Minos keeps the promised animal
To support his claim to rule Crete, Minos asks Poseidon for a sign and promises to sacrifice the bull that the god sends from the sea. When the magnificent animal appears, Minos keeps it and substitutes another offering. Poseidon responds by making the bull dangerous and directing Pasiphae’s desire toward it. Daedalus constructs an artificial cow that enables her union with the animal. The child has the face of a bull and the rest of a human body. The Library calls him Asterius as well as Minotaur, a detail often lost when the descriptive title becomes his only name.
Source: Library and Epitome · Library 3.1.3–4
Confinement becomes a public burden
Minos orders Daedalus to construct the labyrinth, a building whose turns make departure almost impossible. The monster is enclosed there rather than allowed to range freely. After conflict between Crete and Athens, groups of Athenian youths and maidens are delivered to him as tribute. Royal control of the enclosure turns one household’s crisis into a recurring demand on another city. The Minotaur rarely speaks or acts independently in the selected account; his appetite and location give Minos’s political power a material form. The human institutions around the creature are as important as his hybrid body.
Source: Library and Epitome · Library 3.1.4, 3.15.7–9; Epitome 1.7
The rescue depends on local help
Theseus kills the Minotaur, but Ariadne obtains the thread and instructions that allow him to escape. The episode combines confrontation with a monster and the undoing of an ingenious prison. It should not be treated as archaeological proof that a particular Cretan palace contained such a creature or hosted the sacrifice described in the tale. The Library is a late literary compilation, and the labyrinth belongs here to its account of royal deception and heroic rescue. Reading the Minotaur alongside Poseidon and Ariadne makes visible the broken promise that begins the crisis and the knowledge that finally interrupts it.
Source: Library and Epitome · Epitome 1.8–9
- Period / witness
- Greek mythographic compilation, probably first or second century CE; Frazer translation 1921
- Recording context
- The Library attributed to Apollodorus survives through medieval manuscripts; its lost ending is known through epitomes. This later compilation preserves earlier traditions without dating their beginnings.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
Library and Epitome ↗
Pseudo-Apollodorus (ancient author uncertain); translated by Sir James George Frazer · Greek compilation probably first or second century CE; ending survives through later epitomes; Frazer translation 1921; host text page dated 2026-10-05
Edition & rights note