DÆDALUS, an Athenian, son of Eupalamus, descended from Erichtheus king of Athens. He was the most ingenious artist of his age; and to him we are indebted for the invention of the wedge and many other mechanical instruments, and the sails of ships. He made statues which moved of themselves, and seemed to be endowed with life. Talus his sister's son promised to be as great as himself by the ingenuity of his inventions; and therefore from envy he threw him down from a window and killed him. After the murder of this youth, Dædalus, with his son Icarus, fled from Athens to Crete, where Minos king of the
country gave him a cordial reception. Dædalus made a famous labyrinth for Minos, and assisted Pasiphae the queen to gratify her unnatural passion for a bull. For this action Dædalus incurred the displeasure of Minos, who ordered him to be confined in the labyrinth which he had constructed. Here he made himself wings with feathers and wax, and carefully fitted them to his body and that of his son, who was the companion of his confinement. They took their flight in the air from Crete: but the heat of the sun melted the wax on the wings of Icarus, whose flight was too high, and he fell into that part of the ocean which from him has been called the Icarian sea. The father, by a proper management of his wings, alighted at Camæ, where he built a temple to Apollo, and thence directed his course to Sicily, where he was kindly received by Cocalus, who reigned over part of the country. He left many monuments of his ingenuity in Sicily, which still existed in the age of Diadorus Siculus. He was despatched by Cocalus, who was afraid of the power of Minos, who had declared war against him because he had given an asylum to Dædalus. The flight of Dædalus from Crete with wings is explained by observing that he was the inventor of sails, which in his age might pass at a distance for wings. He lived 1400 years before the Christian era. There were two statues of the same name; one of Sicyon, son of Patroclus; the other a native of Bithynia.