The Minotaur

Half man and half bull, the Minotaur is one of the most famous, and scariest, monsters of Greek mythology. The story goes that it was trapped in a great labyrinth beneath Knossos on the island of Crete and feasted on human flesh until it was slain by the hero Theseus with the help of the princess Ariadne. But what exactly was the minotaur? What did the Ancients Greeks perceive it to be? In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes talks to Caroline Lawrence to delve deep into this mythology, and the complex and enduring legacy the Minotaur still holds in modern media today. Presented by Tristan Hughes. The audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, it was produced by Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign upHERE https://historyhit.com/subscription for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscription https://historyhit.com/subscribe You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

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• 1:42Tristan Hughes?

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• 3:01Tristan Hughes?

  It is one of the most famous and scariest monsters of Greek mythology, a creature half man and half bull trapped in a great labyrinth beneath Knossos on the island of Crete. Its story is a familiar one: a bloodthirsty beast that feasted on human flesh until it was slain by the hero Theseus with the help of the princess Ariadne. But what exactly was the Minotaur? How popular was its story in ancient times? And how has it endured and evolved over the centuries down to the present day in formats varying from 19th century oil paintings to brand new TV series retelling the Greek myths?

• 3:43Tristan Hughes?

  It's the Ancient on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we're delving deep into the Minotaur story: this creature's mythological life and legacy down to the present day. Our guest for this episode is the wonderful bestselling author Caroline Lawrence. Caroline has written many brilliant children's books over the years, thrilling adventure stories set in the Greek and Roman worlds. Most recently, she has written a new book all about the gods, goddesses, heroes, and monsters of Greek mythology, including the Minotaur. It was such a pleasure to record this interview with Caroline, and I hope you enjoy it.

• 4:27Tristan Hughes?

  Caroline, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  Tristan, it is wonderful to be here.

• 4:32Tristan Hughes?

  And what a topic. I mean, in the past, on the ancients, we've done quite a bit of Greek mythology. We've done the gods and goddesses. We've done heroes like Heracles and Jason and the Argonauts. But Caroline, we've rarely done monsters and we've never done the Minotaur. And it feels like monsters, they are such a big part of Greek mythology.

• 4:51Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah, they're a wonderful part of Greek mythology. I think one of the things that we love about Greek myths are the amazing images that you don't get in any other culture or storytelling or scenario. And I just, you know, when I think of Greek myths, I think of things like a giant wooden horse standing in the middle of a flaming city. Who thought that up? That's amazing. Or something like, I asked my husband, I just asked him, I said, when you, when I say Greek mythology, what images come to mind? And he said, the Judgment of Paris, you know, this shepherd standing in front of three goddesses, often nude, judging them during a beauty contest.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Things like just the birth of Aphrodite, things like that. And I would, I was just, when I think about it, I have to say, I think about it a lot from Greek vases and the primary sources. But for me, when I was growing up, the Greek myths were Ray Harryhausen films. And some of those films, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts about Jason, Clash of the Titans about Perseus, have some of the most stunning imagery that will never leave my head. So the Greek myths, just amazing, amazing.

• 6:12Tristan Hughes?

  And it's interesting, you know, those, those monster depictions, as you say, that's kind of the imagination that they have. I mean, I think maybe like the chimera or something like that, especially when they, they mix different animals together to create these fascinating, I mean, hybrid scary monsters. And of course, the Minotaur is just one of them. But Caroline, I'm guessing in your latest book, you must have had to cover so many of those different monsters and the different myths that they're associated with. And, and the complex stories of those various creatures too.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Well, my latest book's called Pantheon, and it's actually about the 12 Olympians, or actually there were 14, but. So I do the fourteen major gods, but I thought I couldn't leave out the minor gods. And then I thought, well, I've got to include the heroes. And I'm afraid the monsters come right at the end, and I don't do them all. But I do do quite a few. And in a way, the whole book is kind of just a little introduction. And I often say that I kind of boil down these complex mythological characters to their essence, to the kind of stock cubes of who and what they were. So I just give a little paragraph on each. So it's perfect for the

• 7:21Speaker 04

  the attention span of today's reader, you know, just a little box about each one. And I think one of the things about monsters, I was thinking about, why do we like monsters? What do monsters in myths do? And I think I think it's a combination of observation and imagination. And the first thing that struck me is my real passion is putting myself back into the ancient world and imagining what it would have been like to live back then. And one of the first things is deformity in animals or in people, which is a kind of horrible thing, isn't it? I'll never forget once in San Francisco, when I was quite young, a teenager, I saw a two-headed snake. And it was alive.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  It was moving around. And it was just repulsive. It was so deeply horrible that I'll never forget that. And I think, you know, we have stories of two-headed calves or or animals with more than one limb. And I think they must have observed these things. And I think that's one of the things that they might have thought, this is a monster. Another one is hybrids, where you match like a donkey and a horse, and you get a mule. So you can combine animals. And then we'll skip over this one very quickly, but bestiality, you know, what if a shepherd's in his field and he needs to relieve himself in a certain way? And he goes over to a nice cow or a nice sheep or something? What if he wonders what would come if that sheep gave birth? What would come out?

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Kind of creepy one, but it might have been something they thought about. And then you get these images coming from other cultures from the Near East or Egypt of kind of half-human, half-animal creatures. And they might have thought, what is this? And they might want to explain it. And then one of the things we often forget about is that these monsters had a job, which was to keep away evil. They often frightened away evil spirits and demons. The word is apo tropeik in Greek, which means turns away evil. And we often forget that they lived in a world full of invisible, not just gods, but demons and little spirits and things.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  But I think of all those things, the most powerful thing is the psychological aspect of the monsters. And if you think about it, we humans, we are part animal and we're part divine. I mean, we're part super animals, you know, we think, we tell stories, we dress, we have different cultic practices. And it's that tension that causes us so much anguish in life, too. We're always struggling with our animal desires. And I think that's why monsters can be so deeply powerful and scary and frightening. And I think also there's this current fashion of rehabilitating monsters, you know, making them sympathetic, which I'm all for. You know, Natalie Haines does it in Stone Blind about Medusa.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  And I think, I'm not sure if you'd call Cersei a monster, but Madeleine Miller rehabilitates her and tells her side. But monsters, and of course Charlie Cavell does it in the new Netflix series. He makes the Minotaur, gives them a sympathetic story. But monsters are scary. They're terrifying. And that's what their power is.

• 10:38Tristan Hughes?

  And I think none more, maybe not none more scary, but none which is the pool today as the Minotaur. I mean, that feels like the name, that's like the main monster that many of us will think of if someone talks about Greek mythology. But Caroline, what was the Minotaur?

• 10:54Speaker 04

  Well, what was the Minotaur? Well, he was half bull, half man. And he has a really interesting origin. Before I talk about his origin, though, in my book, I have a little box. I have some little info boxes. And as I was researching all this, I read a book about the importance of cattle in ancient times. And I call this box the cattle connection. And you know, ancient Greeks, in fact, even Stone Age and Bronze Age cultures, cattle, sheep, goats, cows were incredibly important. Because if you owned a cow, cattle, even a single cow, you were rich.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  And what do you use cows for? Well, they provide food, they provide transportation. They can plow your land, so you have crops. Then when they die, you've got leather for clothing and shoes and textiles and tents. And another thing that struck me is most people in the Bronze Age or the Stone Age wouldn't have seen, you know, a lion or a bear, but a bull would have been probably the most terrifying and powerful animal they would come into close contact with. And if you can just imagine, I don't know if you've ever been near a bull, but they can be terrifying.

• 12:08Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, I grew up in the countryside and many, many fields and, you know, it's not just beware of the dog signs that you see here and there everywhere. You also get a lot of beware of the bull or warning bull in field. As you say, a fully grown bull is a very scary animal, even today. They can be very dangerous.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  They're powerful and they have the majestic aspect too, because the horns, horns are a deep symbol of power. And so you've got, they are often associated with kings and things. And in fact, when you start looking for cattle in the Greek myths, you see them everywhere. For example, the first thing baby Hermes does as soon as he's born is to, well, after he kills the tortoise and makes it into a larva, is he steals the cattle of Apollo.

• 12:51Tristan Hughes?

  Yes, he's one day old, isn't he? That's quite an achievement.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Oh, it's so cute. I love that story. And it makes, but then you just think of Apollo, this golden god who plays, well, he's gonna play the larva. He's like a cowherd and baby Hermes is a little cattle rustler. And then you've got Hera, the queen of the gods, who's often called ox-eyed or cow-eyed. Apparently it's a compliment. And then Zeus, Poseidon, and Dionysus are all deeply associated with bulls. Two of the labors of Hercules have to do with bulls. Odysseus gets into trouble when his men steal the sacred cattle. And then Cadmus from Phoenicia, he follows a cow who leads him to Biocia, which means cowland in Greek, and there he found Thebes,

• 13:33Speaker 04

  which is going to be the great tragic city of Pentheus, Oedipus, Antigone, et cetera. And we're going to come to cows in a minute when I do the origin story of the Minotaur.

• 13:45Tristan Hughes?

  But I think it's Getaula. I've completely forgot that Boeotia, of course, Boas, you know, that means cowland, cow part of Greece, which is so interesting. And I guess if we kind of keep on that context a bit more, I mean, Caroline, that main theater geographic area we're going to be talking about with the Minotaur myth is of course the island of Crete. And that has also got a very strong connection with cows and bulls in particular, doesn't it?

• 14:07Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. And I think, again, that that connection with cows and bulls, it's not just Crete, it's not just mainland Greece. You get it in Phoenicia, you get it in Egypt, you get it, we see images of Baal, the Canaanite god, with a bull head and a man's body. So there, again, the cow is so deeply important to all these cultures, and they have different ways of kind of expressing that.

• 14:32Tristan Hughes?

  Now, before we go on to that origin story, what sources do we have for this myth? I mean, in which ancient sources is the myth of the Minotaur retold?

• 14:41Speaker 04

  A good question. We have a first mention of him is in a poet called Calymachus, who's of the third century B.C. And he just has a little line. He talks about Theseus escaping from the cruel bellowing of the wild sun of Pasiphae and the twisted dwelling place of the crooked labyrinth. So right there, although it doesn't call him Minotaur in that third century B.C. bit of poetry, you've got all the elements. You've got Theseus, you've got the mother, and you've got the maze. Then we first see it written down on vases, and there's a famous skifus, which is a kind of

• 15:23Speaker 04

  deep bowl with two little horizontal handles at the top called the Rayet skifus. And that's from appropriately enough, Biocia, cowland.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  And it shows Theseus stepping forward to stab the Minotaur. And in that one, the Minotaur looks a bit like, his head looks almost like a unicorn. It could be a horse with one horn. But then, in a vase of about 400, we call it, someone's written Minoeo Tauros, which means the Bull of Minos. So that's the kind of first time it's written down. But obviously, there's this deep association, starting from about the 6th century B.C. in Greece, with of this bull-headed person in a maze.

• 16:06Tristan Hughes?

  But that's interesting. So as you've highlighted there, when we talk about source material for this myth, Caroline, we shouldn't just be thinking of, you know, written-down references, as you've highlighted there. I mean, vase painting, I guess, and sculpture as well. We have these various archaeological pieces of evidence too, to kind of piece together more about the Minotaur, especially in ancient times, and how popular or how this myth was perceived by those living back then.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And I forgot to say, the two main sources are, I'd say, one is Apollodorus, or pseudo-Apollodorus, as he's sometimes called, who was writing in Greek in the 1st century C.E. And also, Ovid writes about the Minotaur, not just in the Metamorphoses, but in the Ars Amatoria.

• 16:49Tristan Hughes?

  And he's a Roman writer, isn't he? Yes.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  He's a Roman writing, yeah, in Latin, right like before the birth of Christ, just before the birth of Christ. And he has a wonderful phrase. He describes the Minotaur as semi-bovemque virum, semi-virumque bovem, which means a half-bull man and a half-man bull. So it's a kind of Latin tongue-twister, a hybrid line for a hybrid creature. So that's good fun. And he talks about the unholy womb and stuff like that, that gave birth to the Minotaur.

• 17:23Tristan Hughes?

  But is it always the depiction of the Minotaur with the body of a man and the head of a bull? It's never the body of a bull and the head of a man, is it?

• 17:32Speaker 04

  Myths are malleable, so we do sometimes get

• 17:35Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  the body of a bull and the head of the man, which is deeply creepy. For some reason, that's more creepy than the body of a man with the head of a bull. So we do occasionally get it, because of course, these myths are not canon, they're not scripture, they're malleable, you can play with them. And in fact, I think some of our most striking images of the Minotaur and the maze come from the Greek tragedians of the fifth century, who maybe we don't still have their plays, but we have little lines from them, which are very, very powerful. So yeah, they think Sophocles might have been the one who talks about the maze as a twisty thing.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  And I think there's a wonderful line in Euripides about a baby born of mixed and sterile form, a mixture of man and bull of dual nature. So again, you've got this kind of hybrid creature.

• 18:31Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned two of those great tragic playwrights there as well, Caroline, in Sophocles and Euripides. So good to highlight them as well. But let's move on, as you've hinted at already. Let's move on to the origin story. Caroline, what is the origin story of the Minotaur?

• 18:46Speaker 04

  The origin story starts with Europa. Well, I mean, you can go back almost two, as far as you want. Starts with Europa. Now, she was a Phoenician princess from Tyre, which is modern Lebanon. So that's really interesting. She's like a Semitic person. And her ancestor, not her mother, but a few generations back, might have been Io. And Io was a nymph that Zeus loved. Zeus is going to factor, as we know, big in all the myths because he's always desiring nymphs, girls, women, goddesses, whatever. And he, sure enough, he spotted Io and desired her. And he went to seduce her, or whatever.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  And then he heard Hera coming, so he quickly turned Io into a heifer. So that Hera wouldn't be suspicious. But Hera was not fooled. And she sent a gadfly to torment this poor heifer, Io, who was running all over the place. So already in Europa's ancestry, we've got a great, great grandmother who was turned into a cow. Then Europa. Was, as I said, she's a Phoenician princess, playing on the seashore one day. Zeus spots her and likes her. So he takes the form of a beautiful bull and goes along the beach. And she comes up to him because he's so beautiful. And he lets her stroke him. And all the girls she's with are like amazed that she's so bold.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  And then she actually climbs on his back and off he goes over the sea and ends up in Crete. So he takes Europa to Crete. And that's where we get the term Europe, though. Crete, would we call Crete Europe? I don't know. So anyway, they have a three sons. Zeus and Europa have three sons. Minos, Radamanthus and Sarpedon. And as sons do, they all vie with each other for the kingship. And essentially Minos sends the other two off to somewhere else where they found other places. But Minos still has to legitimize his claim through the throne of Crete for the kingship. So he says to everybody, look, I'm going to call on Poseidon.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Or in some cases Zeus, but mainly Poseidon, most of the myths. To show you that I am the chosen one. Poseidon, send me a bull from the sea. Sure enough, Poseidon sends him a bull from the sea. And we've still got the cow motif going on here. It was so beautiful. And Minos said, I will sacrifice this bull to you, of course, Poseidon. The bull is so beautiful that he cannot bear to sacrifice it. So he puts it into his herd and gets an inferior substitute and sacrifices that. Uh oh, indeed.

• 21:25Tristan Hughes?

  Not a good idea, yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  Not a good idea. And you know, these monsters often come as a result of some crime against the gods or hubris or something. So Poseidon is not happy and is furious. And as punishment, he arranges for Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, to fall in love with that bull.

• 21:48Speaker 04

  The Pisaphy is trying to think about how she can get it on with that bull. And she asks an exile from Athens named Daedalus, the very clever inventor, if he can come up with an idea. And he comes up, he makes a hollow frame of a cow, covers it with cowhide. And she can hide inside so that she can mate with the bull. So that's one of his inventions. And nine months later, a little baby is born and that baby has the body of a child, according to most depictions and accounts, and the head of a bull.

• 22:27Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, Caroline, as you mentioned earlier, and so we won't hang on this topic very long, but you did mention early kind of that bestiality side of some of these myths. And this is like a prime example of it, isn't it, with the whole origin story of the Minotaur? And it's interesting how that is used to explain the creation of hybrid monsters, when those monsters are to do partly with human beings.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  Exactly. And now this baby is born and we have a wonderful vase that's in Paris at the moment. And it shows Pisaphy with a little toddler Minos on her lap. And he's got little horns. And I think they suckled kids till they were quite old, like four or five, and even older sometimes in that period. And at first you think, oh, she loves her little baby, her little Minotaur. But if you look closely, her mouth is turned down and she's not quite touching him. And so I wonder if there's something of a revulsion. What is, she thinks, what have I done? And her husband Minos, of course, he's married to this woman and she gives birth to this monster.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  He's horrified and he consults an oracle and he doesn't just kill it because it's obviously, you know, there's something special about this creature. He doesn't just kill it. He consults an oracle and the oracle says to hide him away and create, put him in a labyrinth. So he gets Daedalus, again, the inventor. And the labyrinth is designed by Daedalus to keep the bull hidden, this monster Minotaur, hidden away from human sight. And because it's an aberration, it's not natural, it can't eat hay or straw or grass like a bull. So it must be fed human flesh. So. Of course, according to the myth, the Athenians,

• 24:11Speaker 04

  for various reasons, have to send nine boys and girls every seven years, or seven boys and girls every nine years, something like that, as tribute to Minotaur.

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• 26:52Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, Caroline, before we keep going with the myth, shall we, shall we kind of focus a bit more on those parts you just talked about? And, and the first part, that was really interesting that there's a depiction of a baby Minos or an ancient Greek vase, which is, you know, a part of the story that you don't immediately think of. But shall we focus a bit on Deidreus, on this character of Deidreus? Because he seems to be, he's an extraordinary figure in mythology. He's associated, as you say, with creating that bull, that fake bull for, you know, for Pasiphae to mate with the bull. And then the creation of the labyrinth. But he has several stories from mythology. And, and there is another big one that I'm thinking of, too.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  Absolutely, and I'm afraid I couldn't fit everybody into my book, and he does not make it into my book, really. But of course, he was, apparently he committed some crime in Athens, and they exiled him, and he fled to Crete. And he was incredibly clever. And the first thing he created was this cow for Pasiphae. Then he created the labyrinth. But they kept him prisoner so that he wouldn't tell. Minos didn't want him to get out and say what he'd created. So they kept him and his son Icarus prisoner. And we all know the story that he devised a clever way to escape by making wings of light wood or reed with wax and feathers and designed these beautiful wings. Again, an extraordinary idea.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  That even back then, they had a craving, an idea of how you could fly and they had certain gods who could fly. And of course Hermes, the messenger god could fly. But anyway, Icarus makes the wings and we all know the story of how he warns his son not to go too high because he thinks the sun might melt the wax. Sure enough, Icarus goes high, the wax melts and he plunges into the sea, which is called the Icarian Sea from then on after him.

• 28:44Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, exactly. Well, I feel we need to talk about Deidre and Icarus very quickly because as you said, he is a main figure in the story of the Minotaur as the creator of the labyrinth. And as you say, the aftermath is that he is imprisoned in Knossos at Minos's capital, which will lead to that Icarus myth too. I mean, do we know anything about the supposed layout of the labyrinth, the shape? Or is that detail not really given, Caroline?

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Oh, no, we know that. I mean, what's fascinating is that the Greeks have the word labyrinth and they know what it means. I mean, Plato in one of his dialogues talks about, he says something about, has Socrates say, at this point, we were involved in a labyrinthine discussion, you know? So they know what it means. And they saw coins from Crete, which have a maze on them on one side, going way back. Of course, the Cretan civilization had gone by about, I believe about 1400 B.C. It was a Bronze Age civilization. The Mycenaeans invaded, then Crete was gone.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  There was eruption of Thera or whatever. And so this was a dim memory to the Greeks. But they kept seeing these coins with a maze on it and these were coins of Knossos. And in about the late 1800s, a couple of archaeologists decided to start digging where they found these coins. And they found famously, in fact, Arthur Evans, rich Englishman, he bought part of Crete, this area in Crete and started digging and found the ruins of this enormous. Palace complex, which looks like a labyrinth when you see it laid out. And it had no walls, it didn't need town walls because Crete is an island.

• 30:37Speaker 04

  And it was almost like a city palace. It had shops and workshops and housing. And frescoes on the wall and columns and courtyards. And, and so in a way, it looks like a labyrinth even today. And Arthur Evans saw this double-headed axe, which is called a labris, written on, scrolled on some of the walls. And so he thought the word labris and labyrinth might have been linked. Those scholars aren't sure about that. So he named this palace at Knossos, the house of the axe. But I think that's probably where the idea of the labyrinth comes from is this massive palace with labyrinthine rooms and the corridors.

• 31:22Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, Caroline, it is fascinating to explore things like that. And as we talked about earlier, that the association with bulls, strong association with bulls in ancient Greece and further beyond, because then, as I'm sure you've seen when you're writing your book and exploring many of these myths to do with the Greek gods and goddesses, how you can sometimes find historical context as to why certain myths are created. And it's fascinating that association with Knossos and Crete with the labyrinth. And as I said, potentially it's that kind of labyrinthine design of the palace.

• 31:53Speaker 04

  It's amazing because if you think about Schliemann, he believed that there was a Trojan war. So he went looking where he thought it would have taken place, where Troy might have been.

• 32:02Tristan Hughes?

  Heinrich Schliemann, he's a German excavator.

• 32:04Speaker 04

  Yes, Heinrich Schliemann, exactly. And he found Troy. And in the same way, Arthur Evans, Sir Arthur Evans, around 1900, let's say, he went and, and started digging where they found all these coins. And he's found Knossos. So there is some historical material basis for many of these myths.

• 32:26Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely brilliant. And now let's keep going with the Minotaur story, Caroline, and kind of pick up from where we left off. So the Minotaur, I mean, what kinds of food can it eat?

• 32:37Speaker 04

  Can only eat human food.

• 32:39Tristan Hughes?

  Only human food.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  It's an aberration against nature and.

• 32:44Speaker 04

  And it needs a tribute. And I don't know if that's some kind of a remnant of sacrifice or... I mean, they've actually found human bones and traces of cannibalism in Crete. So maybe that's fed into somehow this memory of this civilization that had been gone for a thousand years by the time the Greek poets were writing about it and the Greek tragedians. And so Theseus has to go. He decides to go and for various reasons, the tributes, I think they come from Athens. Some of the tributes come from Athens. These kids who have to be sacrificed every nine years.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  And Theseus decides that before he can become king of Athens, which is his birthright, he's going to dispatch the Minotaur. So he goes with this boatload of tributes. And there's the famous story of he, his father, Aegius, says, "Don't go." And he says, "I'll go, I'll conquer the Minotaur, I'll come back. I'll change the black sail to white to show you that I've done it." Of course, he forgets. And conveniently conveniently, Aegius jumps into the GNC. Interesting it's called after him. And Theseus becomes king. But anyway, back on the ship, they arrive in Crete. And there are lots of retellings of this, but the basic Greek myth is that

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Ariadne, a princess, another daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, falls in love with him and she tells him the secret of killing the Minotaur, who's in this dark labyrinth. Imagine, we all have dreams, don't we, about getting lost? Imagine going into a dark, underground labyrinth. And I don't know if it's worse if it would be pitch black or if there'd be torches with spooky light, you know, making shadows loom and stuff. I don't know which would be more terrifying. It would be terrifying. He's got to find his way to the center of this maze, kill the Minotaur and then get back. And Ariadne gives him the famous thread or the twine. And if he can just keep hold of the thread, as it unspools,

• 34:53Speaker 04

  he can use it to find his way back. Now, one thing that's fascinating to me about this myth Is it's a perfect example of what's called the hero's journey, which is this kind of template of storytelling that we find in almost, well, many of the Greek myths. And many Hollywood screenwriters love this hero's journey structure. And they use it for their stories, which don't have to be about heroes and Greek myths. I mean, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz follows this template. Star Wars follows this template. Pixar's Up follows this template. I could go on and on telling you all the films that follow the template of the hero's journey, where the hero gets a call to adventure.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  They have to leave their ordinary world and go, they have to cross a threshold. This is very important. Thresholds are super important. A threshold into a new world of adventure. So just think of Theseus going into the labyrinth. And often before the hero goes, a helper called a mentor will give them advice and give them a talisman, an object. So in this bit of the story, Ariadne is the mentor and she gives Theseus a ball of string, which is the talisman, and that's going to help him. Now, according to some accounts, he just punches the Minotaur, but we mostly see him with a sword on depictions. He goes into the Minotaur and into the labyrinth.

• 36:20Speaker 04

  And there's often a step in the hero's journey called the visit to death. And this is the visit to death. It's symbolic of going to the underworld. And almost every hero in Greek mythology goes to the underworld in one way or another. And then the hero must do the task. They must take the elixir, kill the monster, save the princess, whatever. And then they must get back home again. And then they have to cross another threshold to get back home. So we often see on Vase Theseus emerging.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  From the labyrinth and it's often shown by a couple of columns and a pediment. And sometimes the Minotaur is there with him. Of course, the Minotaur has been left in the center, but it just shows us that that's what he's just been doing is killing the Minotaur. So it's this wonderful story of the hero's journey in a little encapsulation, which has all the elements he could want.

• 37:10Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, Caroline, it's a great pub quiz question in the future to say, what does the Minotaur myth up Star Wars and Dora Filly, what do they all have in common? And as you say, it's, it's, it's the hero's journey. I never thought about it that way as well. And as you say, it's an interesting story, isn't it? How like the end of it, I guess the climax is Theseus slaying the Minotaur, but it isn't, that's not the end. It's him then getting back out of that different world, that scary world that you've, you so brilliantly kind of created that horrifying image of going through that very dark place. It's, it's then getting back. I mean, the story continues after the slaying of the Minotaur.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  Very important, the getting back is very important. And if you look at myths and stories, you have to see how they get back. And it's, and when they get back, they've changed their whole journey. What it's done, it's, it's trained them in some way. It's helped them become who they're meant to be, whether it's a leader or to save the world like Wally, when he saves the earth by bringing back the plant, you know, or whatever it is. It's, it's, it's a genius, genius template for storytellers everywhere. And so exciting. I think it's really great. Of course, when he gets out of the maze, he then takes Ariadne with him

• 38:30Speaker 04

  because she's betrayed her father and killed her half brother, the Minotaur. Theseus wasn't a very nice person. He abandons her later on the island.

• 38:38Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, that's not the sweet ending that otherwise you'd expect, right?

• 38:41Speaker 04

  And in fact, Theseus is pretty bad as his record for women. So we won't look too much into that. We'll go back to the Minotaur.

• 38:48Tristan Hughes?

  No, I think you're quite right. As you said, we're focusing largely on the Minotaur today. But I mean, the, the story of Theseus is a very complex one. And so we, we focus on the Minotaur quite a lot with Theseus, but there was much more. I say, yeah, it's not all good with, with Theseus as a character. But yes, let's go back to the Minotaur. So the Minotaur has been slain by Theseus. Do we ever hear what happens to the Minotaur or like its corpse? Or what happens to it after it's been slain? Cause it feels like it's just been left in the labyrinth.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, and maybe that's what happens when we slay the monsters in our life. We just leave them and there's a kind of little decaying corpse of that, that thing that was haunting us in our deep, deep subconscious of our labyrinthine brain. So there are writers out there, there's your story. What happened to the Minotaur after he died? I think, once they die, they die and he's underground. So, you know, he's essentially been buried.

• 39:42Tristan Hughes?

  As time goes on, do we think that the Minotaur was a popular myth in Greek and then Roman times? You've mentioned a couple of the ways that the Minotaur is depicted. I'd just like to know if, I mean, do we continue to see depictions of the Minotaur? As antiquity goes on, let's say as the Romans really become dominant in the Mediterranean, does the Minotaur remain quite a fashionable beast almost?

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Great question, and we know from Ovid that he likes the Minotaur. And one of, I love looking at the vases and the frescoes. And we've got some wonderful frescoes from Pompeii of the Zeus and the Minotaur. So, yes, he's still very, very popular. Obviously monsters go in and out of fashion. What, what really interests me is what we've done with him in the last hundred, 200 years about pop culture. And do you mind if I talk about that a little?

• 40:37Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely. Should we start with the 19th century first of all? And, and paintings for pop culture? Or would you like to go straight into kind of TV and depictions?

• 40:45Speaker 04

  Well, let's talk about one of the most famous paintings of the Minotaur, which is by, is it Watts?

• 40:52Tristan Hughes?

  George Frederick Watts.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  That's him, Gia, George Frederick Watts.

• 40:56Tristan Hughes?

  Caroline, I can't take credit for that because I've seen your Instagram post about that very painting very recently. So you are the credit for that.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  So, um, this is really fascinating because there was a bill trying to be put through Parliament about raising the Act of Consent for Children, worrying about child prostitution, which was a real problem in Victorian period. And it was so distressing that this Watts, who was one of the most popular artists of his time, he read the article, went to sleep, and the next morning he woke up and painted this amazing painting of the Minotaur in one morning.

• 41:34Tristan Hughes?

  Wow.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  And it shows the Minotaur from the back. He's slightly turned away from us. He's leaning on a balustrade, he's not underground, he's looking out at the sea. And when you first look at it, he looks quite lonely and sympathetic. One scholar has commented, his face looks almost dog-like and he's got long eyelashes. But then, if you look more closely, it's kind of creepy. Because first of all, it looks like he's looking at you out of the corner of his eye. And then you notice that in his hand, he's crushed a bird, a little tiny bird. He's crushed dead. And then you see what he's looking at is a ship bringing the tribute of children for him.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  And this was, he became a metaphor for the sort of person who enjoys abusing underage children or children at all for in horrible ways. And so it was a real statement about what was happening in society at that moment. I was so excited to hear that the Tate Britain has all Watts's paintings. So I went to look at it and it's in storage. So I tweeted the Tate, "Bring it out."

• 42:44Tristan Hughes?

  Well, this is our message. We've got to hear as well, bring back out that Watts Minotaur painting.

• 42:49Speaker 04

  Especially with the current popularity of Greek mythology, the resurgence, people looking at it, retelling it, using the myths to talk about what's happening now, which is what the myths are so useful for, to bring it out. What's really interesting is that the famous short story writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story partly inspired by that painting. He was putting out a magazine and he had two pages to fill. So he thought, I'll write a short story, two pages long. And he wrote a story called "The House of Asterion." And Asterion was the name of the Minotaur in Ancient Greek. And although it's very short, it's considered a classic because it's arguably the first story about an ancient monster

• 43:32Speaker 04

  that's told from the monster's point of view, which is super interesting.

• 43:37Tristan Hughes?

  That is, yes.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  And I was thinking, you know, for example, how would we do it right now, today? How would we tell the myth of the Minotaur? And I was just thinking that about the cattle connection and that. A bull would be equal to a car in modern terms. And I thought, well, what if a woman mated with a car? And actually, there was a, in 2021, an ultra violent French film called Titan, won the Palme d'Or. And in that, that's exactly what happens is this, this girl's in a car accident and she has a titanium plate in her head. And then later on, she falls in love with a vintage Cadillac and becomes pregnant by that. So weird.

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• 45:33Tristan Hughes?

  Let's kind of move on to that idea of modern day portrayals of the Minotaur. And I know there's a series that we've both watched recently, which of course does feature the Minotaur and a reimagining of the Minotaur story. I mean, we can focus on that, but also more generally, Caroline, 21st century, said Greek mythology now very popular. And also there have been a lot of kind of rewritings of Greek myths, reimaginings of Greek myths and monsters and figures. I mean, so how has the Minotaur been depicted in many of these examples of pop culture nowadays?

• 46:06Speaker 04

  I'm sure the Minotaur is in Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but I haven't read all those books, so I'm not, I'm sure they're there and I'm sure there are probably some computer games. Before we talk about chaos, my favorite depiction of the Minotaur is by Mary Reynolds, who was writing in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. And she wrote a trilogy about Theseus. And the first one's called The King Must Die. And she has a really clever take on the Minotaur. She has the bull, the cow, the kind of model made by Dedalus, is for these bulljumpers. Because we know in Crete, in Knossos, the palace of Knossos, we know from frescoes

• 46:51Speaker 04

  that there was a bull motif, that there were bull, giant bull horns on some of these buildings, and that we see frescoes of these young acrobats jumping over bulls in a kind of early version of bullfighting, which must have been terrifying, but also impressive. So Mary Reynolds has Theseus coming as tribute that they have to, these 14 children, seven boys and seven girls, have to learn how to dance with the bulls and become bullleapers. So in the bullring where they're training, they have a practice cow, like the way gymnasts have, what do you call it, a horse or whatever.

• 47:31Tristan Hughes?

  Is it steed bull or, oh, yes, I know, I know what you mean. I've forgotten the name for it as well. But you see it on the Olympics, every Olympics, yes?

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Absolutely. They're jumping on this, whatever, this bolster quite creature. I wonder if that's actually a holdover for the bulljumpers, the bullleapers. Anyway, it's very clever because they've created, like the bull that, the cow that pacify occupies, the framework of a cow or a bull, that they can, someone can climb inside and operate it from inside. And according to Mary Reynolds, the Minotaur is the son Asterion of...

• 48:06Speaker 04

  Not Minos, but Pacify, Pacify, who fell in love with a bull leaper from Assyria. So he was kind of a hairy guy, though he was quite young at the time. He impregnated her, then died in the, in the bull ring. And she gave birth to this kind of, he's human, but he's, he doesn't look Cretan. He doesn't have the slim build of many Cretans and the honey colored skin of many Cretans. He's kind of hairier and has bulging eyes and a kind of bull like neck. So what Mary Reynolds has done is made him a person with kind of bestial aspects. And what the really clever thing is, she says that when Pacify was really in love with him, she'd sneak into the bull ring and hide in the cow to wait to meet him.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  So it's a very clever kind of laudan take, kind of rationalizing what the, what the Minotaur might have been.

• 48:58Tristan Hughes?

  That's interesting. And I, I remember the word now for it is, is the pommel horse. As we, as we're thinking of that, that gymnastics.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. Yeah.

• 49:05Tristan Hughes?

  But, but as you're, I say, yes, I think like kind of an interesting ancient equivalent. And Mary Reynolds, fascinating writer, and she also did quite a lot on Alexander the Great too. So I definitely know that name well.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  And the book that got me interested in classics, that started my whole passion for classics, was called The Last of the Wine, and it's set in ancient Athens in the time of Plato, Socrates and xenophon. I read that when I was 19 and it changed my life.

• 49:31Tristan Hughes?

  She's very, very significant and kind of the same kind of time as Rosamund Sutcliffe and the Eagle of the Ninth and all of those things, you know, very, very impactful stories and brilliant stories too. Shall we talk about chaos to finish off Caroline?

• 49:43Speaker 04

  Chaos, let's talk all about chaos.

• 49:45Tristan Hughes?

  So very new, it's on Netflix and is it, is it, it's like a modern imagination of like Crete and, and several myths and gods and goddesses. And the Minotaur also plays a big role in it, doesn't it?

• 49:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. And what I say in my book is, one reason we like the myths is they're so archetypal and the gods and goddesses. They're good to think with, they're good to play with, they're kind of archetypal characters and we can play around with them and change them and that's what the Greek tragedians did, Sophocles Euripides and Aeschylus did way back then and of course my favorite Aristophanes, who's not a tragedian at all, but we can play with them and I think you and I were both at the British Museum when they aired the first episode with Charlie Cavell, the creator, Jeff Goldblum on a panel afterwards, which was so fascinating. And so, yes, it's a retelling

• 50:39Speaker 04

  of the Greek myths, not using all the gods, but some of them, but Charlie does a really interesting thing with the Minotaur. They have that the Minotaur is the child of Minos and that there was a prophecy that the firstborn child of Minos would kill the father. So Minos locks away the son, though he's normal, in a labyrinth and almost creates a beast by denying him love, affection, physical contact, puts him in a mask of a bull for some reason. So, again, it's got a kind of explanation and he becomes a very sympathetic character. And

• 51:20Speaker 04

  this is a thing we can do, is we can take these monsters and we can kind of, I'm saying monsters with inverted commas, we can rehabilitate them and show what might have caused them to become that way, which I think is a great, a great thing about many of these modern retellings. They give us a new view of the monster, though I do think the power of the monster is this deep psychological bogeyman.

• 51:49Tristan Hughes?

  And that's why, and do you think that's perhaps like the crux as to why figures like monsters such as the Minotaur have remained so popular in our imagination down to the present day? Is still at the end of the day, as you say, almost if you're sleeping and you have a nightmare and you're down in that very dark labyrinthine area, knowing that there's a monster out to get to you, you know, a kind of otherworldly idea. Do you think that is still kind of the mainstay as to why the Minotaur has remained so popular down to the present day?

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Yes, I think so. And I think, I think any of these weird combinations of these hybrids are so fascinating to us. I think my favorite monster...

• 52:29Speaker 04

  Is Medusa in all her terrifying aspect. And especially the way Ray Harryhausen portrayed her. And the idea that if someone looks at you, they can turn you to stone. And this is one of the ideas of Apotropaik. The power is a face looking out can turn back, reflect back evil spirits, frighten them away. And a dog with three heads, a watchdog, but especially one with three heads can frighten away an evil spirit. And I think the power of the Minotaur against evil spirits and in the subconscious is not him. But I think it's the maze again. This idea of the place, his big accessory, this labyrinthine space that I don't dream about him.

• 53:13Speaker 04

  But I do dream about not getting out of a space. And in fact, yesterday I went to the National Gallery in London. Amazing resource. Oh, my gosh, so many masterpiece paintings. Please may it never bring down. But I couldn't find my way out. And I felt a bit like this is in the labyrinth.

• 53:31Tristan Hughes?

  That's an interesting way to think of it, isn't it, Caroline? Because if you go to like, say, a maze in Hampton Court or somewhere today, you know, you'll go there with the family. And it's a fun activity to try and find the center of the maze. But if you add that element to it, that actually you're in the maze and you're being chased. Or there's something out to get you. It goes from being a very pleasant experience into being like a location of nightmares. And I guess that is kind of the thing with a Minotaur, isn't it? That if you're thinking of a maze in that perspective, what's the number one monster you'll think of associated with a labyrinth? With a place you find difficult to get out? It is the Minotaur.

• 54:07Speaker 04

  And you know, it doesn't, this is a weird thing, but I know we're talking about monsters, but there doesn't even have to be a monster. Just getting out, getting home is a desperate desire that we all have, isn't it? Just getting out of the maze. So that whole idea that this is, he's killed the monster, but now he's got to get home. There's no more monster, but he's still got to get home. So powerful.

• 54:28Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely. And having that lining, that that thread to help him out, that guidance. Caroline, this has been absolutely fantastic. Lastly, but certainly not least, tell us a bit about your new book.

• 54:38Speaker 04

  It's called Pantheon and it is an illustrated handbook to the Greek gods and goddesses. And as I said, it's got little just snippets about the kind of essences of the Greek gods and goddesses and the heroes and some monsters. Just enough that you can leaf through and think, oh, that's an interesting little rabbit hole. I'd like to investigate that a bit more because the myths are so complex and so nuanced and so variegated that you could study one aspect of them almost for your whole life. And that's one thing I love about the whole discipline of classics is that it could never be exhausted. And I mean, I've gone down rabbit holes with things like

• 55:19Speaker 04

  the aegis, the kind of poncho with Medusa's face on it that Athena wears, or the thurstis, this kind of weird rod that Dionysus's followers hold. And what are these all about? And just wonderful little rabbit holes you can dive down and they're so fascinating. And if you are a writer, they're great material that you can modernize them, retell them, tell them in the past, tell them in the present, tell them in the future, fantasy, sci-fi, you never run out of ideas with the Greek myths.

• 55:52Tristan Hughes?

  And they remain as popular as ever. As you said, they're such a popular part of ancient history, hence why we do cover a lot of Greek mythology on the ancients and will continue to do over the weeks, months and years ahead. Caroline, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

• 56:09Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me on one of my favorite podcasts. I'm honored.

• 56:16Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. There was Caroline Lawrence talking you through the story of the Minotaur, its mythological life and legacy down to the 21st century. Thank you for listening to this episode of the ancients. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and it'll be doing us a big favor. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. As a special gift, you can also get 50% off your first three months when you use code ANCIENTS at checkout.

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