Cadmus and His Brothers Search for Europa

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/234-cadmus-brothers-search-europa-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Europa cycle / Phoenician diaspora / Theban prelude

Version line: Apollodorean — Agenor’s command; Phoenix, Cilix, Cadmus, Telephassa disperse

Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 3.1.1; Herodotus 4.147 (Theran/Cadmean notices); cf. Moschus, *Europa* (abduction only)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/234-cadmus-brothers-search-europa-apollodorus.md

Characters

Agenor — father; orders the irreversible search
Europa — missing sister (already on Crete)
Harmonia — searcher who later founds Thebes
Phoenix — settles and names Phoenicia
Telephassa — mother; dies on the journey (Apollodorean strand)
Thasus — kinsman associated with Thasos (variant)

Places

Cilicia — Cilix’s land
Mount Helicon — Cadmus’s continuation (background)
Mount Pangaeum — Telephassa’s death; Cadmus’s intermediate stage
Ortygia — Europa’s true destination (unknown to the searchers)
Phoenicia — starting point

Themes

Abduction

Narrative

After Zeus carried Europa from Phoenicia to Crete, her father Agenor ordered his sons to find her and not return without her. Phoenix, Cilix, and Cadmus (with their mother Telephassa in some tellings) searched in vain. Phoenix settled in the land named Phoenicia after him; Cilix gave his name to Cilicia; Cadmus, after Telephassa died in Thrace (or the Thracian sojourn), went on to Delphi and thence followed the cow to Boeotia. Thasus (a brother or kinsman in some versions) is linked to the island Thasos. None recovered Europa; the search becomes an aetiology of eastern Mediterranean eponyms and the road by which Cadmus enters Greek foundation myth. Catalogue the dispersal apart from the bull-abduction and the Theban dragon.