XV. Shortly after this the ship from Crete arrived for the third time
to collect the customary tribute. Most writers agree that the origin of
this was, that on the death of Androgeus, in Attica, which was ascribed
to treachery, his father Minos went to war, and wrought much evil to the
country, which at the same time was afflicted by scourges from Heaven
(for the land did not bear fruit, and there was a great pestilence and
the rivers sank into the earth). So that as the oracle told the
Athenians that, if they propitiated Minos and came to terms with him,
the anger of Heaven would cease and they should have a respite from
their sufferings, they sent an embassy to Minos and prevailed on him to
make peace, on the condition that every nine years they should send him
a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. The most tragic of the
legends states these poor children when they reached Crete were thrown
into the Labyrinth, and there either were devoured by the Minotaur or
else perished with hunger, being unable to find the way out. The
Minotaur, as Euripides tells us, was

"A form commingled, and a monstrous birth,
Half man, half bull, in twofold shape combined."

XVI. Philochorus says that the Cretans do not recognise this story, but
say that the Labyrinth was merely a prison, like any other, from which
escape was impossible, and that Minos instituted gymnastic games in
honour of Androgeus, in which the prizes for the victors were these
children, who till then were kept in the Labyrinth. Also they say that
the victor in the first contest was a man of great power in the state, a
general of the name of Taurus, who was of harsh and savage temper, and
ill-treated the Athenian children. And Aristotle himself, in his
treatise on the constitution of the Bottiaeans, evidently does not