According to Plutarch, how often did Athens send its tribute to King Minos for the Minotaur?

According to Plutarch, Athens sent its tribute to King Minos every nine years for the Minotaur.

In Plutarch’s Life of Theseus, the Athenians were required to send young people to Crete as compensation after the death of Minos’s son Androgeus. Theseus later joined the tribute group and killed the Minotaur in the Labyrinth.

The number and timing vary among ancient and later sources. Plutarch describes the tribute as recurring every ninth year, while other traditions summarize the arrangement as seven youths and seven maidens sent at intervals. This is why accounts may differ over both the schedule and the exact number of victims.

The tribute cycle is an important part of the myth’s political background: it presents Athens as subject to Cretan power before Theseus’s victory and eventual return as a heroic king.