he quickly turned Io into a heifer so that Hera wouldn't be suspicious. But Hera was not fooled.
And she set a god's lie to torment this poor heifer, Io, who was running all over the place. So already in Europa's ancestry, we've got a great-great-grandmother who was turned into a cow. Then Europa... was, as I said, she's a Phoenician princess playing on the seashore one day. Zeus spots her and likes her. So he takes the form of a beautiful bull and goes along the beach.
And she comes up to him because he's so beautiful. And he lets her stroke him. And all the girls she's with are amazed that she's so bold. And then she actually climbs on his back. And off he goes over the sea and ends up in Crete. So he takes Europa to Crete, and that's where we get the term Europe, though Crete, what do we call Crete Europe? I don't know. So anyway, they have three sons.
Zeus and Europa have three sons, Minos, Radamanthus, and Sarpedon. And as sons do, they all vie with each other for the kingship and Essentially, Minos sends the other two off to somewhere else where they found other places. But Minos still has to legitimize his claim to the throne of Crete for the kingship.
So he says to everybody, look, I'm going to call on Poseidon, or in some cases Zeus, but mainly Poseidon, most of the myths. to show you that I am the chosen one. Poseidon, send me a bull from the sea." Sure enough, Poseidon sends him a bull from the sea and we've still got the cow motif going on here. It was so beautiful and Minos said, I will sacrifice this bull to you, of course, Poseidon.
The bull is so beautiful that he cannot bear to sacrifice it. He puts it into his herd and gets an inferior substitute and sacrifices that. Uh-oh indeed.
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Chapter 7: How did Daedalus contribute to the Minotaur's myth?
And I was thinking, you know, for example, how would we do it right now, today? How would we tell the myth of the Minotaur? And I was just thinking about the cattle connection and that... a bull would be equal to a car in modern terms. And I thought, well, what if a woman mated with a car? And actually there was a, in 2021, an ultra-violent French film called Titane won the Palme d'Or.
It's so weird.
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let's kind of move on to that idea of modern day portrayals of the monitor and i know there's a series that we've both watched recently which of course does feature the monitor and a reimagining of the Minotaur story.
I mean, we can focus on that, but also more generally, Caroline, 21st century, said Greek mythology now very popular, and also there have been a lot of kind of rewritings of Greek myths, reimaginings of Greek myths and monsters and figures. I mean, so how has the Minotaur been depicted in many of these examples of pop culture nowadays?
I'm sure the Minotaur is in Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but I haven't read all those books, so I'm not, I'm sure they're there, and I'm sure they're probably some computer games. Before we talk about chaos, my favorite depiction of the Minotaur is by Mary Reynolds, who was writing in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. She wrote a trilogy about Theseus, and the first one's called The King Must Die.
She has a really clever take on the Minotaur. She has the bull, the cow, the kind of model made by Daedalus is for these bull jumpers, because we know in Crete, in Knossos, the palace of Knossos, we know from frescoes that
that there was a bull motif, that there were bull, giant bull horns on some of these buildings, and that we see frescoes of these young acrobats jumping over bulls in a kind of early version of bullfighting, which must have been terrifying, but also impressive.
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Chapter 8: What archaeological discoveries relate to the Minotaur legend?
And the book that got me interested in classics that started my whole passion for classics was called The Last of the Wine. And it's set in ancient Athens in the time of Plato, Socrates, and Xenophon. I read that when I was 19, and it changed my life.
Very, very significant. And kind of the same kind of time as Rosemary Sutcliffe and The Eagle of the Ninth and all of those things, you know, very, very impactful stories and brilliant stories too. Shall we talk about Chaos to finish off Caroline?
Chaos. Let's talk all about Chaos.
So very new. It's on Netflix. And it's like a modern imagination of like Crete and several myths and gods and goddesses. And the Minotaur also plays a big role in it, doesn't it?
Yeah, and what I say in my book is one reason we like the myths is they're so archetypal, and the gods and goddesses, they're good to think with. They're good to play with. They're kind of archetypal characters, and we can play around with them and change them. And that's what the Greek tragedians did, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus did way back then.
And of course, my favorite, Aristophanes, who's not a tragedian at all. But we can play with them. And I think you and I were both at the British Museum when they aired the first episode with Charlie Cavell, the creator, Jeff Goldblum, on a panel afterwards, which was so fascinating. And so, yes, it's a retelling of the Greek myths, not using all the gods, but some of them.
But Charlie does a really interesting thing with the Minotaur. they have that the Minotaur is the child of Minos and that there was a prophecy that the firstborn child of Minos would kill the father. So Minos locks away the son, though he's normal, in a labyrinth and almost creates a beast by denying him love, affection,
physical contact puts him in a mask of a of a bull for some reason so again it's got a kind of explanation and he becomes a very sympathetic character and this is the thing we can do is we can take these
monsters, and we can kind of, I'm saying monsters with inverted commas, we can rehabilitate them and show what might have caused them to become that way, which I think is a great thing about many of these modern retellings. They give us a new view of the monster, though I do think the power of the monster is this deep psychological bogeyman.
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