The Minotaur in House of Leaves it was impossible for anyone that entered to navigate or escape it. The Athenians were forced to pay a tribute to King Minos by sacrificing seven of their maidens and seven of their men, unarmed, to the Minotaur every nine years. The Minotaur eventually fell prey to the sword of Theseus. It is also rumoured that the Minotaur was in fact the offspring of King Minos but his unsightly and grotesque appearance was shameful to King Minos and was the reason why the Minotaur was banished under the pretext of inspiring fear and cannibalistic capabilities. Minos competed with his brothers
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,