Notes
Minos and Condoms
One of the more confusing and intriguing tales of ancient contraception is the story of King Minos of Crete and condoms. The legend, written by Antoninus Liberalis in the 2nd century CE, is considered one of the first written records of the use of condoms.[3] King Minos of Knossos, Crete, is most well known for the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and his appearances as a judge in the underworld.[2] This legend highlights some of the less well-known stories about Minos, including his infidelity to his wife.
Description: Illustration of King Minos in Dante Alighieri's Inferno. Illustrated by Gustave Doré
Source: Illustrated by Gustave Doré, accessed via Wikipedia Commons. [4]
In the legend, King Minos is cursed by his wife, Queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, for his infidelity, causing him to have scorpions, snakes, and centipedes in his semen. This curse would kill any mistress that Minos slept with.[1] The second half of the legend varies in different tellings. In some versions, Minos is still able to sleep with Pasiphaë because of her immortality as a daughter of Helios, while in other versions they use a goat’s bladder placed in the vagina as an internal condom to protect against the scorpions, snakes, and centipedes.[1] There are versions of this legend where the goat’s bladder appears to be the cure for Minos’s curse.[3] There is variation in who helped cure Minos. Some say that it was Queen Pasiphaë. In contrast, others say that Princess Procris, daughter of King Erechtheus, helped to cure Minos with the help of the goat’s bladder and an herb from Circe. As a reward for her help, Procris is said to have received a hunting dog that never loses its prey and a javelin that never misses its mark.[1]
Description: Roman mosaic depicting Pasiphaë on a throne.
Source: Mosaic located in the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, in Gaziantep, Turkey. Image accessed through
Wikipedia Commons. [5]
There has been speculation as to whether the scorpions, snakes, and centipedes were alluding to an STI or STD that Minos could have contracted from one of his many mistresses and then spread to his wife.[1] While there has been no definitive answer on this subject, many scholars agree that it seems highly likely that this situation was what was being implied.
Sources:
[1] Khan, Fahd et al. “The story of the condom.” Indian journal of urology: IJU: journal of the
Urological Society of India vol. 29,1 (2013): 12-5. doi:10.4103/0970-1591.109976
[2] Forsdyke, John. “Minos of Crete.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol.. 15, no. 1/2, 1952, pp.
13–19. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/750110. Accessed 5 May 2025.
[3] Phillips, Michelle. "Ancient Contraception: From the World's First Civilization, through
Egyptian Dynasties, to the Native Americans, We've Been Almost as Interested in
Preventing Pregnancy as We Have in Propagation." Medical Post, vol. 37, no. 14, 2001,
pp. 31. ProQuest,
https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/ancient-contraception-worlds-first-civilization/d
Image Sources:
[4] Wikipedia Contributors. “Minos.” Wikipedia, 23 July 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minos.
[5] Wikipedia Contributors. “Pasiphaë.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Apr. 2022,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasipha%C3%AB.