Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

When Zeus carried off Europa (next entry), her father Agenor of Tyre sent his sons—Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix—to find her and not return without her. They failed. Cadmus, following the Delphic oracle instead, was told to follow a cow that would show him where to found a city and to name the land Boeotia. He followed the cow until it lay down; there he prepared to sacrifice it to Athena. Needing water, Cadmus’s companions went to the spring of Ares (later associated with the Castalia / Ismenian waters near Thebes). A dragon, offspring or guardian of Ares, killed them. Cadmus slew the dragon—Athena advising him—and, at her command, sowed its teeth in the earth. Armed men, the Spartoi (“Sown Men”), sprang up. Cadmus cast stones among them; taking the blows for mutual attack, they fought until only five survived: Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus. These became the ancestral clans of Theban nobility; Cadmus founded Cadmeia (the citadel of Thebes) with them. To atone for the dragon, Cadmus served Ares a year (or eight “eternal” years). Zeus gave him Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, as wife; the gods attended the wedding. Cadmus gave Harmonia the famous necklace and robe (Hephaestus’s work, or Europa’s gifts)—precious objects that later carry doom through Theban generations (Polynices, Eriphyle, Alcmaeon). Cadmus and Harmonia’s children included Semele (mother of Dionysus), Ino, Agave, Autonoe, and Polydorus. In old age, according to Apollodorus, the pair left Thebes, were changed into serpents, and Zeus sent them to the Elysian field (or the Isles of the Blessed). The sowing of the dragon’s teeth is the foundation myth of Thebes and the gateway to the Theban cycle: from Cadmeia descend Laius, Oedipus, and the wars of the Seven and the Epigoni—material for a later catalogue batch.