20 Facts About Cadmus

In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes.

Cadmus was, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles.

Commonly stated to be a prince of Phoenicia, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre, the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, Cadmus traced his origins back to Poseidon and Libya.

Cadmus founded or refounded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour.

Cadmus is credited with the foundation of several cities in Illyria, like Bouthoe and Lychnidus.

Cadmus was credited by the Greek historian Herodotus with introducing the original Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet.

Herodotus estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, which would be around 2000 BC.

Cadmus estimated those tripods to date back to the time of Laius the great-grandson of Cadmus.

Cadmus did not journey alone to Samothrace; he appeared with his mother Telephassa in the company of his nephew Thasus, son of Cilix, who gave his name to the island of Thasos nearby.

Cadmus came in the course of his wanderings to Delphi, where he consulted the oracle.

Cadmus 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.

Cadmus was then instructed by Athena to sow the dragon's teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called the Spartoi.

The dragon had been sacred to Ares, so the god made Cadmus do penance for eight years by serving him.

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 Enchelii.

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.

In Euripides' The Bacchae, Cadmus is given a prophecy by Dionysus whereby both he and his wife will be turned into snakes for a period before eventually being brought to live among the blest.

Cadmus was of ultimately divine ancestry, the grandson of the sea god Poseidon and Libya on his father's side, and of Nilus on his mother's side; overall he was considered a member of the fifth generation of beings following the creation of the world:.

Since Herodotus Cadmus has been commonly described as a prince of Phoenicia.

Cadmus was used as an identification figure by the Argives, representing an intriguing example of mythical requisition in relation to the wars between Argos and Thebes.