had left vacant, and in the second generation after Minôs occurred the Trojan war. The departed Minôs was exceedingly offended with the Krêtans for cooperating in avenging the injury to Menelaus, since the Greeks generally had lent no aid to the Krêtans in their expedition against the town of Kamikus. He sent upon Krête, after the return of Idomeneus from Troy, such terrible visitations of famine and pestilence, that the population again died out or expatriated, and was again renovated by fresh immigrations. The intolerable suffering[1] thus brought upon the Krêtans by the anger of Minôs, for having cooperated in the general Grecian aid to Menelaus, was urged by them to the Greeks as the reason why they could take no part in resisting the invasion of Xerxês; and it is even pretended that they were advised and encouraged to adopt this ground of excuse by the Delphian oracle.[2]
Such is the Minos of the poets and logographers, with his legendary and romantic attributes : the familiar comrade of the great Zeus, the judge among the dead in Hadês, the husband of Pasiphaê, daughter of the god Hêlios, the father of the god- dess Ariadnê, as well as of Androgeos, who perishes and is worshipped at Athens,[3] and of the boy Glaukus, who is miraculously restored to life by a prophet, the person beloved by Scylla, and the amorous pursuer of the nymph or goddess Britomartis,[4]—
- ↑ This curious and very characteristic narrative is given by Herodot. vii 169-171.
- ↑ Heredot. vii. 169. The answer ascribed to the Delphian oracle, on the
question being put by the Krêtan envoys whether it would be better for them
to aid the Greeks against Xerxês or not, is highly emphatic and poetical:
(
Greek characters)
If such an answer was ever returned at all, I cannot but think that it most have been from some oracle in Krête itself, not from Delphi. The Delphian oracle could never have so far forgotten its obligations to the general cause of Greece, at that critical moment, which involved moreover the safety of all its own treasures, as to deter the Krêtans from giving assistance.
- ↑ Hesiod, Theogon. 949; Pausan. i. 1, 4.
- ↑ Kallimach. Hvmn. ad Dian. 189. Strabo (x. p. 476) dwells also upon
