Editing Minos (section)

=== Poseidon, Daedalus and Pasiphaë ===
[[File:Gaziantep Zeugma Museum Daedalus mosaic 1871.jpg|thumb|A [[Roman mosaic]] from [[Zeugma, Commagene]] (now in the [[Zeugma Mosaic Museum]]) depicting [[Daedalus]], his son [[Icarus]], Queen [[Pasiphaë]], and two of her female attendants]]

Minos justified his accession as king and prayed to [[Poseidon]] for a sign. Poseidon sent a giant white bull out of the sea.<ref>''Bibliotheke'' 3.1.3; compare [[Diodorus Siculus]] 4.77.2 and [[John Tzetzes]], ''Chiliades'' i.479ff. Lactantius Placidus, commentary on Statius, ''Thebaid'' v.431, according to whom the bull was sent, in answer to Minos's prayer, not by Poseidon but by Jupiter.</ref> Minos was committed to sacrificing the bull to Poseidon<ref>The act would have "returned" the bull to the god who sent it.</ref> but then decided to substitute a different bull. Poseidon cursed [[Pasiphaë]], Minos' wife, in rage, with a mad passion for the bull. Daedalus built her a wooden cow, which she hid inside. The bull mated with the wooden cow, and Pasiphaë was impregnated by the bull, giving birth to a horrible monster, again named Asterius,<ref>''Bibliotheke'' 3.1.4.</ref> the [[Minotaur]], half-man half bull. Daedalus then built a complicated "chamber that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way"<ref>Apparently a quotation, according to [[Sir James George Frazer]], (''Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation'', 1921), commenting on ''Bibliotheke'' 3.1.4.</ref> called the [[Labyrinth]], and Minos put the Minotaur in it. To make sure no one would ever know the secret of who the Minotaur was and how to get out of the Labyrinth (Daedalus knew both of these things), Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son, [[Icarus (mythology)|Icarus]], along with the monster. Daedalus and Icarus flew away on wings Daedalus invented, but Icarus' wings melted because he flew too close to the sun. Icarus fell into the sea and drowned.