PasiphaeANCIENT

PasiphaeANCIENT_Pompeii

Ancient Roman fresco depicting a seated woman talking to a standing man, with a youth working below and a white horse behind him

Pasiphae is one of the most notorious love-lorn women of myth, because of her association with the very ancient house of Minos at Cnossos. Her siblings include Perses, Aeetes, and Circe, as children of Heios and Perseis.

When Minos prayed that Poseidon justify his claim as rightful ruler of Crete, he specified that the god send a bull from the sea for him to sacrifice. Because Minos then refused to sacrifice the bull Poseidon sent, the god retaliated by causing Pasiphae to develop unnatural lust for the animal. She commissioned Daedalus, the master engineer then held captive in the Minoan court, to fashion a heifer-like contraption in which she could mate with the bull. The Minotaur was the unnatural offspring of this union.

Some versions of the myth ascribe Pasiphae's lust to a curse brought upon her by Aphrodite, who afflicted this daughter of Helios in exchange for the sun's revelation of her notorious adultery with Ares.