Ariadne (poem) on a throne, before a flower-strewn bed, surrounded by the dead; how the priests and guards bound the Athenians with thongs and left. Theseus cut his thongs and freed his companion, Euthycles. The Minotaur, seeing the danger, seized a long sword to hold off the unarmed Greeks while it made to escape. Euthycles sprang at it and was killed, allowing Theseus time to crush the creature with its throne. They discover that the Minotaur was King Minos himself in a bull-mask. Hearing this, the horrified Ariadne thinks of the golden tress she left on her father's pillow, as a loving
Minotaur by a semicircle of small balls, probably intended for stars; one of the monster's names was Asterion ("star"). While the ruins of Minos' palace at Knossos were discovered, the labyrinth never was. The enormous number of rooms, staircases and corridors in the palace has led some archaeologists to suggest that the palace itself was the source of the labyrinth myth, an idea generally discredited today. Homer, describing the shield of Achilles, remarked that Daedalus had constructed a ceremonial dancing ground for Ariadne, but does not associate this with the term "labyrinth". Some modern mythologists regard the Minotaur as a solar