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Cadmus

Cadmus was the founder and first King of Thebes. He was the first hero of Greek mythology and was, along with Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest monster slayer before the time of Heracles. Cadmus came to Greece to search for his sister Europa, who had been abducted from their home of Phoenicia by Zeus, and his wanderings led to him founding Thebes as the result of a command from the Pythia to found a city wherever a cow released from Delphi would rest. His slaying of the Lernaean Hydra earned him the favor of Athena but the scorn of Ares, and he was cursed with misfortune for the rest of his life, starting with civil unrest in Thebes which led to his abdication, and culminating in his and his wife Harmonia's transformation into snakes. Cadmus was also credited with introducing the Phoenician alphabet to Greece.

Biography[]

Cadmus was born in Tyre, Phoenicia, the son of King Agenor and Queen Telephassa of Tyre. His parents sent him to seek out his sister Europa after she was abducted from Phoenicia by Zeus, and he first came to Samothrace with his mother and his nephew Thasus, who gave his name to the nearby island of Thasos. His wanderings later took him to Delphi, where he consulted the Oracle and agreed to build a city on the spot where a cow released from Delphi would take its rest. The cow, provided by King Pelagon of Phocis, guided Cadmus to Boeotia, where he founded the city of Thebes. He destroyed the Lernaean Hydra after it killed two men he had sent to sacrifice the cow to Athena, and, after he had sown the dragon's teeth in the ground at Athena's behest, the fierce Spartoi warriors sprung up from the ground. He threw a stone among them, and the five who survived the chain-reaction of falling down helped Cadmus to build the Cadmeia citadel and become the founders of the city's noblest families. However, as the dragon had been sacred to Ares, the god made Cadmus do penance by serving him for eight years, and, after these labors were done, Cadmus married Electra's daughter Harmonia in the first wedding on Earth to which the Greek gods brought presents. He abdicated in favor of his grandson Pentheus after his city suffered from civil unrest (caused by the misfortune brought upon him by killing the sacred dragon), and he fought for the Enchelii in Illyria before founding the cities of Lychnidos and Bouthoe. 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. Cadmus immediately transformed into a snake, and Harmonia, seeing the transformation, convinced the gods to let her share in her husband's fate, also becoming a snake.

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