When the third lot of young Athenians was being drawn, Theseus, the son of the Athenian King Aegeus, either volunteered or was drawn, depending upon which version of the myth one reads. Theseus became determined to kill the Minotaur and thus liberate Athens from future sacrifices.
Upon Theseus’s arrival on the island of Crete, Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae, fell in love with Theseus. She decided to help Theseus and supplied him with a weapon with which to slay the Minotaur (in some versions it is the double-axe) and with a ball of thread. The thread, supplied to Ariadne by Daedalus, was to be unwound by Theseus as he traveled through the Labyrinth in order to serve as a guide to the way back out, as the way had been deemed impossible to find on one’s own. Thus, with Ariadne’s assistance and after a horrific battle with the Minotaur, Theseus was able to slay the beast. The success of his mission liberated the young Athenians from sure death and Athens from future persecution.
Theseus, Ariadne, and the liberated Athenian youths and maidens began the return journey to Athens. Along the way, they stopped on the island of Delos, where they performed a dance called the Geranos, or "Crane Dance", in which they symbolically reenacted Theseus’s journey through the Labyrinth. Their next stop was the island of Naxos, on which Theseus left Ariadne. Different versions of the myth offer various explanations of this act.
Nevertheless, Theseus and the liberated Athenians continued their return voyage to Athens. Before they had set off for Crete, King Aegeus had given his son instructions to change the customarily black sail of the ship to a white one in the event that the mission was successful. However, Theseus forgot his father’s instructions and failed to change the sail. When King Aegeus saw the black sail of the returning ship, he incorrectly concluded that his son had failed to kill the Minotaur and was therefore dead. King Aegeus "threw himself into the sea and was drowned. Hence that sea was called the Aegean, and is so called to this day" (Matthews, 20). Due to his father’s death, Theseus became King when he returned to Athens.
Minos’ rage following the death of the Minotaur, escape of the Athenians, and the loss of Ariadne to Theseus was intensified by his discovery that Daedalus had betrayed him by supplying the thread to Ariadne. Minos knew that only Daedalus could have devised such a clever means of escape. In addition, by designing the cowsuit for Pasiphae, Daedalus had therefore been culpable for the very conception of the Minotaur. Minos imprisoned Daedalus, along with his son, Icarus, in Daedalus’s own creation, the Labyrinth.
Daedalus determined to escape from the Labyrinth with Icarus. As guards were stationed outside, he decided that flying out was the only means of escape. For, "the Labyrinth was by no means an entirely enclosed structure, as one might expect, but was open on top. In constructing it, Daedalus presumed he could depend on it not being given to human beings to travel like birds or gods in the lofty heights" (Jaskolski, 149). Pasiphae supplied Daedalus with feathers, with which, with the help of wax, he was able to construct two pairs of wings.
Before Daedalus and Icarus flew out of the Labyrinth, he "urgently warned his beloved son: ‘Be warned, my son! Do not fly too high, for otherwise the sun will melt the wax; and do not sink down too low, for otherwise the feathers will be dampened by the sea!’" (Jaskolski, 149). However, Icarus did not heed his father’s warning. "When Daedalus looked back over his shoulder, Icarus had