The Homeric Minôs in the under-world is not a judge of the previous lives of the dead, so as to determine whether they deserve reward or punishment for their conduct on earth: such functions are not assigned to him earlier than the time of Plato. He administers justice among the dead, who are conceived as a sort of society, requiring some presiding judge: θεμιστεύοντα νεκύεσσι, with regard to Minôs, is said very much like (Odyss. xi. 484) νῦν αὖτε μέγα κρατέεις νεκύεσσι with regard to Achilles. See this matter partially illustrated in Heyne’s Excursus xi. to the sixth book of the Æneid of Virgil.
[524] Apollodôr. iii. 1, 2. Καὶ αὐτῷ δίδωσι Ζεὺς ἐπὶ τρεῖς γενεὰς ζῇν. This circumstance is evidently imagined by the logographers to account for the appearance of Sarpêdôn in the Trojan war, fighting against Idomeneus, the grandson of Minôs. Nisus is the eponymus of Nisæa, the port of the town of Megara: his tomb was shown at Athens (Pausan. i. 19, 5). Minôs is the eponym of the island of Minoa (opposite the port of Nisæa), where it was affirmed that the fleet of Minôs was stationed (Pausan. i. 44, 5).
[525] Apollodôr iii. 1, 2.
[526] Apollodôr. iii. 15, 8. See the Ciris of Virgil, a juvenile poem on the subject of this fable; also Hyginus, f. 198; Schol. Eurip. Hippol. 1200. Propertius (iii. 19, 21) gives the features of the story with tolerable fidelity; Ovid takes considerable liberties with it (Metam. viii. 5-150).
[527] Apollodôr. iii. 15, 8.
[528] See, on the subject of Thêseus and the Minôtaur, Eckermann, Lehrbuch der Religions Geschichte und Mythologie, vol. ii. ch. xiii. p. 133. He maintains that the tribute of these human victims paid by Athens to Minôs is an historical fact. Upon what this belief is grounded, I confess I do not see.
[529] Plato, Phædon, c. 2, 3; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 8. 2. Plato especially noticed τοὺς δὶς ἕπτα ἐκείνους, the seven youths and the seven maidens whom Thêseus conveyed to Krête and brought back safely: this number seems an old and constant feature in the legend, maintained by Sappho and Bacchylidês as well as by Euripidês (Herc. Fur. 1318). See Servius ad Virgil Æneid. vi. 21.
[530] 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.