CADMUS

After Zeus kidnapped Europa, daughter of the king of Phoenician kingdom of Tyra, her father, Agenor ordered her brothers; Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cylix to search for her, instructing them not to return until they had found her. It was a hopeless quest, and all three brothers became exiled in a foreign land.  But each of them contributed in the making of the Greek civilization.

Cadmus came in the course of his wanderings to find Delphi, where he consulted the oracle. He was ordered to give up his quest and follow a distinct cow with a half moon on her flank, then to build a town on the spot where she should lie down exhausted. The cow was given to Cadmus by Pelagon, King of Phocis, guiding him to Boeotia. There he instructed his men to bring water so that he could offer a sacrifice to Athena; however the men encountered a giant serpent which was sacred to Ares, and they were all killed by that serpent. Cadmus came upon the carnage and gave battle, eventually slaying the serpent. A voice then spoke to him, prophesying that he himself would eventually become a serpent. Cadmus was left with a site for a city, but no one to help build it Athena intervened, telling him to sow the serpent’s teeth in the earth. He did so, and armed men sprang. up from the teeth. 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. These five men became the ancestors of the noble Thebans, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called Spartes “sown”. Cadmus then spent eight years in servitude to Ares, as a penalty for the killing of the serpent. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honor. And he was also credited by the ancient Greeks, like Herodotus with introducing the original Alphabet or Phoenician alphabet “phoinikeia grammata “(Phoenician letters) to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet.

 H. Mafaalani