In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull was the bull Pasiphaë fell in love with, giving birth to the Minotaur.
Cretan Bull
Ancient drachma from Larissa, around 420 BC, depicting Heracles with the Cretan Bull. Now in the Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, Switzerland
Heracles performing one of his labors as he forces the Cretan Bull to the ground. The engraving was created by B. Picart in 1731.
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was a queen of Crete, and was often referred to as goddess of witchcraft and sorcery. The daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, Pasiphaë is notable as the mother of the Minotaur. She conceived the Minotaur after mating with the Cretan Bull while hidden within a hollow cow that the Athenian inventor Daedalus built for her, after Poseidon cursed her to fall in love with the bull, due to her husband, Minos, failing to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon as he had promised.
Pasiphaë sits on a throne, a Roman mosaic from Zeugma Mosaic Museum
Daedalus presents the artificial cow to Pasiphaë: Roman fresco in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii, 1st century CE.
Pasiphaë nursing the infant Minotaur, red-figure kylix found at Etruscan Vulci, 4th century BC.
Pasiphae entering the hollow cow by Giulio Romano (15th century)
