Cadmus

In Greek mythology, Cadmus (/ˈkædməs/; Greek: Κάδμος Kadmos), was the founder and first king of Thebes. Cadmus was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles.Initially a Phoenician prince, son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa 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 honour.

Cadmus was credited by the ancient Greeks (Herodotus is an example) with introducing the original alphabet to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet. Herodotus estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, or around 2000 BC. Herodotus had seen and described the Cadmean writing in the temple of Apollo at Thebes engraved on certain tripods. He estimated those tripods to date back to the time of Laius the great-grandson of Cadmus. On one of the tripods there was this inscription in Cadmean writing, which, as he attested, resembled Ionian letters: Ἀμφιτρύων μ᾽ ἀνέθηκ᾽ ἐνάρων ἀπὸ Τηλεβοάων ("Amphitryon dedicated me [don't forget] the spoils of [the battle of] Teleboae."). Source: Wikipedia

Art:Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's teeth, by Maxfield Parrish, 1908.



Some have said that Zeus gave Harmonia to Cadmus in recompense for having helped him to restore the harmony of the world, destroyed by Typhon's attack on heaven. For Pan, following Zeus' instructions, gave Cadmus a flute and disguised him as a shepherd, and Zeus asked Cadmus to bewitch Typhon's wits with a delusive tune. So when Cadmus tuned up, Typhon, attracted by the deceitful notes of the syrinx, appeared and Cadmus, through a stratagem, convinced him to bring the sinews of Zeus which Typhon had in his power, thus leading him to his doom. And when Zeus recovered his power, they say, he also informed Cadmus of his sister's fate. Source: 'Cadmus The Phoenician'

Note: Similarity of Pan, with Cadmus (the syrinx flute). Some accounts suggest Cadmus, as a son of Hermes...even interchangeable with Hermes, aka Mercury of the Romans. B.J.C.

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