Daedalus in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Daedalus

18 passages from 5 ancient authors that tell of Daedalus, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Daedalus built the Labyrinth, then fled Crete with his son Icarus, who fell to his death. Read the full story, the escape, and his life in Sicily. For the story in one place, read our article on Daedalus.

Homer (1)

Homer, Iliad 18.541–617The Shield of Achilles (2): field, vineyard, herds and danceHephaestus also shows on the shield a ploughed field with ploughmen who receive cups of wine at the end of each furrow, a king's estate with reapers and binders, and a vineyard with grape-gatherers and a boy playing the lyre. Two lions attack a herd of cattle by the river, and there is a pasture of sheep and a dancing-floor like the one Daedalus made for Ariadne, with youths and maidens dancing. Round the rim he sets the great stream of Ocean, and when the shield is done he makes a corselet, a helmet and greaves and lays them before Thetis.

Apollodorus (3)

Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome E.1.1–24Theseus and the Minotaur; Daedalus, Phaedra and PirithousThe Epitome picks up Theseus' labours with the sow of Crommyon and goes on through Sciron, Cercyon and Damastes, after which he reaches Athens and Medea's plot against him fails. With Ariadne's clue he kills the Minotaur, and Ariadne is left on Naxos for Dionysus; Aegeus leaps to his death when he sees the black sail. The section then follows Daedalus and Icarus and Minos's death in Sicily, Theseus's Amazon wife and Phaedra's passion for Hippolytus, the Centauromachy, Helen's abduction, and Theseus's capture in Hades and death on Scyros.
Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome 3.15.1–3.16.2Erechtheus, Aegeus, Minos's war on Athens and the birth of TheseusPandion's sons divide his inheritance and Erechtheus becomes king; his daughters include Procris, killed accidentally by Cephalus, and Orithyia, carried off by Boreas. The section covers Cleopatra and Phineus, Eumolpus and the war with Erechtheus, who sacrifices his daughter, and Aegeus and his marriages. Minos, to avenge Androgeus, takes Megara through Scylla's treachery and imposes the tribute of youths and maidens for the Minotaur. It ends with the birth of Theseus to Aethra and his first two labours, where the surviving text of the Library breaks off.
Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome 3.1.1–4Europa, Minos and the birth of the MinotaurZeus takes the form of a bull and carries Europa from Phoenicia to Crete, where she bears Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthys, while her brothers Cadmus, Phoenix and Cilix, with Telephassa and Thasus, settle in distant lands. The three sons quarrel over Miletus, and Minos marries Pasiphae and has his children. Minos wins the kingdom by praying for a bull from Poseidon and then sacrificing another; Poseidon makes the bull savage and makes Pasiphae fall in love with it, so that with Daedalus's wooden cow she bears the Minotaur, shut up in the Labyrinth.

Diodorus Siculus (2)

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 4.76.1–4.80.6Daedalus, Minos in Sicily and the Mothers at EngyumDaedalus, an Athenian craftsman who invents the saw and the potter's wheel, flees to a deme of Attica after the death of his nephew, then to Crete, where he makes the contrivance for Pasiphae, and then escapes to Sicily; Icarus falls into the sea. Minos pursues him to Sicily and dies at the court of Cocalus. The section ends with the cult of the Mothers at Engyum and the great temple the townspeople built for them.
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 4.28.1–4.30.6The Amazons' invasion of Attica and the colony in SardiniaThe surviving Amazons and the Scythians invade Attica to avenge Heracles' attack, and Theseus defeats them, Antiope dying in the battle. The god tells Heracles to send a colony to Sardinia led by his sons by the daughters of Thespius; Iolaüs leads it, calls the people Iolaeis, and builds great works with the help of Daedalus, and the settlers later retreat into the mountains.

Ovid (1)

Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.152–263The Minotaur; Daedalus and IcarusMinos returns to Crete and shuts the Minotaur, the monster born of Pasiphae's unnatural love, in a labyrinth built by Daedalus. The Athenians pay tribute of youths and maidens until Theseus kills the monster with the help of Ariadne's thread, and Ariadne is placed among the stars as a crown. Daedalus, long exiled in Crete, makes wings of feathers and wax for himself and his son Icarus, who flies too near the sun and falls into the sea. Daedalus' nephew Perdix, whom he threw from a tower out of jealousy, is changed into a partridge, and Daedalus is received by King Cocalus in Sicily.

Pausanias (11)

Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.4.1–10Samos and Chios: the Heraeum, Smilis and DaedalusPausanias recounts the Ionian settlement of Samos under Procles of Epidaurus, quoting Asius on the earlier line of Phoenix and Ancaeus, and the Ephesian attack under Androclus. He discusses the sanctuary of Hera, which the Samians say was founded where the goddess was born by the Imbrasus under a willow, and the old image by the Aeginetan Smilis. A digression on Daedalus, his flight from Athens to Minos and then to Cocalus in Sicily, follows. The section ends with the legendary history of Chios according to Ion, from Poseidon and Oenopion to King Hector.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.11.1–7Thebes: the house of Amphitryo, the sanctuary of Hercules and Apollo of the AshesPausanias describes the ruins of Amphitryo's house with Alcmena's bridal-chamber, the tomb of the children of Hercules and Megara, and the stone with which Athena stunned the maddened Hercules. He tells how Historis tricked the witches sent by Hera to delay Alcmena's labour. He describes the sanctuary of Hercules with its marble image, an old wooden image attributed to Daedalus, the story of Icarus' drowning, gables by Praxiteles showing the labours, and the offerings of Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles. The altar of Apollo of the Ashes has divination by voices.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.40.1–12Lebadea and Chaeronea: the discovery of the oracle, the works of Daedalus and the sceptre of AgamemnonPausanias tells how the Boeotians found the oracle of Trophonius by following bees, and lists the surviving works of Daedalus. He moves to Chaeronea, once called Arne, and discusses the Roman trophies and why Macedonians set up none, the tomb of the Thebans who fell fighting Philip with its lion, and the sceptre of Agamemnon, which the Chaeroneans worship as a spear and which the priest keeps in his house for a year.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.21.1–7Athens: poets’ statues in the theatre, Niobe and the sanctuary of AsclepiusIn the theatre are statues of tragic and comic poets, with stories of Sophocles’ honours and Aeschylus’ vocation from Dionysus. Above it are the Gorgon’s head on the Acropolis wall and a cave with a tripod showing Niobe’s children being shot, which Pausanias compares with the rock Niobe on Mount Sipylus. He mentions the grave of Calos, the sanctuary of Asclepius, and a Sarmatian horse-hoof corselet, which leads to a digression on Sarmatian arms and linen corselets.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.26.1–7Athens Acropolis: Olympiodorus, the Erechtheum and the golden lampOlympiodorus leads the Athenians to retake the Museum hill from the Macedonians, with Leocritus first over the wall, and later helps recover Piraeus and Eleusis. Pausanias then describes the Leucophryenian Artemis and Endoeus’ seated Athena, and the Erechtheum with its altars of Zeus, Poseidon, Erechtheus, Butes and Hephaestus and a well of sea-water with the mark of the trident. He ends with the ancient image of Athena and Callimachus’ golden lamp.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.4.1–7Corinth: Athena the Bridler, the kings of Corinth and the road up to Acro-CorinthNear the tomb of Medea’s children is the sanctuary of Athena the Bridler, which leads Pausanias to Bellerophon and Pegasus and to the lineage of Corinth’s kings from Sisyphus to the Dorian Aletes, the Bacchids and the tyrant Cypselus. He describes the theatre, the Daedalic Hercules, the spring Lerna and the temples of Zeus and Asclepius, and the shrines of Isis, Serapis, the Mother of the Gods, the Fates, Demeter and Bunaean Hera on the way up to Acro-Corinth.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.15.1–5Cleonae and Nemea; Mycenae and the early Argive legends of Inachus and PhoroneusOn the road to Argos Pausanias describes Cleonae, with its Athena by Scyllis and Dipoenus and the tomb of Eurytus and Cteatus, and the Nemean region: the lion’s cave, the temple of Nemean Zeus, the grave of Opheltes and Mount Apesas. He then begins the Argive legends, covering Inachus, the dispute of Poseidon and Hera over the land, and Phoroneus, who first gathered mankind.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.3.1–16Olympia: victor statues and the statue of LysanderPausanias continues along the statues at Olympia with athletes from Sicyon, Elis, Lepreus, Aegira and Caulonia, naming the sculptors and their teachers. He discusses the date of the victor Oebotas and the Greek tradition that he fought at Plataea, which Pausanias reports without believing. The section ends with the statue of the Spartan Lysander dedicated by the Samians, with its two inscriptions, and a remark on how the Ionians flattered whoever held power.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.46.1–5Tegea: Augustus carries off the image of Athena AleaPausanias tells how the Emperor Augustus carried off the ancient image of Athena Alea and the tusks of the Calydonian boar after defeating Antony, whose allies included all the Arcadians but the Mantineans. He argues that this followed a long-established custom of taking images from the defeated, citing the image of Zeus of the Courtyard given to Sthenelus, the Daedalus image taken to Gela, Xerxes' removal of Artemis from Brauron and Apollo from Branchidae, and images held by Argos and Cyzicus. The image stands in the Forum of Augustus, and a boar's tusk is kept in the imperial gardens.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.3.1–9Plataea: the Daedala festival of HeraPausanias tells how Hera, angry with Zeus, returned only when Cithaeron advised Zeus to carry a wooden image in a cart and claim it was his new bride, Plataea. The festival of the Daedala commemorates the reconciliation. The Plataeans find the oak for the image by watching which tree a crow perches on after taking boiled flesh. The Little Daedala is held by Plataea alone and the Great Daedala jointly with the Boeotians, with fourteen images carried on wagons to the top of Mount Cithaeron, where they are burned on a great wooden altar with cattle sacrificed to Hera and Zeus.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.17.1–13Sardinia: its peoples, settlement, mountains and the sardonic herbPausanias describes the bronze statue of Sardus sent to Delphi and gives an account of Sardinia, its size and early names, and the peoples who settled it: Libyans under Sardus, Greeks under Aristaeus and Iolaus, Iberians, Trojans, Corsicans and Carthaginians. He describes the mountains, the unhealthy air, the absence of snakes and wolves, the swift rams and the poisonous plant that kills with laughter, the 'sardonic' laughter of Homer.