Crete

Which Cave? The Rival Birthplaces of Zeus

The ancient sources never agreed on where on Crete Zeus was born. Hesiod's Theogony says Rhea went to Lyctus and hid the baby in a cave on "Mount Aegaeum". Apollodorus names a cave on Dicte, and many later writers favour Mount Ida. Both caves have archaeological evidence of cult. The Idaean Cave produced bronze votive shields of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, which are naturally linked with the shield-clashing Kouretes. The Diktaean Cave above the Lasithi plateau, at Psychro, held thousands of offerings. At Palaikastro in eastern Crete an inscribed hymn was found in which worshippers call on Zeus as the "greatest Kouros" and ask him to come to Dicte. In this hymn he is a youthful god who returns each year, which is quite unlike the bearded king of Olympus.

Cretans also showed a tomb of Zeus, and that scandalised other Greeks. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Zeus, quotes the line "Cretans are always liars" because they claim a grave for a god who cannot die. The line was traditionally credited to the Cretan seer Epimenides, and it is quoted again in the New Testament letter to Titus.

Europa's Sons and the Family of Minos

Zeus, in the form of a bull, carried Europa to Crete. Later tradition placed their union beneath a plane tree at Gortyn, which was said never to lose its leaves. According to Apollodorus, Europa then married the Cretan king Asterion, who adopted her three sons. They were Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. The brothers quarrelled over a boy they all loved. Sarpedon and Rhadamanthys left Crete, and Minos claimed the kingship by asking Poseidon for a sign. The sign was the bull from the sea, which led directly to the birth of the Minotaur. Homer's Odyssey calls Minos "nine-year king, companion of great Zeus", which ancient readers took to mean that he met Zeus every nine years to receive laws. In the Underworld Odysseus sees Minos holding a golden sceptre and judging the dead. Plato's Gorgias makes Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus the three judges of the dead.

Minos' children have their own myths. His son Androgeos was killed in Attica, and Minos' war of revenge led to the Athenian tribute. Another son, the boy Glaucus, drowned in a jar of honey, and the seer Polyidus brought him back with a herb that he saw a snake use to revive its mate. His daughters were Ariadne, who helped Theseus and was later found on Naxos by Dionysus, and Phaedra, who married Theseus. Minos himself died far from home. He chased Daedalus, who had escaped after the flight in which Icarus fell, as far as Sicily. There the daughters of King Cocalus scalded him to death in a bath. Herodotus knew of a Cretan expedition to Sicily to avenge him.

Talos and Idomeneus

Crete was guarded by Talos, a bronze man who ran around the island three times a day and threw rocks at approaching ships. Apollodorus says some called him a survivor of the Bronze race and others a gift from Hephaestus to Minos. His life depended on a single vein closed by a nail or membrane at his ankle. In Apollonius' Argonautica the Argonauts approach Crete on their way home, and Medea's evil eye makes Talos graze his ankle on a rock, so that he bleeds to death.

In the Iliad, Crete's leader at Troy is Idomeneus, grandson of Minos, who brings eighty ships from a long list of Cretan cities. The Odyssey praises Crete as an island of "ninety cities" with a mix of peoples and languages. A later story, preserved by the Virgil commentator Servius, says that during a storm on his way home Idomeneus vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon the first thing he met on landing. That turned out to be his son, and after the sacrifice a plague drove him into exile.

What Modern Readers Get Wrong

The Bronze Age people of Crete did not call themselves Minoans. Arthur Evans coined the term from the name of the legendary king. Many of the best-known frescoes at Knossos are heavy modern restorations built from small fragments, so they show Evans' interpretations as much as Minoan art. The supposed link between "labyrinth" and labrys, the double axe common in Minoan imagery, is an old theory and remains unproven. More concrete evidence is a Linear B tablet from Knossos recording an offering of honey to "the Mistress of the Labyrinth" (da-pu-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja). The word "labyrinth" was therefore already in use at Knossos in the Bronze Age, whatever it meant then.

Ancient sources

• Hesiod, Theogony 468–491 — Rhea gives birth to Zeus on Crete, hides him in a cave near Lyctus, and gives Cronus a stone to swallow instead.
• Homer, Odyssey 19.172–179 and 11.568–571 — These passages describe Crete of the ninety cities, call Minos the "nine-year king", and show Minos judging the dead.
• Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus — The hymn weighs the Arcadian and Cretan birth stories and mocks the Cretans for showing a tomb of Zeus.
• Apollodorus, Library 3.1–3.3 and Epitome 1 — Apollodorus tells of Europa and Asterion, the brothers' quarrel, the bull from the sea, Glaucus and Polyidus, and Minos' death in Sicily.
• Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.1638–1693 — The Argonauts reach Crete and Medea destroys the bronze guardian Talos.

Frequently asked questions

Was Zeus born on Mount Ida or Mount Dicte?

Both claims existed in antiquity, and Hesiod names a third mountain, Aegaeum. Both the Idaean and Diktaean caves were real cult sites with rich votive finds. Arcadians also claimed Zeus was born in their region.

Was the Labyrinth real?

No maze matching the myth has been found. The vast, many-roomed palace at Knossos, and the word "labyrinth" on a Knossos Linear B tablet, suggest the legend grew out of real Bronze Age places and cult.

Who was Talos?

Talos was a giant bronze guardian who circled Crete three times a day and drove off ships with boulders. Medea killed him when the Argonauts arrived by making him tear open the single vein in his ankle.

Why are Cretans called liars?

The saying "Cretans are always liars", attributed to Epimenides, was aimed at their claim to have Zeus's tomb. Callimachus repeats it, and it is quoted in the letter to Titus.

Books to read next

• Jennifer Saint, Ariadne
• Stephen Fry, Heroes
• Ovid, Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics)

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