King Minos of Crete commanded the greatest fleet of the Aegaean Sea, and Poseidon, god of the sea, presented him with the gift of a great white bull.

King Minos had promised to return this great bull as sacrifice to Poseidon, but awed by the beauty of the bull, he angered the god by substituting another bull for the sacrifice. To punish him, Poseidon caused Minos' wife, Queen Pasiphae, to fall in love and mate with the white bull.

Daedalus, the greatest designer and architect of Greece, was then at the court of Minos, and was commanded by Pasiphae to build an artificial cow in which she would climb and position herself for the Great Bull to mount her.
Her monstrous offspring, the Minotaur, was condemned to the Labyrinth (also designed and constructed by Daedalus, upon the command of Minos, to conceal his wife's transgression).