Back قدموس Arabic Кадм BE Кадъм Bulgarian Kadmos BR Cadme Catalan Cadmu CO Kadmos Czech Kadmos Danish Kadmos German Κάδμος Greek
| Cadmus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abode | Elysium, Thebes |
| Genealogy | |
| Born | |
| Died | |
| Parents | Agenor and Telephassa |
| Siblings | Europa, Cilix, Phoenix |
| Consort | Harmonia |
| Children | Illyrius, Polydorus, Autonoë, Ino, Agave, Semele |
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In Greek mythology, Cadmus (/ˈkædməs/; Ancient Greek: Κάδμος, romanized: Kádmos) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes.[1] He was, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles.[2] Commonly stated to be a prince of Phoenicia,[3] the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre, the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, Cadmus traced his origins back to Poseidon and Libya.
Originally, he was sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus.[4] In early accounts, Cadmus and Europa were instead the children of Phoenix.[5] Cadmus founded or refounded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour.
He is also credited with the foundation of several cities in Illyria, like Bouthoe and Lychnidus. In ancient Greek literature, the end of the mythical narrative of Cadmus and Harmonia is associated with Enchelei and Illyrians, a tradition deeply rooted among the Illyrian peoples.[6][7][8]
His parentage was sometimes modified to suit, e.g. claims of Theban origin name his mother as one of the daughters of Nilus, one of the Potamoi and deity of the Nile river.[9]
- ^ Schachter 2012, p. 257.
- ^ Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. The Heroes of the Greeks (London: Thames and Hudson) p. 75.
- ^ Colavito 2014, p. 28
- ^ A modern application of genealogy would make him the paternal grandfather of Dionysus, through his daughter by Harmonia, Semele. Plutarch once admitted that he would rather be assisted by Lamprias, his own grandfather, than by Dionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. (Symposiacs, Book IX, question II Archived 13 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine)
- ^ Scholia on Homer, Iliad B, 494, p. 80, 43 ed. Bekk. as cited in Hellanicus' Boeotica
- ^ Katičić, Radoslav (1977). "Enhelejci (Die Encheleer)" [The Encheleans]. Godišnjak Centra za balkanološka ispitivanja (15): 81.
- ^ Šašel Kos, Marjeta (1993). "Cadmus and Harmonia in Illyria". Arheološki Vestnik. 44: 113.
- ^ Dedvukaj, Lindon (2023). "Linguistic evidence for the Indo-European and Albanian origin of Aphrodite". Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America. 8 (1). Linguistic Society of America: 7–8. doi:10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5500. S2CID 258381736.
- ^ Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Boston: Little Brown and Company. p. 524. ark:/13960/t9s17xn41.