In Greek mythology, Phaedra was a Cretan princess. Her name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός, which means "bright". According to legend, she was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, and the wife of Theseus. Phaedra fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus. After he rejected her advances, she accused him of trying to rape her, causing Theseus to pray to Poseidon to kill Hippolytus, and then she killed herself.
Phaedra (mythology)
Hippolytus, Phaedra and nurse, antique fresco in Herculaneum
Hippolytus after the confession of Phaedra, his mother-in-law, by Étienne-Barthélémy Garnier; Musée Ingres, Montauban
The Death of Hippolytus (1860) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by the Minotaur. After his death,
King Minos became a judge of the dead in the underworld.
Gustave Doré's illustration of King Minos for Dante Alighieri's Inferno
17th-century engraving of Scylla falling in love with Minos
A Roman mosaic from Zeugma, Commagene (now in the Zeugma Mosaic Museum) depicting Daedalus, his son Icarus, Queen Pasiphaë, and two of her female attendants
Amphora showing Theseus slaying the Minotaur, 460 BC. Ref:1837,0609.57 .
