Everything about Cadmus totally explained
Cadmus, or
Kadmos (Greek:
Κάδμος), in
Greek mythology, was a
Phoenician prince, son of
Agenor and the brother of
Phoenix,
Cilix and
Europa. Cadmus founded the city of
Thebes, and its
acropolis was originally named
Cadmeia in his honor. Cadmus was credited by the Hellenes with the introduction of the
Phoenician alphabet,
phoinikeia grammata.
Herodotus who gives this account estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, or around 2000 BC.
According to Greek myth, Cadmus' descendants ruled at Thebes on-and-off for several generations, including the time of the
Trojan War. For a discussion of the mythical kings of Thebes, see
Theban kings - Greek mythology.
Wanderings: Samothrace
After his sister Europa had been carried off by
Zeus, Cadmus was sent out to find her, enjoined not to return without her. Unsuccessful in his search, he came to
Samothrace, the island sacred to the "Great Gods" and the
Kabeiroi, whose mysteries would be celebrated also at
Thebes. At Samothrace, Cadmus wasn't journeying alone: he appeared with his "far-shining" mother
Telephassa in the company of his brother, who gave his name to the island of
Thasos nearby. An identically-composed trio had other names at Samothrace, according to
Diodorus Siculus:
Elektra and her two sons,
Dardanos and
Eetion or
Iasion. There was a fourth figure, Elektra's daughter,
Harmonia. whom Cadmus took away as a bride, as Zeus had absconded with Europa. The wedding was the first celebrated on earth to which the gods brought gifts, according to Diodorus and dined with Cadmus and his bride.
Wanderings: the founder of Thebes
He came in the course of his wanderings to
Delphi, where he consulted the
oracle. He was ordered to give up his quest and follow a special cow, with a half moon on her flank, which would meet him, and to build a town on the spot where she should lie down exhausted.
The cow was given to Cadmus by
Pelagon, King of
Phocis, and it guided him to
Boeotia, where he founded the city of
Thebes.
Robert Graves (
The Greek Myths) suggested that the cow was actually turned loose within a moderately confined space, and that where she lay down, a temple to the moon-goddess (
Selene) was erected: "A cow's strategic and commercial sensibilities are not well developed," Graves remarked.
Intending to sacrifice the cow to
Athena, Cadmus sent some of his companions to the nearby
Castalian Spring, for water. They were slain by the spring's guardian water-dragon (compare the
Lernaean Hydra), which was in turn destroyed by Cadmus, the duty of a
culture hero of the new order.
By the instructions of Athena, he sowed the
Dragon's teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called
Spartes ("sown"). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmeia or citadel of Thebes, and became the founders of the noblest families of that city.
The dragon had been sacred to
Ares, so the god made Cadmus to do penance for eight years by serving him. According to Theban tellings, it was at the expiration of this period that the gods gave him
Harmonia as wife. At Thebes, Cadmus and Harmonia began a dynasty with a son
Polydorus, and four daughters,
Agave,
Autonoë,
Ino and
Semele.
At the wedding, whether celebrated at Samothrace or at Thebes, all the gods were present; Harmonia received as bridal gifts a
peplos worked by Athena and a necklace made by
Hephaestus. This necklace, commonly referred to as the Necklace of Harmonia, brought misfortune to all who possessed it. Notwithstanding the divinely ordained nature of his marriage and his kingdom, Cadmus lived to regret both: his family was overtaken by grievous misfortunes, and his city by civil unrest. Cadmus finally abdicated in favor of his grandson Pentheus, and retired with Harmonia to
Illyria, whose inhabitants proclaimed him their king and founded the city of
Lychnidos and
Bouthoe.
Nevertheless, Cadmus was deeply troubled by the ill-fortune which clung to him as a result of his having killed the sacred dragon, and one day he remarked that if the gods were so enamoured of the life of a serpent, he might as well wish that life for himself. Immediately he began to grow scales and change in form. Harmonia, seeing the transformation, thereupon begged the gods to share her husband's fate, and she did (Hyginus).
In another telling of the story, the bodies of Cadmus and his wife were changed after their deaths; the serpents watched their tomb while their souls were translated to the fields.
In
Euripides'
The Bacchae Cadmus is depicted as being turned into a dragon, or alternatively a serpent, after
Dionysus overthrows Thebes.
Cadmus as ethnic Greek
In Phoenician, as well as Hebrew, the Semitic root
qdm signifies "the east," the
Levantine origin of "Kdm" himself, according to the Greek mythographers; the equation of
Kadmos with the Semitic
qdm was traced to a publication of 1646 by R.B. Edwards; nevertheless, to this day, some in Greece contend that Cadmus was originally a
Boeotian, that is, a wholly Greek autochthonous hero, and that only in later times, did the story of a Phoenician immigrant of that name become current, to whom was ascribed the introduction of the
alphabet, the invention of agriculture and working in bronze and of civilization generally. But the name has been thoroughly Hellenised, and the fact that
Hermes was worshipped in
Samothrace under the name of Cadmus or Cadmilus seems to show that the Theban Cadmus was interpreted as an ancestral Theban hero corresponding to the Samothracian. Another Samothracian connection for Cadmus is offered via his wife Harmonia, who is said in some accounts to be daughter of
Zeus and
Electra and of Samothracian birth.
-
Al-Qadmūs,
Tartus, Syria, is named for Cadmus.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Cadmus'.
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