The minotaur was a half human half bull creature born to Queen Pasiphae of Crete. Her husband, King Minos, had failed to sacrifice a white bull to Poseidon [The God of The Sea], he cursed Pasiphae to fall in love with an animal. Minos commissioned the master architect Daedalus to build the Labyrinth, a maze so complex that none could escape it.
After the War between Athens and Crete the King imposed a dreadful penalty, every 9 years, anually in some versions, he would put 7 young men and 7 young women in the maze to be eaten by the Minotaur
Theseus, the prince of Athens, volunteered to participate in this penalty, to finally end the sacrifices
Upon arriving in Crete, Princess Ariadne, Minos’s daughter, fell in love with Theseus. Seeking to save him, she provided two essential tools, a ball of thread and a sword. the ball of thread was so he could tie it the entrance of the maze so he could retrace his steps, and the sword, so he could slay the beast.
After successfully defeating the minotaur, he could finally free the Athenians from this sacrifice. Despite his victory, the journey home was marked by tragedy.
Theseus left Ariadne on the island of Naxos. While some versions say he simply forgot her, others claim he was forced by the god Dionysus, who wished to marry her.
Theseus had promised his father, King Aegeus, that he would replace the ship’s black mourning sails with white sails if he survived. He forgot this crucial signal. Seeing the black sails, Aegeus believed his son was dead and threw himself into the sea, which has since been called the Aegean Sea