Source Verification: Cretan Bull
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Is the Cretan Bull the same animal that fathered the Minotaur?
Yes, according to Apollodorus. It is the bull Poseidon sent from the sea for King Minos to sacrifice; when Minos kept it instead, Poseidon made Pasiphaë fall in love with the animal, and that union produced the Minotaur. The bull Heracles later captures for his seventh labor is explicitly the same creature, not a separate one.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.7
Did Heracles kill the Cretan Bull?
No. His labor was to capture it alive and bring it to Eurystheus, which he did, reportedly wrestling it into submission rather than killing it. Once Eurystheus had confirmed the labor complete, he released the bull, which wandered off and eventually reached Marathon in Attica, where it was killed years later - by Theseus, not Heracles.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.7
Why did Poseidon punish Minos through the bull instead of directly?
Minos had broken a specific bargain: he promised to sacrifice back whatever Poseidon sent from the sea, then kept the bull for his own herds once he saw how fine it was. Poseidon's response targeted both the animal and Minos's household, making the bull savage and causing the king's wife Pasiphaë to fall in love with it, a punishment that outlived the original offense by generations.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 3.1.3-3.1.4
How did Theseus finally kill the bull?
By most accounts, Theseus captured the Marathonian Bull alive first, much as Heracles once had, driving it through the city as a public display before sacrificing it to Apollo Delphinius in Athens. The episode is usually told as one of Theseus's early heroic deeds, undertaken before his more famous confrontation with the Minotaur that this same bull had fathered.
Source: Plutarch, Life of Theseus 14
Is there disagreement about where the bull originally came from?
Yes. Apollodorus notes that the mythographer Acusilaus identified it as the same bull that carried Europa across the sea for Zeus, a completely different origin from the more commonly told version in which Poseidon sends the bull from the sea for Minos to sacrifice. Apollodorus records both without resolving which is correct.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.7
Why did the bull end up at Marathon specifically?
After Eurystheus released it, Apollodorus says it roamed through the Peloponnese and across the Isthmus before settling near Marathon in Attica, where it caused enough damage to the local population that it became known there as the Marathonian Bull. Its presence at Marathon is also what puts it in Theseus's path rather than anywhere else in Greece.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.7
Where Accounts Differ
- origin of the Cretan Bull
- Origin variant: most sources say Poseidon sent the bull from the sea for Minos to sacrifice, but Apollodorus records that the mythographer Acusilaus instead identified it as the same bull that carried Europa across the sea for Zeus.
Sources
- Apollodorus, Library 2.5.7
- Apollodorus, Library 3.1.3-3.1.4
- Plutarch, Life of Theseus 14
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)