At the
end of each period he retired for a season to the oracular cave on
Mount Ida, and there communed with his divine father Zeus, giving
him an account of his kingship in the years that were past, and
receiving from him instructions for his guidance in those which were
to come. The tradition plainly implies that at the end of every
eight years the king's sacred powers needed to be renewed by
intercourse with the godhead, and that without such a renewal he
would have forfeited his right to the throne.
Without being unduly rash we may surmise that the tribute of seven
youths and seven maidens whom the Athenians were bound to send to
Minos every eight years had some connexion with the renewal of the
king's power for another octennial cycle. Traditions varied as to
the fate which awaited the lads and damsels on their arrival in
Crete; but the common view appears to have been that they were shut
up in the labyrinth, there to be devoured by the Minotaur, or at
least to be imprisoned for life. Perhaps they were sacrificed by
being roasted alive in a bronze image of a bull, or of a bull-headed
man, in order to renew the strength of the king and of the sun, whom
he personated.
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