In Greek mythology, the half-man, half-bull monster imprisoned in the Labyrinth was the Minotaur.
The Minotaur was born to Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos of Crete, after Poseidon sent Minos a remarkable white bull. Minos refused to sacrifice the animal, and divine punishment led Pasiphaë to conceive a child with it. The creature was called Asterion or Asterius in some ancient accounts.
Because the Minotaur was dangerous, Minos ordered the craftsman Daedalus to construct the Labyrinth near the palace at Knossos. Athens was later required to send youths as tribute, until the Athenian hero Theseus entered the maze and killed the monster. Ariadne helped him escape by giving him a thread to mark his route.
The Minotaur is usually shown with a bull’s head and tail and a human body. Some later retellings reverse the proportions, partly because Roman and medieval descriptions were less precise. The creature is not a centaur, which is half-human and half-horse, nor a cyclops, whose defining feature is a single eye.