Cadmus

Cadmus or Kadmos (Greek :Κάδμος), in Phoenician and Greek mythologies, was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honor.

Most significantly, he was accredited by the ancient Greeks like the famous Herodotus with the introduction of the original Alphabet or Phoenician alphabet -- phoinikeia grammata, "Phoenician letters" -- to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet, and later on was introduced to the rest of Europe. Herodotus, who gives this account, estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, or around 2000 BC. To this day, in modern day Lebanon and Syria, Cadmus is revered and celebrated as the 'carrier of the letter' to the world.

Though Cadmus' role in the founding myth of Thebes sets him early in the Mycenaean age, there are some new controversial theories aiming discrediting his role in introducing the alphabet to the Greek. These theories indicate that the phoenician alphabet arrived in Greece centuries after Cadmus came to ancient Greece. Thus, according to these theories, the introduction of the phoenician alphabet in mainland Greece postdated the setting of the 'myth' of Cadmus, which inasmuch as it is the founding myth of Thebes, lay previous even to the Trojan War, in which Theban warriors were engaged. The Homeric picture of this Mycenaean age is agreed to be pre-literate, from the Iliad. This conclusion suggests that there would be a pre-literate stratum of the Cadmeia at Thebes, and archaeology has confirmed that there is. According to Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution, literacy explodes within a few decades after 750 BC: "The earliest Greek letters recognized to date originate in Naxos, Ischia, Athens, and Euboea, and appear around or a little before 750".

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 in Greek mythology.

Wanderings

Samothrace

After his sister Europa had been carried off by Zeus from the shores of Phoenicia, Cadmus was sent out by his father to find her, and 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. Cadmus did not journey alone to Samothrace; 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 abducted 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.

Founder of Thebes

Cadmus 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 went with Harmonia to Illyria, to fight on the side of the Encheleans later as king he 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, which they granted (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.

Native Boeotian hero

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; The name Kadmos has been thoroughly Hellenised. 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 by Diodorus Siculus to be daughter of Zeus and Electra and of Samothracian birth.

Some modern Greeks argue that Cadmus was originally an autochthonous Boeotian hero and that only in later times, did the story of a Phoenician adventurer 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.

Offspring

With Harmonia, he was the father of Ino, Polydorus, Autonoe, Agave and Semele.Their youngest son was Illyrius.

Translation

The word "Cadmus" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Latin.

Translation(s) in other languages: Arabic: قدموس الملك الفينيقي, Breton: Kadmos, Bulgarian: Кадъм, Catalan: Cadme, Czech: Kadmos, Danish: Kadmos, German: Kadmos, Estonian: Kadmos, Greek: Κάδμος, Spanish: Cadmo, Esperanto: Kadmo, Basque: Kadmo, Persian: کادموس, French: Cadmos, Galician: Cadmo, Korean: 카드모스, Italian: Cadmo, Hebrew: קדמוס, Georgian: კადმოსი, Luxembourgish: Kadmos, Lithuanian: Kadmas, Hungarian: Kadmosz, Dutch: Kadmos, Japanese: カドモス, Polish: Kadmos, Portuguese: Cadmo, Russian: Кадм, Serbian: Кадмо, Finnish: Kadmos, Swedish: Kadmos, Turkish: Kadmos, Ukrainian: Кадм, Chinese: 卡德摩斯.