Ancient writers, who have endeavoured to investigate truth among the intricacies of fabulous tradition, tell us that the labyrinth was a fortress where prisoners were usually kept, and that a Cretan general, its governor, named Taurus, which in Greek signifies a bull, gave rise to the fiction of the Minotaur. The better testimony from antiquity however asserts that Theseus was received by Minos more agreeably to the character of a great and generous prince than of a tyrant who gave his captives to be devoured by monsters. But during this, the flourishing age of Crete, letters were, if at all known, little used in Greece. In after-times, when the Athenians bore the sway in literature, their tragedians, flattering vulgar prejudices, exhibited Minos in odious colours; and through the popularity of their ingenious works their calumnious misrepresentations, as Plutarch has observed, overbore the eulogies of the elder poets, even of Hesiod and Homer. Thus the particulars of the adventures of Theseus in Crete, and of his return to Athens, have been so disguised that even to guess at the truth is difficult. For these early ages Homer is our best guide; but he has mixed mythology with his short notice of the adventure of Theseus in Crete. A rational interpretation nevertheless is obvious. Minos, surprised probably at the arrival of the Athenian prince among the tributary slaves, received him honourably, became partial to his merit, and after some experience of it gave him his daughter Ariadne in marriage. In the voyage toward Athens the princess being taken with sudden sickness was landed in the island of Naxos, where Bacchus was esteemed the tutelary deity; and she died there. If we add the supposition that Theseus, eager to communicate the news of his extraordinary success, or urged by public duty, proceeded on his voyage while the princess was yet living, no further foundation would be wanting for the fables which have made these names so familiar. Theseus however, according to what with most certainty may be gathered from Athenian tradition, freed his country from further payment of the ignominious and cruel tribute.