Cadmus
Founder of Thebes
KAD-mus
Sent to find a stolen sister, he founded Thebes instead, and sowed a dragon's teeth to raise its first citizens.
The Story
Sent after Europa with orders not to come back without her, Cadmus gave up and asked Delphi what to do. Follow a particular cow, he was told, and build where she lies down. The spring there was guarded by a serpent sacred to Ares; he killed it, sowed its teeth on Athena's advice, and armed men grew out of the ground and fought until five were left. Those five founded Thebes with him.
The Greeks also credited him with bringing them the alphabet from Phoenicia. His reward for the serpent was a term of servitude to Ares and marriage to Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and a family line that produced Semele, Actaeon, Pentheus, and eventually Oedipus. In old age the two of them were turned into serpents, which he had asked for.
Did You Know?
- A Cadmean victory is one that costs the winner as much as losing would have, from the sown men who killed each other until five were left.
- The element cadmium is named, at several removes, after him: it was found in the zinc ore cadmia, which took its name from him by way of Thebes.
- Greeks called their letters Phoenician letters and credited him with bringing them. Modern scholarship agrees the alphabet came from Phoenicia, making this one of the few myths that turned out to be reporting.