Labʹyrinth
.A mass of buildings or garden - walks, so complicated as to puzzle strangers to extricate themselves. Said to be so called from Labʹyris, an Egyptian monarch of the 12th dynasty. The chief labyrinths are:—
(1) The Egyptian, by Petesuʹchis or Tithoes, near the Lake Mœris. It had 3,000 apartments, half of which were underground. (B.C. 1800.) Pliny, xxxvi. 13; and Pomponius Mela, i. 9.
(2) The Cretan, by Dæʹdalos, for imprisoning the Miʹnotaur. The only means of finding a way out of it was by help of a skein of thread. (See Virgil: Ænēid, v.)
(3) The Cretan conduit, which had 1,000 branches or turnings.
(4) The Lemʹnian, by the architects Zmilus, Rholus, and Theodõrus. It had 150 columns, so nicely adjusted that a child could turn them. Vestiges of this labyrinth were still in existence in the time of Pliny.
