Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Minotaur

performances, but it is likely enough that their motifs were tradi-
tional. A black-figured hydria in the British Museum, on which
are seen three Minotaurs running towards the right with arms
akimbo (pi. xxx)1, has possibly preserved a reminiscence of such
dances. It is also noteworthy that a black-figured lekythos at
Athens, which represents Theseus slaying the Minotaur in the
presence of two females, gives the monster a bull's tail but
a human head2.

My notion that the Minotaur was a Cnossian prince masque-
rading as a bull receives no slight support from Diodoros3. After
speaking of the Egyptian Labyrinth built by king Mendes or
Marros and its Cretan copy made by Daidalos for Minos, the
historian goes on to remark that five generations later there came
to the throne of Egypt a certain Keten, identified by the Greeks
with Proteus4, a contemporary of the Trojan War. This Keten
was said to have been a shape-shifter, who took the form now of
an animal, now of a tree, now again of fire or the like. The priests
declared that he was enabled to do so by his knowledge of
astrology, and that the practice having become traditional with
Egyptian kings gave rise to Greek tales of shape-shifting. ' For,'
continues Diodoros, 'it was customary with the rulers of Egypt to
put about their heads the foreparts of lions, bulls, and snakes, as
tokens of their rule. They had upon their heads now trees, now
fire, and sometimes many fragrant odours; by which means they
both arrayed themselves in fine style and struck superstitious
terror into others.' The researches of Messieurs Maspero and
Moret have proved that the Egyptian king and queen did actually
figure as god and goddess in certain solemn rites, when masked
men and women played the parts of animal-headed deities5.
1 suggest that the Cnossian prince did much the same.

1 Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases ii. 179 no. B 308. Cp. the impression of an Elamite cylinder
figured by M.J. Lagrange La Crete ancienne Paris 1908 p. 84 f. fig. 66 a after F. V. Scheil
in the Me~moires de la diUgation en Perse viii. 10 f. fig. 21.

2 Nicole Cat. Vases d'Athenes Suppl. p. 189 no. 949. W. Meyer in the Sitzungsber.
d. kais. bayr. Akad. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Classe 1882 ii. 281 notes that in the middle ages
the Minotaur was commonly represented as 'oben Mensch, unten Stier.'

3 Diod. 1. 61 f. My attention was first directed to this important passage by Dr J. G.
Frazer {Class. Rev. 1903 xvii. 410 n. 3). Mr A. Lang in Folk-Lore 1910 xxi. 145 dis-
misses it as ' a mere ^etiological myth to explain the Odyssean story of Proteus.'

4 Cp. Hdt. 2. 112 ff. Keten appears to have been the first king of the twentieth
dynasty, Set-nekht or Nekht-Set, the father of Rameses iii.

5 See Frazer Lect. Hist. Kingship p. 172 fif., Golden Bough2". The Magic Art ii. 133 f.,
ib? The Dying God p. 70 ff.