Ariadne Ariadne Ariadne (; ; ), in Greek mythology, was a Cretan princess. She is mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. Ariadne was the daughter of Minos—the King of Crete and a son of Zeus—and Pasiphaë—Minos' queen and a daughter of Helios. Others called her mother Crete, daughter of Asterius, husband-king of Europa. Ariadne was the sister of Acacallis, Androgeus, Deucalion, Phaedra, Glaucus, Xenodice and Catreus. Through her mother, Pasiphaë, she was also the half-sister of the Minotaur. Minos put Ariadne in charge of the labyrinth where sacrifices were
Minotaur the main political and cultural potency in the Aegean Sea. As the fledgling Athens (and probably other continental Greek cities) was under tribute to Crete, it can be assumed that such tribute included young men and women for sacrifice. This ceremony was performed by a priest disguised with a bull head or mask, thus explaining the imagery of the Minotaur. Once continental Greece was free from Crete's dominance, the myth of the Minotaur worked to distance the forming religious consciousness of the Hellene "poleis" from Minoan beliefs. The Minotaur ("infamia di Creti", Italian for "infamy of Crete"), appears briefly in