MINOTAURUS

a monster with a human body and a bull's head, or, according to others, with the body of an ox and a human head, is said to have been the offspring of the intercourse of Pasiphae with the bull sent from the sea to Minos, who shut him up in the Cnossian labyrinth, and fed him with the bodies of the youths and maidens whom the Athenians at fixed times were obliged to send to Minos as tribute. The monster was slain by Theseus.

It was often represented by ancient artists either alone in the labyrinth, or engaged in the struggle with Theseus. (Apollodorus iii)

"He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.

Now the Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber "that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way."
Apollodorus iii