Dædalus remained for some time in Sicily, leaving in various parts of
the island many prodigious evidences of mechanical and architectural
skill.[534] At length Minôs bent upon regaining possession of his
person, undertook an expedition against Kokalus with a numerous fleet
and army. Kokalus affecting readiness to deliver up the fugitive, and
receiving Minôs with apparent friendship, ordered a bath to be prepared
for him by his three daughters, who, eager to protect Dædalus at any
price, drowned the Krêtan king in the bath with hot water.[535] Many
of the Krêtans who had accompanied him remained in Sicily and founded
the town of Minoa, which they denominated after him. But not long
afterwards Zeus roused all the inhabitants of Krête (except the towns
of Polichna and Præsus) to undertake with one accord an expedition
against Kamikus for the purpose of avenging the death of Minôs. They
besieged Kamikus in vain for five years, until at last famine compelled
them to return. On their way along the coast of Italy, in the Gulf
of Tarentum, a terrible storm destroyed their fleet and obliged them
to settle permanently in the country: they founded Hyria with other
cities, and became Messapian Iapygians. Other settlers, for the most
part Greeks, immigrated into Krête to the spots which this movement
had left vacant, and in the second generation after Minôs occurred
the Trojan war. The departed Minôs was exceedingly offended with the
Krêtans for coöperating in avenging the injury to Menelaus, since the
Greeks generally had lent no aid to the Krêtans in their expedition
against the town of Kamikus. He sent upon Krête, after the return
of Idomeneus from Troy, such terrible visitations of famine and
pestilence, that the population again died out or expatriated, and was
again renovated by fresh immigrations. The intolerable suffering[536]
thus brought upon the Krêtans by the anger of Minôs, for having
coöperated in the general Grecian aid to Menelaus, was urged by them to
the Greeks as the reason why they could take no part in resisting the
invasion of Xerxês; and it is even pretended that they were advised and
encouraged to adopt this ground of excuse by the Delphian oracle.[537]
[534] Diodôr. iv. 80.
[535] Pausan. vii. 4, 5; Schol. Pindar. Nem. iv. 95; Hygin. fab.
44; Conon, Narr. 25; Ovid, Ibis, 291.—
“Vel tua maturet, sicut Minoia fata,
Per caput infusæ fervidus humor aquæ.”
This story formed the subject of a lost drama of Sophoklês,
Καμίκιοι or Μίνως; it was also told by Kallimachus, ἐν Αἰτίοις,
as well as by Philostephanus (Schol. Iliad, ii. 145).
[536] This curious and very characteristic narrative is given by
Herodot. vii. 169-171.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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