Wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia: The Necklace and the Robe

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/192-cadmus-harmonia-wedding-necklace-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Theban foundation / Cadmus

Version line: Apollodorean / Pausanian — divine wedding gifts; cursed heirlooms

Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 3.4.2; Pausanias 9.12.3–4; Diodorus 4.65.5–66; Pindar, *Pythian* 3.86–95; Homer, *Odyssey* 11.326–327 (necklace of Eriphyle)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/192-cadmus-harmonia-wedding-necklace-apollodorus.md

Characters

Artemis — maker of the necklace
Eros — parents of Harmonia; gift-givers in variants
Gods of Olympus — wedding guests
Harmonia — founder-bridegroom of Thebes
Polynices — later victims of the heirloom (cross-ref)

Places

Samothrace — later Cadmus–Harmonia metamorphoses (background only)
Thebes — wedding and foundation seat

Themes

Marriage

Narrative

After founding Thebes and sowing the dragon’s teeth, Cadmus married Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite (or of Zeus and Electra in alternate stems). The gods themselves attended the wedding—the first mortal marriage so honored in Theban lore. Divine gifts included a robe and a famous necklace wrought by Hephaestus (given by Aphrodite or by Europa via Zeus’s chain of transmission in variants). The necklace and peplos became heirlooms of Theban and Argive disaster: Polynices later used the necklace to bribe Eriphyle; the same jewels dogged Alcmaeon. Pindar and the handbooks stress the brilliance of the wedding; tragedy and cyclic aftermath stress the gifts’ curse. Catalogue the wedding as origin-point of Harmonia’s necklace, apart from Cadmus’s dragon-fight and from Eriphyle’s bribe.