And yet Minos is said to have been
a king and a lawgiver, and Rhadamanthus to have been a judge under him,
carrying out his decrees.
XVII. So when the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and
those fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots,
the unhappy people began to revile Aegeus, complaining that he, although
the author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but
endured to see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate
offspring, while he made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to his
kingdom. This vexed Theseus, and determining not to hold aloof, but to
share the fortunes of the people, he came forward and offered himself
without being drawn by lot. The people all admired his courage and
patriotism, and Aegeus finding that his prayers and entreaties had no
effect on his unalterable resolution, proceeded to choose the rest by
lot. Hellanikus says that the city did not select the youths and maidens
by lot, but that Minos himself came thither and chose them, and that he
picked out Theseus first of all, upon the usual conditions, which were
that the Athenians should furnish a ship, and that the youths should
embark in it and sail with him, not carrying with them any weapon of
war; and that when the Minotaur was slain, the tribute should cease.
Formerly, no one had any hope of safety; so they used to send out the
ship with a black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now
Theseus so encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the
Minotaur, that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and
charged him on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one,
if not, the black one as a sign of mourning.
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