Minotaur, in Greek mythology, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man that dwelt in the labyrinth of Minos, King of Crete, at his palace at Knossos. The Minotaur (Greek, “bull of Minos”) was the offspring of Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, and a snow-white bull that the god Poseidon had sent to the king. So handsome was the bull that Minos refused to sacrifice it, as Poseidon had wished; angered, he decided to take revenge on Minos, and used his divine powers to make Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull.

After Pasiphaë gave birth to the Minotaur, Minos ordered the architect and inventor Daedalus to build a labyrinth so intricate that escape from it without assistance would be impossible. Confined to the labyrinth, the Minotaur was fed with seven young girls and seven young boys whom, every year, Minos exacted from Athens as a tribute. The Greek hero Theseus was determined to put an end to the cruelty of the pointless sacrifice and offered himself as one of the victims. Theseus reached Crete with the intention of killing the Minotaur, Minos's daughter Ariadne fell in love with him and, in secret, gave him a ball of thread, which he fastened to the door of the maze and unwound as he made his way through it. When he came upon the sleeping Minotaur, he beat the monster to death and then led the other sacrificial youths and maidens to safety by following the thread back to the entrance.