The Minotaur
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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? It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we're delving deep into the Minotaur's story.

this creature's mythological life and legacy down to the present day. Our guest for this episode is the wonderful, best-selling 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. Caroline, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast. Tristan, it is wonderful to be here. 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. It feels like monsters are such a big part of Greek mythology. 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? He said, the judgment of Paris, you know, the shepherd standing in front of three goddesses, often nude, judging them during a beauty contest. Things like just the birth of Aphrodite, things like that. And

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 are just amazing. It's interesting, those monster depictions. As you say, that's the imagination that they have. I think maybe the chimera or something like that, especially when they mix different animals together to create these fascinating 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 the complex stories of those various creatures too. Well, my latest book is called Pantheon, and it's actually about the 12 Olympians. Actually, there were 14, but

I do the 14 major gods, but I thought I couldn't leave out the minor gods. Then I thought, well, I've got to include the heroes. I'm afraid the monsters come right at the end. I don't do them all, but I do do quite a few.

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 attention span of today's reader, 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 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. It was moving around and it was just repulsive. It was so deeply hurt.

horrible, that I'll never forget that. And I think we have stories of two-headed calves or animals with more than one limb. 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? 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 apotropaic.

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. 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 Haynes does it in Stone Blind about Medusa. And then I think...

I'm not sure if you'd call Cersei a monster, but Madeline 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. 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 the main monster that many of us will think of if someone talks about Greek mythology. But Caroline, what was the Minotaur? 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 stuff,

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.

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 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. Oh, absolutely. I grew up in the countryside and many, many fields. 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. They're powerful and they have the majestic aspect too because the horns are a deep symbol of power.

And so you've got, they are often associated with kings and things. And in fact, once 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,

well, after he kills the tortoise and makes it into a lyre, is he steals the cattle of Apollo. He's one day old, isn't he? That's quite an achievement. He's one day old. Oh, it's so cute. I love that story. But then you just think about Apollo, this golden god who plays, well, he's going to play the lyre. 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 Boeotia, which means cowland in Greek. And there he found Thebes, which is going to be the great tragic city of Pentheus, Oedipus, Antigone, etc.,

We're going to come to cows in a minute when I do the origin story of the Minotaur. I think it's Katala. I've completely forgot that. Boeisha, of course. Boos, that means cow land, cow part of Greece, which is so interesting. I guess if we keep on that context a bit more, Caroline, that main theatre geographic area we're going to be talking about with the Minotaur myth is of course the island of Crete. That has also got a very strong connection with cows and bulls in particular, doesn't it?

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. Again, the cow is so deeply important to all these cultures, and they have different ways of expressing that. 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? A good question. We have a first mention of him in a poet called Callimachus.

who's of the third century BC, and he just has a little line. He talks about "Thesis escaping from the cruel bellowing of the wild sun of Pacify and the twisted dwelling place of the crooked labyrinth." So right there, although it doesn't call him Minotaur in that third century BC bit of poetry, you've got all the elements. You've got Thesis, you've got the mother, and you've got the maze.

We first see it written down on vases, and there's a famous skiphos, which is a kind of deep bowl with two little horizontal handles at the top, called the reyatskiphos, and that's from, appropriately enough, Boeotia, cowland. And it shows Theseus stepping forward to stab the minotaur, and it's...

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 Minoio 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 BC in Greece with this bull-headed person in

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

Absolutely. And I forgot to say the two main sources, or I'd say one is Apollodorus, or Pseudo-Apollodorus, as he's sometimes called, who was writing in Greek in the first century CE. And also Ovid writes about the Minotaur.

not just in the Metamorphoses, but in the Ars Amatoria. And he's a Roman writer, isn't he? Yes. He's a Roman writing, yeah, in Latin, right before the birth of Christ, just before the birth of Christ. And he has a wonderful phrase. He describes the minotaur

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

the minotaur. 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? Myths are malleable. So we do sometimes get 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 5th 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. 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.

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? The origin story starts with Europa. Well, I mean, you can go back almost to as far as you want. It starts with Europa. Now, she was a Phoenician princess from Tyre, which is modern Lebanon.

That's really interesting. She's like a Semitic person. Her ancestor, not her mother, but a few generations back, might have been Io. 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. Sure enough, he spotted Io and desired her. He went to seduce her or whatever.

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 set a god's lie 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. 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, what do we call Crete Europe? I don't know. So anyway, they have 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 to the throne of Crete for the kingship. So he says to everybody, look, I'm going to call on Poseidon, 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. Uh-oh, indeed. Oh, good idea. Yeah.

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

Caroline, as you mentioned earlier, and we won't hang on this topic very long, but you did mention earlier that bestiality side of some of these myths. This is a prime example of it, isn't it, with the whole origin story of the Minotaur? It's interesting how that is used to explain the creation of hybrid monsters when those monsters are to do partly with human beings. Exactly. Now this baby is born and we have a wonderful vase that's in

in Paris at the moment, and it shows Peisifai 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. It's

And so I wonder if there's something of a revulsion. 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. 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 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, 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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I mean, Karen, before we keep going with the myths, shall we kind of focus a bit more on those parts you just talked about? And the first part, first of all, really interesting that there's a depiction of a baby minotaur on an ancient Greek vase, which is, you know, a part of the story that you don't immediately think of.

But should we focus a bit on Daedalus, on this character of Daedalus? 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 Pacify to mate with the bull. And then the creation of the labyrinth. But he has several stories from mythology. And there is another big one that I'm thinking of too. 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 pacify. 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

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 that even back then,

they had a craving, an idea of how you can 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. Yeah, exactly. I feel we need to talk about Daedalus and Icarus very quickly because he is a main figure in the story of the Minotaur as the creator of the labyrinth. As you say, the aftermath is that he is imprisoned

in Knossos at Minos' capital, which will lead to that Icarus myth too. Do we know anything about the supposed layout of the labyrinth, the shape, or is that detail not really given, Caroline? Oh no, we know that. What's fascinating is that the Greeks have the word 'labyrinth' and they know what it means. Plato, in one of his dialogues, says something about

has Socrates say, "At this point, we were involved in a labyrinthine discussion." They know what it means. 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 BC. It was a Bronze Age civilization. The Mycenaeans invaded. Then Crete was gone. 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.

It had no walls, it didn't need town walls because Crete is an island, and it was almost like a city palace. It had shops and workshops and housing and frescoes on the wall and columns and courtyards. In a way, it looks like a labyrinth even today.

And Arthur Evans saw this double-headed axe, which is called a labrys, written on, scrawled on some of the walls. And so he thought the word labrys 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 corridors.

I mean, Caroline, it is fascinating to explore things like that. And as we talked about earlier, 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 there.

as to why certain myths are created. It's fascinating that association with Knossos and Crete with the labyrinth. As I said, potentially it's that kind of labyrinthine design of the palace. 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. Heinrich Schliemann, he's a German excavator. Yes, Heinrich Schliemann, exactly. He found Troy

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

Only human food. Only human food. It's an aberration against nature 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. 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 his father, Aegeus says, "Don't go." 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. Conveniently, Aegeus jumps into the Aegean Sea. Interesting it's called after him. 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 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, 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 stories.

their stories which don't have to be about heroes and Greek myths. 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. They have to leave their ordinary world and 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. There's often a step in the hero's journey called the visit to death. This is the visit to death. It's symbolic of going to the underworld. Almost every hero in Greek mythology goes to the underworld in one way or another. 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. Then they have to cross another threshold to get back home. We often see on Vaas's thesis emerging

from the labyrinth. It's often shown by a couple of columns and a pediment. 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 you could want. I mean, Carolyn, it's a great pub quiz question in the future to say, what does the Minotaur myth up

Star Wars and Dora for Thee, what do they all have in common? And as you say, 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? I guess the climax is Theseus slaying the Minotaur, but that's not the end. It's him then getting back out of that different world, that scary world that you so brilliantly created, that horrifying image of going through that very dark place. It's then getting back. The story continues after the slaying of the Minotaur. 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 when they get back, they've changed. Their whole journey, what it's done, 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 or whatever it is.

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 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. Yeah, that's not the sweet ending that otherwise you'd expect. No, no, no. 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.

I think you're quite right. We're focusing largely on the Minotaur today, but the story of Theseus is a very complex one. We focus on the Minotaur quite a lot with Theseus, but there is much more. It's not all good with Theseus as a character. But yes, let's go back to the Minotaur. The Minotaur has been slain by Theseus. Do we ever hear what happens to the Minotaur or its corpse or what happens to it after it's been slain? Because it feels like it's just been left in the labyrinth.

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 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 he's essentially been buried.

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, 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? Great question. We know from Ovid that he likes the minotaur. I love looking at the vases and the frescoes. We've got some wonderful frescoes from Pompeii of Theseus and the minotaur. Yes, he's still very, very popular. Obviously, monsters go in and out of fashion.

What really interests me is what we've done with him in the last 100, 200 years about pop culture. Do you mind if I talk about that a little bit? Absolutely. Should we start with the 19th century first of all and paintings for pop culture, or would you like to go straight into TV and depictions? Well, let's talk about one of the most famous paintings of the Minotaur, which is by...

Is it Watts? George Frederick Watts. That's him, yes. You know what, 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. This is really fascinating because there was a bill trying to be put through Parliament about raising the act of consent for children and worrying about child prostitution, which was a real problem in the Victorian period.

It was so distressing that this Watts, he 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. Wow. 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. 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 that, hey, bring it out. Well, this is our message. We got it here as well. Bring back out that what's minotaur painting. 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

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 that's told from the monster's point of view, which is super interesting. That is, yes. And I was thinking, for example, how would we do it right now, today? How would we tell the myth of the Minotaur? And I was just thinking 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 Titane won the Palme d'Or. And in that, that's exactly what happens is 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. It's so weird. ♪

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Let's kind of move on to that idea of modern day portrayals of the monitor. And I know there's a series that we've both watched recently, which of course does feet

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?

I'm sure the Minotaur is in Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but I haven't read all those books, so I'm sure they're there. And I'm sure they're 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 these Zeus. 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 Daedalus, is for these bull jumpers because we know in Crete

in Knossos, the Palace of Knossos. We know from frescoes 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 these suits 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 bull leapers.

So, in the bullring where they're training, they have a practice cowl, like the way gymnasts have, what do you call it, a horse or whatever. Is this steeple, yeah? Oh, yes. I know what you mean. I've forgotten the name for it as well, but you see it on the Olympics, every Olympics, yes. Absolutely. They're jumping on this, whatever, this bolster quite creature. I wonder if that's actually a holdover for the bulljumpers, the bull leapers. Anyway, it's very clever because...

They've created, like the bull, the cow that Pacify occupies, the framework of a cow or a bull that someone can climb inside and operate it from inside. And according to Mary Reynolds, the Minotaur is the son Asterion of not Minos, but Pacify, who fell in love with a bull leaper from Assyria.

So he's kind of a hairy guy, though he was quite young at the time. He impregnated her, then died in the bull ring. And she gave birth to this kind of, he's human, but 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

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 bullring and hide in the cow to wait to meet him. So it's a very clever kind of modern take, kind of rationalizing what the

what the Minotaur might have been. That's interesting. And I remember the word now for it is the pommel horse, as we're thinking of that gymnastics equivalent today. Oh, thank you, yeah. But as you're asking, 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. 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. It's very, very significant. And kind of the same kind of time as Rosemary 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? Chaos. Let's talk all about chaos. So very new. It's on Netflix. And is it, is it like a modern imagination of like Crete and, and,

and several myths and gods and goddesses. And the Minotaur also plays a big role in it, doesn't it? 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 and

with Charlie the Cavella creator, Jeff Goldblum on a panel afterwards, which was so fascinating. Yes, it's a retelling 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. 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 this is the 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 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.

Do you think that's perhaps the crux as to why figures like monsters such as the Minotaur have remained so popular in our imagination down to the present day? It's 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 you, a kind of otherworldly idea. Do you think that is still kind of the mainstay as to why the Minotaur exists?

has remained so popular down to the present day. Yes, I think so. And I think any of these weird combinations of these hybrids are so fascinating to us. I think my favourite monster

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 Apatropaic, the powers. 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, 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 burn down. But I couldn't find my way out. And I felt a bit like...

They sit in the labyrinth. That's an interesting way to think of it, isn't it, Caroline? Because if you go to, say, a maze in Hampton Court or somewhere today, you'll go there with the family and it's a fun activity to try and find the centre 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 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. 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 Jesus, 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. Absolutely. And having that lining, 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. 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. I've gone down rabbit holes with things like the Aegis, the poncho with Medusa's face on it that Athena wears or the Thyrsus, this weird rod that Dionysus' followers hold and what are these all about? Just wonderful little rabbit holes you can dive down and they're so fascinating. 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. 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. Thank you for having me on one of my favourite podcasts. I'm honoured. Thank you.

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 you'll be doing us a big favour.

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