Theseus desired the combat, Minos readily complied. And as it was a
custom in Crete that the women also should be admitted to the sight of
these games, Ariadne, being present, was struck with admiration of the
manly beauty of Theseus, and the vigor and address which he showed in
the combat, overcoming all that encountered with him. Minos, too, being
extremely pleased with him, especially because he had overthrown and
disgraced Taurus, voluntarily gave up the young captives to Theseus, and
remitted the tribute to the Athenians. Clidemus gives an account
peculiar to himself, very ambitiously, and beginning a great way back:
That it was a decree consented to by all Greece, that no vessel from any
place, containing above five persons, should be permitted to sail, Jason
only excepted, who was made captain of the great ship Argo, to sail
about and scour the sea of pirates. But Daedalus having escaped from
Crete, and flying by sea to Athens, Minos, contrary to this decree,
pursued him with his ships of war, was forced by a storm upon Sicily,
and there ended his life. After his decease, Deucalion, his son,
desiring a quarrel with the Athenians, sent to them, demanding that they
should deliver up Daedalus to him, threatening, upon their refusal, to
put to death all the young Athenians whom his father had received as
hostages from the city. To this angry message Theseus returned a very
gentle answer, excusing himself that he could not deliver up Daedalus,
who was nearly related to him, being his cousin-german, his mother being
Merope, the daughter of Erechtheus. In the meanwhile he secretly
prepared a navy, part of it at home near the village of the Thymoetadae,
a place of no resort, and far from any common roads, the other part by
his grandfather Pittheus's means at Troezen, that so his design might be
carried on with the greatest secrecy. As soon as ever his fleet was in
readiness, he set sail, having with him Daedalus and other exiles from
Crete for his guides; and none of the Cretans having any knowledge of
his coming, but imagining, when they saw his fleet, that they were