The Minotaur (opera) Asleep, he reflects on his imprisonment in the labyrinth and violent existence. An image of Ariadne appears and tells the story of his birth. She is interrupted by a mysterious and disturbing figure; unknown to the Minotaur, it is Theseus. "Scene 7: The Labyrinth" The chorus urges the Minotaur to wake. They taunt him as he brutally massacres the Innocents. When they have all been killed or mortally injured, the Keres descend again to feast upon the bodies. "Scene 8: A Proposition" Ariadne tries to dissuade Theseus from confronting the Minotaur. He remains determined, revealing that – like the Minotaur
Greek hero cult began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites", observes Robin Lane Fox. Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-based ancestor worship from which they developed, in that as the "polis" evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of the worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean times. Whereas the ancestor was purely local, Lewis Farnell observed, the hero might be tended in more than one locality,