Cadmus

Apollodorus's Library makes Cadmus a son of Agenor and Telephassa, and brother of Europa, Phoenix and Cilix. When Zeus carried Europa away as a bull, Agenor sent his sons to find her and told them not to come home without her. The versions of the search differ. Apollodorus has Cadmus and his mother settle in Thrace, and only after Telephassa's death does he go to Delphi to ask about his sister. Ovid's Metamorphoses has Agenor threaten Cadmus with exile if he fails, so the young man consults Apollo's oracle looking for a new home. Herodotus adds that on the way Cadmus put in at the island later called Thera and left a kinsman there with other Phoenicians.

The oracle told him to give up the search, follow a cow, and found a city where she lay down. Apollodorus says the cow came from the herds of Pelagon and sank down on the site of Thebes. Pausanias heard the same at Thebes, adding that the cow had a white mark like a full moon on each side. Cadmus meant to sacrifice her and sent his men to a spring for water. A serpent guarded it. Apollodorus calls the spring Ares's and says some thought the creature was a son of Ares. Ovid calls it sacred to Mars, the Roman Ares, and describes it killing the whole water party. Cadmus killed it. Ovid gives the fight in detail: a thrown millstone glances off its scales, and his spear finally pins its neck to an oak. The whole tale, from the cow to the sown men, is told in Cadmus and the Dragon.

On Athena's advice, Cadmus sowed the serpent's teeth, and armed men rose from the ground. Apollodorus says these Sparti, the sown men, killed each other in a brawl or by mistake. He also reports that the older writer Pherecydes had Cadmus throw stones among them so that each blamed the other. Five survived: Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor and Pelorus. The killing still had a price. Apollodorus says Cadmus served Ares for an eternal year, equal to eight human years. Athena then gave him the kingdom, and Zeus gave him Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. The gods came down to feast at the wedding, and Cadmus gave his bride a robe and a necklace made by Hephaestus.

Hesiod's Theogony already knows Harmonia as the wife of Cadmus and names their children: Ino, Semele, Agave, Autonoe and Polydorus. Apollodorus lists the same five. Their lives went badly. Semele died when Zeus came to her in his full glory, and her son Dionysus was born from his thigh. Autonoe's son Actaeon was torn apart by his own hounds, and Ino leapt into the sea with her son. Ovid says Juno rejoiced at every blow to the house of Cadmus, since her anger fell on all of Europa's kin. Agave's son Pentheus, who had succeeded Cadmus, refused to honor Dionysus and was torn apart by his own mother on Mount Cithaeron. Euripides's Bacchae stages that story with Cadmus, old and willing, dressed for the god's rites beside the prophet Tiresias.

Cadmus and Harmonia then left Thebes. Apollodorus says they went to the Encheleans, led them to victory over the Illyrians as an oracle required, and ruled there. They were finally turned into serpents, and Zeus sent them to the Elysian Fields. Through Polydorus the line ran to Labdacus and Laius, whose son was Oedipus. Herodotus calls Laius the great-grandson of Cadmus. The family's gifts outlived them too. Pausanias saw a necklace said to have first been Harmonia's, later known as the necklace of Eriphyle. That was the bribe she took to send her husband to his death in the war of the Seven against Thebes.

Greek writers also credited Cadmus with things larger than one city. Herodotus says the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus brought the alphabet to Greece. He qualifies it as his own judgment, and he reports seeing Cadmean letters on tripods at Thebes. He also traces part of the Greek worship of Dionysus to Cadmus of Tyre and his followers. Pausanias records a Theban altar of Athena that Cadmus was said to have dedicated. He uses its Phoenician title to reject the view that Cadmus came from Egypt.