t no person confined in it could ever find
his way out again. It was like the catacombs of Rome, in which one who
is lost is said to wander helplessly till death ends his sorrowful
career. In this intricate puzzle of a building the Minotaur was
confined.

Every ninth year the fourteen unfortunate youths and maidens had to be
sent from Athens to be devoured by this insatiate beast. We are not told
on what food it was fed in the interval, or why Minos did not end the
trouble by allowing it to starve in its inextricable den. As the story
goes, the living tribute was twice sent, and the third period came duly
round. The youths and maidens to be devoured were selected by lot from
the people of Athens, and left their city amid tears and woe. But on
this occasion Theseus, the king's son and the great hero of Athens,
volunteered to be one of the band, and vowed either to slay the terrible
beast or die in the attempt.

There seem to have been few great events in those early days of Greece
in which Theseus did not take part. Among his feats was the carrying off
of Helen, the famous beauty, while still a girl. He then took part in a
journey to the under-world,--the realm of ghosts,--during which Castor
and Pollux, the brothers of Helen, rescued and brought her home. He was
also one of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition and of an expedition
against the Amazons, or nation of women warriors; he fought with and
killed a series of famous robbers; and he rid the world of a number of
ravaging beasts,--the Calydonian boar, the Crommyonian sow, and the
Marathonian bull, the monster which had slain the son of Minos. He was,
in truth, the Hercules of ancient Athens, and he now proposed to add to
his exploits a battle for life or death with the perilous Minotaur.

The hero knew that he had before him the most desperate task of his
life. Even should he slay the monster, he would still be in the
intricate depths of the Labyrinth, from which escape was deemed
impossible, and in whose endless passages he and his companions might
wander until they died of weariness and starvation. He prayed,
therefore, to Neptune for help, and received a message from the oracle
at Delphi to the effect that Aphrodite (or Venus) would aid and rescue
him.

The ship conveying the victims sailed sadly from Athens, and at length
reached Crete at the port of Knossus, the residence of King Minos. Here
the woful hostages were led through the streets to the prison