Rhadamanthus (mythology)
In Greek myths, Rhadamanthus (also transliterated as Rhadamanthys or Rhadamanthos) was a wise king, the son of Zeus and Europa. Later accounts even make him out to be one of judges of the dead. His brothers were Minos, king of Crete, and Sarpedon. He was raised by Asterion. He had two sons, Gortys and Erythrus.
In Greek and Roman accounts
According to one account, Rhadamanthus ruled Crete before Minos, and gave the island an excellent code of laws, which the Spartans were believed to have copied.
Driven out of Crete by his brother, Minos, who was jealous of his popularity, he fled to Boeotia, where he wedded Alcmene. Homer represents him as dwelling in the Elysian Fields (Odyssey, iv. 564), the paradise for the immortal sons of Zeus.
According to later legends (c. 400 BC), on account of his inflexible integrity he was made one of the judges of the dead in the lower world, together with Aeacus and Minos. He was supposed to judge the souls of Asians, Aeacus those of Europeans, while Minos had the casting vote (Plato, Gorgias, 424A).
Virgil makes Rhadamanthus one of the judges and punishers of the damned in the Underworld (Tartarus) section of The Aeneid. "Rhadamanthine" has since come to describe any just but inflexible judgment. (The Aeneid, vi. 566)
In another version, Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus quarreled over a beautiful boy they were all in love with, by the name of Miletus, son of Apollo and Areia. The youth however preferred Sarpedon, so Minos in revenge went to war and conquered the whole island. Sarpedon and his beloved escaped to Lycia, where Miletus founded the city that bore his name. Other mythographers claimed that the beloved youth's name was Atymnios, and that he was the son of Zeus and Cassiopeia. (Apollodorus III.1.2)
Bernard Sergent claims that the story is a late invention in that the theme of competition for a beloved youth is not in keeping with the Cretan pederastic tradition, and there is no record of this Miletus prior to the second century BCE.
Other uses
- The Kuiper belt object 38083 Rhadamanthus is named after this figure.
- Behrens, the head doctor of a Davos sanatorium in the novel Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann, is nicknamed Rhadamantys.
- A character in Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos is named after this figure in irony.
- A character is named after him, personifying one of the three judges of the Hades in the anime Saint Seiya, in "The Hades Chapters", still in production.
- The dead Hopkirk is sent to recuperate at the afterlife resort of Rhadamanthus-on-Sea in Series 2 Episode 4 of the BBC remake Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased); in the hotel he is given a drink to make him forget.
