Rhadamanthus

In Greek mythology, Rhadamanthus (/ˌrædəˈmænθəs/) or Rhadamanthys (Ancient Greek: Ῥαδάμανθυς) was a wise king of Crete. As the son of Zeus and Europa he was considered a demigod. He later became one of the judges of the dead and an important figure in Greek mythology.

His name, whose etymology is obscure, was later used to allude to persons showing stern and inflexible judgement.

Rhadamanthus was, according to Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, the son of Zeus and Europa and brother to Sarpedon and Minos (also a king and later a judge of the dead). Together with his brother, Rhadamanthus was raised by Asterion, their stepfather. He had two sons, Gortys (associated with Gortyn, Crete) and Erythrus (founder of Erythrae).

A different tradition represents Rhadamanthys as the son of Hephaestus, Hephaestus as a son of Talos, and Talos as a son of Cres, the personification of Crete. This tradition is reported by Pausanias, who cites the poet Cinaethon of Sparta as his source. According to Athenaeus, the lyric poet Ibycus wrote of Rhadamanthys as the lover of Talos, rather than grandson. The Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia from the tenth-century CE, adds to this that Talos and Rhadamanthus introduced homosexuality to Crete.

Other sources (e.g. Plutarch, Theseus 20) credit Rhadamanthys rather than Dionysus as the husband of Ariadne, and the father of Oenopion, Staphylus and Thoas. In this account, Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, Rhadamanthys's brother; another Ariadne was the daughter of Minos's grandson and namesake, who features in Theseus's legend and was rescued by Dionysus.

Although he was frequently considered one of the judges of the dead in the underworld, he was also known for a few legislative activities. There is a reference to a law of Rhadamanthus ordering the Cretans to swear oaths by animals and to another law of Rhadamanthus saying if people defend themselves against others who initiated violence then they should suffer no penalty. His legislation, and its subsequent analogue in Lacadaemonian Sparta, is briefly described in Book I of Plato's Laws, after he is introduced as the brother of Minos, and credited with being the justest of men and an administrator of justice.

Athenian: And first, I want to know why the law has ordained that you shall have common meals and gymnastic exercises, and wear arms? Cleinias of Crete: I think, Stranger, that the aim of our institutions is easily intelligible to any one. Look at the character of our country: Crete is not like Thessaly, a large plain; and for this reason they have horsemen in Thessaly, and we have runners—the inequality of the ground in our country is more adapted to locomotion on foot; but then, if you have runners you must have light arms,—no one can carry a heavy weight when running, and bows and arrows are convenient because they are light. Now all these regulations have been made with a view to war, and the legislator appears to me to have looked to this in all his arrangements:—the common meals, if I am not mistaken, were instituted by him for a similar reason, because he saw that while they are in the field the citizens are by the nature of the case compelled to take their meals together for the sake of mutual protection. He seems to me to have thought the world foolish in not understanding that all men are always at war with one another; and if in war there ought to be common meals and certain persons regularly appointed under others to protect an army, they should be continued in peace. For what men in general term peace would be said by him to be only a name; in reality every city is in a natural state of war with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds, but everlasting. And if you look closely, you will find that this was the intention of the Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as well as public, were arranged by him with a view to war; in giving them he was under the impression that no possessions or institutions are of any value to him who is defeated in battle; for all the good things of the conquered pass into the hands of the conquerors.

— Plato's Laws, Book I