MINOS, a legendary king of Crete, in whom both historical and religious elements are united. The historical element lies in the fact that an early civilization and maritime power had its seat in Crete. The Phoenician intercourse played a great part in developing this island state, and Minos is sometimes called a Phoenician. The name Minoa is often found where Phoenician influence was strongest, e.g., at Megara. The laws and constitution which existed from a very early time in Crete were attributed to Minos, to whom they were revealed by Zeus. After his death he became the judge of the dead; he is one of the forms assumed by the old conception of the first man, who is after death king and god among the dead. It is therefore highly probable that the name Minos is the Greek form of the original Manva, i.e., “ endowed with thinking,” which is seen in the Hindu Manu and the Germanic Mann. As in all other heroized forms of the god of the dead, there is both a terrible and a wise and beneficent side in the character of Minos. Cretan legends described him as the wild huntsman of the forests and mountains, the lover of the nymphs, though his love means death to them. His death is localized in the far west, in the land of sunset; his grave was shown at Camicus near Agrigentum, attached to a temple of Aphrodite. He pursued Daedalus thither, and the daughters of Cocalus, the king of Agrigentum, killed him by pouring boiling water over him in the bath, an obvious myth of the sun dying in the sea. Minos, the god of the dead, is, according to the usual rule, the sun-god, who goes to illumine the dead when he dies on the earth. His wife is Pasiphae, the moon-goddess, who had an oracle by dreams at Thalamae in Laconia. The union of the sun and the moon, the bull and the cow, gave ...