Daedalus was a very talented and famous architect and sculptor of ancient Greece. His statues were said to be so lifelike that one owner kept them tied, fearing that they will walk away.
Despite his great ability in this field, he committed a murder out of envy. He killed his nephew and pupil Talus, when he realized that his ability and talent were about to surpass his own.
Persecuted in Athens, he fled to Crete, where he came under the protection of king Minos, offering him his services. After he had built the famous palaces and the Labyrinth of King Minos, he lived there with great honour. Meanwhile, he married the beautiful slave named Naukrate, with whom he had a son, Ikaros. King Minos, though very satisfied with Daedalus' work, was terrified with the idea that he could leave Crete and build elsewere palaces of equal or even greater glory, and so he forbade Deadalus to leave Crete.
Being such a great inventor, Daedalus designed a device of wings glued with wax, that enabled him to fly. So, he escaped from Crete, with his son, Ikaros, using this pioneering invention. Ikaros, due to his enthusiasm of the great experience of flight, ignored his father's advice not to fly too high and near to the sun, in order to avoid the wings' wax melting. As a result, Daedalus' fears were realised, and Ikaros fell into the North Aegean sea and drowned. Daedalus buried his son on the nearby Greek island of Dolichi, which, since that time, bears the name Ikaria.
