To briefly answer 1:
First Crete got on Athens' bad side in the 700s BC or before, and many things were written to make Crete sound unsavoury. Then around the 600s BC, Stesichorus wrote the Geryoneis. Then around the 500s BC, Sappho wrote many poems. Then in the 1800s AD, George Frederick Watts painted the minotaur. Then in the 1930s, Pablo Picasso made The Vollard Suite. Then in the 1940s, Jorge Luis Borges wrote The House Of Asterion. Then in the 1980s, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved. Then in the 1990s, Anne Carson wrote Autobiography Of Red. And then in the 2000s, a bunch of weirdos made Morenatsu.
Then we all variously found these things and then started Minotaur Hotel.