Lost in the Labyrinth (17 page)

I spend my life now in the mountains among the wild beasts, or in the Queen's Menagerie, which I have expanded greatly. Little Queta the monkey has become the matriarch of a vast tribe of tricksy, troublesome descendants, and we now possess animals unknown to us only a few years ago. My sister presently owns (though the knowledge does not seem to give her much joy) a hippogriff and a mighty elephant from the wild places far to the south of Libya and Egypt. The hippogriff is sickly and has developed a hollow cough in the night, but the elephant does well. I would like to obtain a mate for him and see what result we have. A baby elephant would please me very much.

My health is excellent, though my wrist never fully healed; it aches sometimes, and I favor that hand. It may seem strange, but when the rainy season comes and I feel the familiar pain in my left arm, I am glad. It is one of the few mementos I have of my brother Asterius.

I think of Icarus often. In my mind he remains young and beautiful, while I grow old and fat. Never mind—I am happy, even though he took my heart with him into the sea that day.

It took Acalle very little time to determine my part in the escape of Daedalus and Icarus. When questioned, the guards told her how I had come to visit the prisoners, bearing feathers, wood, and wax. I confessed as quickly as possible in order to save the lives of the guards. They were beaten nearly to the point of death, but they survived. One lived for a year, dying from a bee sting; the other still lives.

Daedalus and Icarus kept their word. They left three exquisite feather masks there in the tower room; I use mine for the ceremony of the Blessing of the Boats every summer, as does the remaining guard.

As punishment, Acalle locked me up in that same tower for a year and a day. It was just; I have no complaint.

I learned to live alone during that year; I learned to be self-sufficient. Now when I come down from the mountains I seem to live in a positive hive of activity among my animals and my nieces and nephews—so much so that I sometimes yearn for the peace and quiet of those lonely days.

I regret nothing, though I grieve for much.

I only wish I knew what my sister wanted to tell me.

In the year 1900, the ruins of an enormous, labyrinthine palace of immense antiquity were uncovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. The Palace of Knossos (or Cnossos) and the civilization that created it quickly became associated with the Greek legend of the maze and the Minotaur. These fabulously wealthy and sophisticated people are known today as the Minoans, after King Minos of myth.

This book is an attempt to reconcile the archeological findings with that myth.

The story we know was first written down by an Athenian, Apollodorus, who lived sometime between 100 and 200
A.D
. The civilization on Crete reached its peak of power and influence around 1700
B.C.E.
(before the Christian, or Common, Era). The events in this tale therefore occurred nearly 2,000 years before Apollodorus was born. It is almost certain that the narrative altered somewhat during that time, over the course of countless retellings.

My version of this story differs in several ways from those told by Apollodorus, Ovid, and other writers. In most cases, the differences stem from the difficulty of making the myth fit some of the facts we now know about ancient Crete. Because so little of the written language of ancient Crete survived, there is much about this society that we do not know and that I have therefore invented.

For instance, it is possible but by no means certain that these people were ruled by a queen rather than by a king. The archeological record does seem to suggest that women had a great deal of power, and the myth itself implies that Queen Pasiphae was well able to protect herself and her strange offspring the Minotaur from a husband who could not have been pleased by the birth.

No one today knows exactly what the inhabitants of ancient Crete called themselves. We do know that their contemporaries, the Egyptians, referred to them as the "Keftiu," and their land "Kefti," or the "Island of Kefti," so that is what I have called them here.

Some archeologists believe that ancient Crete was actually the lost island of Atlantis, which Plato tells us sank under the sea after a terrible cataclysm. In 1450
B.C.E.
the island Thera, a close neighbor and a colony of Crete, was blown to bits by a violent volcanic eruption. The clouds of ash, tidal waves, and earth tremors resulting from this explosion apparently toppled palaces on Crete, sank her ships, and blighted her agriculture. Within fifty years, mainland Greeks had seized control of Crete and one of the world's most remarkable civilizations was no more.

Legend tells us that Xenodice's little sister Phaedra married Theseus in his old age. She then fell in love with his son by an earlier marriage. When her stepson refused to return her love, Phaedra killed herself, leaving a letter accusing him of assault. Theseus sent his son into exile with a curse on his head, and the young man died soon afterward.

Reason enough for Ariadne's warning from beyond the grave, even though it proved to be as ineffectual as warnings from beyond the grave usually are.

On the subject of Greek mythology, two adult books are Edith Hamilton's
Mythology
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1942) and Mary Renault's
The King Must Die
(New York: Pantheon, 1958). For children's books on this subject, see
A Gift from Zeus: Sixteen Favorite Myths
(New York: HarperCollins, 2001), written by Jeanne Steig and illustrated by William Steig, and
Greek Myths
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), written by Olivia Coolidge.

Unfortunately, many of the books available on ancient Crete have lots of footnotes and few illustrations. However, I do recommend
The Knossos Labyrinth
(London: Routledge, 1989) and
Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete
(London: Routledge, 1990), both by Rodney Castleden.

Two good web sites are
www.historywiz.com
, a handsome site with basics of Minoan civilization and illustrated with Minoan art, and
www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MINOA/MINOANS.HTM
, a site created by Washington State University, with more text and fewer illustrations. These can also be found by searching using the keyword "Minoans."