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Read the passage from "Cruel Tribute
"Now then," said Minos, "you shall hear my decree.
Athens has robbed me of my dearest treasure, a
treasure that can never be restored to me; so, in
return, I require from Athens, as tribute, that
possession which is the dearest and most precious to
her people, and it shall be destroyed cruelly as my
son was destroyed."
"The condition is hard," said the elders, "but it is just.
What is the tribute which you require?"
"Has the king a son?" asked Minos.
The face of King Aegeus lost all its color and he
trembled as he thought of a little child then with its
mother at Troezen, on the other side of the Saronic
Sea. But the elders knew nothing about that child, and
they answered:
"Alas nol he has no son but he has fiftv nephews
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