Ganimede

Speranza

R. F. Willetts:

The aristocratic elite who practiced the custom may have derived their ultimate origin from the chosen band of youths whom Evans supposed to exist at the court of Minos.

The myth of Ganimede, according to Plato, was said to have originated in Crete.

And there was a tradition that Minos, not Zeus, was the ravisher.

But all this later sophistication must be set beside the original form of the myth, where Ganymede is not the bedfellow but the cubbearer of Zeus.

He was the young initate chosen for special office.