The stories of Minos II and Daedalus carry a strong element of poetic justice. When Minos withholds the sacred bull his wife become bestial, bringing scandal upon him. By killing Scylla, who betrayed her father and home for him, Minos seems to call down the betrayal of his own daughter, Ariadne, upon himself, not to mention her abandonment by Theseus. By requiring an unjust tribute of human beings from Athens he draws Theseus to his court, who kills the Minotaur, fires the palace, and sinks his ships. Daedalus must pay for killing his own nephew by becoming an exile, losing his only son and working for others as an honored slave. These are not coincidences but the fulfillment of a moral law by which sins are punished in kind. The Greeks knew that character determines its own calamities.
But these legends point to a larger reality than the merely personal. In them we see a condensed account of the rise and fall of Crete as a civilization. Early in this century when Sir Arthur Evans excavated at Cnossus he found a labyrinthine palace and ample evidence of a resplendent culture. Yet the legends of Crete show some grasp of how a culture grows and declines. Minos I is selfless, dedicated to producing a great civilization, and his personality is submerged in this effort. Under such a king a land is likely to prosper. Minos II, however, asserts his personality at the expense of Crete and his own family. He offends two major gods, leads his navy on missions of personal vengeance, builds a very costly palace for himself, and invites defeat by demanding a terrible tribute from Athens. Here we see Theseus from a different angle, not so much as the swashbuckling hero but as the instrument of Minos' humiliation and as an agent of Crete's decline. A king as selfish as Minos II seems likely to bring ruin to a small country with limited resources, and wealth and power tend to foster rulers like that. We have no way of knowing whether Crete deteriorated because of bad leadership, but these legends make it appear perfectly plausible. Kings with foolhardy arrogance could easily demoralize a people and weaken its will to resist invaders.
