In Greek mythology, Minos was the legendary king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. He ruled from Knossos, exacted the Athenian tribute that fed the Minotaur, and after death became one of the three judges of the underworld with Rhadamanthys and Aeacus. Later rationalizers sometimes split him into two kings—a just lawgiver and a cruel tyrant—to reconcile his contradictory portraits. Archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans named the Bronze Age civilization of Crete "Minoan" after him; there is no firm evidence that a historical Minos existed.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Minos" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Minos was a son of Zeus and the Phoenician princess Europa, raised on Crete with his brothers Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon by King Asterion (Asterius). After Asterion's death he claimed the throne; some sources say he drove his brothers into exile.
By his wife Pasiphaë (daughter of Helios), or in some accounts Crete, he fathered Androgeus, Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, Ariadne, Phaedra, Acacallis, Xenodice, and others. Through Deucalion he was grandfather of Idomeneus, who led the Cretans at Troy. Other partners yield further sons in later catalogues.
II.Lawgiver and sea-king
Homer already knows Minos as king of Knossos. Thucydides calls him the earliest known builder of a navy and suppressor of Aegean piracy; tradition held that every nine years he received laws from Zeus and gave Crete its constitution. Aristotle and later writers credit him with common meals and a caste order on the island.
On the Athenian stage he appears as a stern, often cruel tyrant—the exacting master of the Minotaur tribute—while philosophical and legal tradition remembers the just lawgiver. Diodorus and Plutarch reconcile the clash by positing two kings named Minos: an earlier "good" Minos (judge of the dead) and a later "bad" Minos of the Theseus cycle.
III.Mythology
To prove his right to rule, Minos prayed Poseidon for a sign; the god sent a magnificent white bull from the sea. Minos kept the beast for his herds and sacrificed a lesser animal. Poseidon punished him by causing Pasiphaë to lust for the bull; Daedalus built her a hollow wooden cow, and she bore the Minotaur. Minos then had Daedalus construct the Labyrinth to confine the monster.
When his son Androgeus died in Attica—killed in jealousy after the Panathenaic Games, or sent against the Marathonian Bull by Aegeus—Minos warred on Athens (and on Megara, where Scylla betrayed her father Nisus). Athens was compelled to send seven youths and seven maidens every nine years (or yearly, in some tellings) to be devoured in the Labyrinth, until Theseus slew the Minotaur with Ariadne's help.
Minos also figures in the tale of his son Glaucus, found dead in a honey jar and restored by the seer Polyidus. After Daedalus escaped Crete on wings, Minos hunted him across the Mediterranean with a shell-threading riddle; at Camicus in Sicily King Cocalus's daughters scalded Minos to death in a bath. In Hades he judges the dead beside Rhadamanthys and Aeacus, often with the casting vote.
IV.Reception
Virgil's Aeneid seats Minos among the judges of the dead; Dante's Inferno places him at the entrance to Hell proper, assigning circles by coiling his serpentine tail. On Cretan coins he appears bearded and diademed; vase-paintings and sarcophagi show him with the other underworld judges or in the Theseus–Minotaur cycle. Michelangelo includes him among the damned in the Sistine Last Judgment.