The Minotaur (opera) labyrinth and they engage in brutal fighting, cheered on by the chorus. Theseus hesitates momentarily when the Minotaur acquires the power of human speech, but then delivers the fatal blow. Theseus begins his journey out of the labyrinth. Once he has escaped, he intends to set sail for Athens with Ariadne. "Scene 13: Death of the Minotaur" As the Minotaur lies dying, he laments his empty existence, neither fully man or fully beast. He pulls out the bloodied sword from his side and declares that he is the son of Poseidon. The chorus leave the labyrinth as the Minotaur dies.
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,