For Pasiphaë the moon of Jupiter, see Pasiphaë (moon).

In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was the daughter of Helios and the sister of Circe. She was raised as a princess at Cholchis , and then given in marriage to King Minos of Crete. With Minos, she was the mother of Ariadne, Androgeus, Glaucus, Deucalion, Phaedra, and Catreus. She was also the mother of the Minotaur, after a curse from Poseidon caused her to mate with a white bull.

Pasiphaë was worshipped as an oracular goddess at Thalamae outside of Sparta. The geographer Pausanias describes the shrine as small, situated near a clear stream, and flanked by bronze statues of Helios and Pasiphaë. His account also equates Pasiphaë with Ino and Selene.

Cicero writes in De Natura Deorum that the Spartan Ephors would sleep at the temple to receive prophetic dreams to aid them in governance. According to Plutarch, Spartan society twice underwent major upheavals sparked by ephors' dreams at the shrine during the Hellenistic era. In one case, an ephor dreamed that some of his colleagues' chairs were removed from the agora, and that a voice called out "this is better for Sparta"; inspired by this, King Cleomenes acted to consolidate royal power. Again during the reign of King Agis, several ephors brought the people into revolt with oracles from Pasiphaë's shrine promising remission of debts and redistribution of land. (See Plutarch, Lives of Agis and Cleomenes)

External links

• An exhaustive compilation of ancient references to Pasiphae