Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Cadmus

The White Bull

Thanks to Phaeton desert wastes and icy polar regions now gave mankind extremes of temperature to cope with, on top of the cycle of seasons caused by Persephone’s stay in the underworld. The lesson of Phaeton did not stop humankind from reaching ever higher, however. No lesson, no matter how grim, ever seems to deter us. All over Greece kingdoms continued to rise and fall. The Grecian world encompassed Asia Minor too in those days, that bulge of land east of Greece that encompasses what we now call Turkey, as well as Syria and the lands of the Levant (modern-day Lebanon). The influence of this part of the world on Greek culture and myth was immense, bringing great trade, alphabetic writing and eventually the founding of the first example of the polis, the city state that was to reach its greatest pitch with the establishment of Troy, Sparta and Athens. It is a story of Zeus, transformations, a dragon, snakes, a city and a marriage.

The King of the Levantine city of Tyre, AGENOR (a son of Poseidon and Libya), and his Queen TELEPHASSA (a daughter of Nilus and the cloud nymph NEPHELE) had five children: a daughter, Europa, and four sons, CADMUS (or sometimes, in the more Greek spelling, KADMOS), CILIX, PHOENIX and THASOS.

The children of Agenor were playing in a flower-filled meadow one afternoon when Europa wandered off and became separated from her brothers. Her eye had been caught by a beautiful white bull grazing in the long grass. As she approached, the animal lifted its head to look at her. Something in its gaze fascinated her. She moved closer. The bull’s breath was sweet and its nose soft and strokeable. She threaded garlands of flowers around its horns and ran her fingers through its thick, warmly inviting coat. Then, without quite knowing why, she lifted herself onto its back. She leaned forward and took a horn in each hand.

‘Oh, you beautiful thing,’ she breathed into its ear. ‘So strong and wise and kind.’

With a toss of its huge head the animal started to trot forward. The trot soon became something close to a gallop. Europa laughed and urged him on.

Cadmus and his younger brothers had been competing against each other to see who could throw a rock the greatest distance (Cadmus always won – he was an especially gifted thrower of stones, discuses and javelins). They turned just in time to watch their sister being carried out of sight on the back of a bull. They ran after it as fast as they could, but the bull possessed unbelievable speed. It seemed to the brothers, impossible as it must be, that the animal’s hoofs were no longer touching the ground.

Panicking they called out Europa’s name and shouted to her to throw herself off, but she either didn’t hear or didn’t heed them. The bull rose higher and higher in the air until it had vanished from sight.

Cadmus returned home and broke the news to his parents King Agenor and Queen Telephassa. Loud was the lamentation and great the recrimination.

In the meantime, the white bull flew Europa further and further west from her home kingdom of Tyre, across the Mediterranean in the direction of the isles of Greece. Delighted and entirely unafraid, Europa laughed as first the ground flashed beneath her and then the sea. Europa was entranced. The journey was so remarkable that the whole landmass to the west of her homeland has been called Europe in her honour ever since.

They didn’t stop until they reached the island of Crete where the bull revealed himself to be …

… who else but Zeus?

Whether it was Hera’s transformation of Io into a heifer that inspired him to take the shape of a bull we cannot know, but the trick seems to have worked, for Europa stayed happily on Crete for the rest of her life. She was to bear Zeus three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon – who went on after their deaths, you may recall, to become the Judges of the Underworld, weighing the lives of dead souls and allotting them their punishments and rewards accordingly.

The Quest for Europa

Back home in Tyre, Europa’s unhappy parents sent Cadmus and his three brothers to find their sister, with firm instructions not even to think of returning home without her.

The Tyrians were already famous navigators and traders. Cadmus’s brother Phoenix (not to be confused with the mythical bird) would in time succeed Agenor as ruler of the kingdom, which he renamed Phoenicia after himself. The Phoenicians’ skill as merchants would bring them great wealth and prestige. They dealt in silks and spices from the far east, but it was the invention and propagation of the alphabet that gave them such an advantage over their neighbours and rivals. For the first time in human history any language could be written down according to its sound, which meant the Mediterranean coastline, including North Africa and the Middle East was able to communicate for the first time using symbols on papyrus, parchment, wax or pottery shards that could be spoken out loud.fn1 The marks on the page or screen that you are interpreting as you read now derive from that Phoenician alphabet. And it was Cadmus who would take his people’s marvellous invention to Greece in the course of his long search for Europa.

For years they travelled in vain. For some reason, perhaps an unseen divine influence, Crete seems to have been the one place they failed to search. The island that they alighted on for the longest time was Samothrace, far in the northern Aegean. On Samothrace there lived a Pleiad called ELECTRA.fn2 The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, were (if you recall) daughters of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. By Zeus, this Electra had given birth to two sons, DARDANUSfn3 and IASION, as well as a daughter, HARMONIA.fn4 Cadmus was immediately captivated by Harmonia’s beauty and sweet, placid manner and took her with him on his quest. How willing she was at first is not certain, but the pair left Samothrace and headed for mainland Greece – ostensibly in search of Europa, but really, as far as Cadmus was concerned, in search of a greater purpose.

The Oracle Speaks

Cadmus is often called ‘the First Hero’. If you care to do the arithmetic you will see that he was a fifth-generation being, of equally human and divine parentage. He could trace his line back to the very beginnings of life through his paternal grandfather Poseidon, whose father was Kronos, son of Ouranos. Through his grandmother Libya he was descended from Inachus, adding a quantity of royal human blood to course through his veins. He had the restlessness and wanderlust that marks the hero, as well as the required measures of courage, confidence and self-belief. Poseidon was fond of his grandson, as was natural, but it was Athena who looked upon him with the greatest favour, especially now that he had allied himself to Harmonia, who was one of Athena’s most devoted followers.

Just as Cadmus’s brother Thasos had settled a smaller nearby island, called Thasos, and Phoenix had given his name to the Phoenician kingdom, so the third of Cadmus’s brothers, Cilix, now abandoned the quest for Europa, returning east to Asia Minor to establish his own kingdom, which he called Cilicia.fn5

With Harmonia by his side and a large retinue of loyal followers from Tyre in attendance upon them both, Cadmus headed for Delphi to consult the oracle. He knew in his bones, as all heroes do, that he was destined for greatness, but he did not know quite where his future lay; and he still needed guidance in the matter of his search for the lost Europa.

You already know enough about oracles to be unsurprised by the eccentricity of the Pythia’s response.

‘Cadmus, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon,’ she chanted. ‘Cast aside the quest for your sister and follow instead the heifer marked with the half moon. Follow the cow until it drops down exhausted. Where it falls, there must you build.’

‘Build what?’

‘Farewell, Cadmus, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon.’

‘What cow? I see no cow.’

‘Where the cow falls, there must Cadmus, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon, build.’

‘Yes, but this cow …’

‘The heifer with the half moon will help Harmonia and her hero, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon.’

‘Look here …’

‘Farewe-e-e-e-ll …’

Cadmus and Harmonia looked at each other, shrugged and quit Delphi with their retinue of loyal Tyrians. It was possible that a cow really would materialize magically before them, or perhaps some celestial messenger might appear to guide them to such an animal. In the meantime, they might as well look around.

Now, Delphi and its oracle, stadium and temples are situated in the area of Greece called Phocis. The King of Phocis, PELAGON, hearing that Harmonia and Cadmus – by now famous throughout the land because of his gift of the alphabet – were in the area, sent out messengers to invite them to stay as his guests of honour at the royal palace. It was an invitation the travel-strained pair and their hungry retinue were only too pleased to accept.

The Phocian Games

Three days of feasting and revelry in their honour had passed agreeably and uneventfully when Cadmus and Harmonia, taking an evening walk about the palace gardens between banquets, found their way stopped by Pelagon’s father, AMPHIDAMAS.

‘I had a dream,’ said Amphidamas, coming close to the couple and breathing the fumes of honey-wine all over them, ‘in which you, Cadmus, ran races, hurled javelins, threw discuses and won the greatest prize the world has ever seen. Now, my son Pelagon inaugurates the Phocian Games tomorrow. A little local meeting, but dreams are dreams and have a purpose. When does Morpheus ever lie? My advice is that you enter.’ With a benevolent hiccup, he tottered away.

‘Well now,’ said Cadmus, putting an arm about Harmonia’s waist and gazing wistfully up at the moon. ‘Why not? The man has not yet been born who can throw a discus or a javelin as far as I can. And I believe I’m pretty swift around the track too.’

‘My hero!’ sighed Harmonia, burying her head on his chest. She did this not in worshipful admiration but to muffle her laughter – she found the men’s vanity when it came to physical prowess endlessly amusing.

The competition against which Cadmus pitted himself next day consisted chiefly of puny local youths and pot-bellied palace guards. When he sent the discus right out of the palace grounds with his first throw, a servant had to be sent to fetch it and the crowd cheered. By the end of the afternoon Cadmus had won every event. Harmonia glared at the women and girls who blew him kisses and threw flowers at his feet.

Pelagon, who was not a rich monarch, sent his chamberlain in search of a suitable prize for his noble victor ludorum.

‘People of Phocis,’ cried the king, placing a hastily plaited crown of olive leaves on Cadmus’s brow, ‘behold your champion, our honoured guest Prince Cadmus of Tyre. And here comes a prize worthy of his great speed and strength and grace.’

A loud cheer went up, which fell into a puzzled silence as the palace chamberlain came through the crowd driving ahead of him a large cow. The silence bubbled into a titter and the titter burst into outright laughter. The cow chewed its cud, lifted its tail and sent out a liquid spatter of dung from its rear. The crowd hooted with derision.

Pelagon turned scarlet. His father Amphidamas said to Cadmus with a wink, ‘Oh well. Morpheus can’t be right all the time, hey?’

But Harmonia nudged Cadmus in great excitement. ‘Look,’ she breathed, ‘look, Cadmus, look!’

Cadmus saw at once what had attracted her attention. On the cow’s back was a mark in the shape of a half moon. There was no other way to describe it. A clear half moon!

Pelagon was murmuring something unconvincing in his ear about the animal’s pedigree and high milk yield, but Cadmus interrupted him.

‘Your majesty could not have found a more marvellous and welcome prize! I am overcome with delight and gratitude.’

‘You are?’ said a faintly stunned Pelagon.

The chamberlain was so astonished to hear this that he dropped the switch of willow with which he had been slapping the beast towards the winner’s rostrum. It took perhaps thirty seconds for the heifer to become aware that the stinging smack was no longer there to force her on, so she turned and started to amble away.

‘Indeed,’ said Cadmus jumping from the rostrum and helping Harmonia down after him. ‘It really is the perfect present. Just exactly what we wanted …’

The cow made its way through the crowd. Cadmus and Harmonia, their backs to the royal party, began to follow. Over his shoulder Cadmus called back to the king, stammering out thanks and incoherent courtesies.

‘Your majesty will excuse us … such a wonderful stay … so grateful for your hospitality … excellent food, marvellous entertainment … most kind … er … farewell …’

‘So grateful,’ repeated Harmonia. ‘We’ll never forget it. Never. The loveliest heifer! Goodbye.’

‘B-but! What? I mean …?’ said Pelagon, puzzled by this swift and sudden leave-taking. ‘I thought you were staying another night?’

‘No time. Come, men. With us!’ cried Cadmus, summoning his retinue of Tyrian servants, men-at-arms, camp-followers and attendants. Buckling up their armour on the run, dropping food and kissing farewell to new acquaintances they caught up with Cadmus, Harmonia and the cow.

‘Mad,’ said Amphidamas, watching the plume of dust spiral upwards in the distance as Cadmus’s ragtag army disappeared from view. ‘Quite mad. Said so from the first.’

The Water Dragon

For three days and three nights Cadmus, Harmonia and their train of loyal Tyrians followed the heifer with the half-moon markings as it lumbered up and down hills, through meadows, over fields and across streams. They seemed to be travelling in a southeasterly direction towards the province of Boeotia.fn6

Harmonia believed that the heifer might turn out to be Europa herself. After all, in ravishing her Zeus had transformed himself into a bull, so why mightn’t she have taken bovine form too? Cadmus, hypnotized by the rhythmic swaying of the cow’s broad posterior, was more inclined to think that the whole thing was a cruel hoax sent to perplex him.

Quite suddenly, after descending a steep hill and arriving at the edge of a wide plain, the heifer sank heavily down and gave vent to an exhausted groan.

‘Good lord,’ said Cadmus.

‘Just as the oracle prophesied!’ cried Harmonia. ‘What did the Pythia say? “Where the cow falls, there must you build.” So.’

‘So?’ said Cadmus, irked. ‘What do you mean, “So”? Build? Build what? Build how?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Harmonia. ‘Let’s sacrifice the cow to Pallas Athena. The poor thing’s almost dead anyway. Athena will guide us.’

Cadmus agreed and elected to pitch a primitive kind of camp right there. So that he could properly purify the sacrifice he sent some of his men to fetch water from a nearby spring.

Cadmus slit the cow’s throat and was just sprinkling its blood on a makeshift altar bedecked with wild flowers and burnt sage when one of the Tyrians returned in the most pitiable state of distress, bearing awful news. A dragon, in the grotesque form of a giant water serpent, guarded the spring. It had already killed four men, constricting them in its coils and biting off their heads with its enormous jaws. What could be done?

Heroes do not wring their hands and wonder, heroes act. Cadmus hurried to the spring, picking up a heavy boulder on the way. Hiding behind a tree he whistled to attract the dragon’s attention, and then threw the boulder at the dragon’s head, smashing its skull and killing it outright.

‘So much for water snakes,’ said Cadmus, looking down at the monster’s blood and brains as they mixed with the waters of the spring.

A voice sounded out loud and clear. ‘Son of Agenor, why do you stare at the snake you have slain? You too shall be a snake and endure the stares of strangers.’

Cadmus looked around but could see no one. The voice must have sounded inside him. He shook his head and returned to the camp, delighted alike by the cheers of his supporters and the admiring kisses of Harmonia, to whom he said nothing about the voice he had heard.

Far enough away to be able to do so without Cadmus hearing, one of his men was drawing in his breath through his teeth with the irritating relish of those who have bad news to impart. This man came from Boeotia and whispered to his companions with a wise shake of the head that Drakon Ismenios, the Ismenian Dragon, which Cadmus had just slain, was known to be sacred to Ares, the god of war. Indeed, he went on, some believed that the creature was actually a son of Ares!

‘No good will come of this deed,’ he said, tutting and clicking. ‘You do not cross the god of battles with impunity. No, sir. Makes no difference who your grandfather is.’

It is worth recognizing here that one of the most burdensome challenges faced by the heroes and mortals of that time concerned their relationships with the different gods. Picking your way around the jealousies and animosities of the Olympians was a delicate business. Show too much loyalty and service to one and you risked provoking the enmity of another. If Poseidon and Athena favoured you, as they did Cadmus and Harmonia, for example, then the chances were that Hera, or Artemis, or Ares, or even Zeus himself would do everything possible to hinder and hamper you. And heaven help anyone foolish enough to kill one of their favourites. All the sacrifices and votive offerings in the world couldn’t mollify an affronted god, a vengeful god, a god who had lost face in front of the others.

Cadmus, by slaying an Arean favourite, had certainly made an enemy of the most aggressive and remorseless of the gods.fn7 But he knew none of this, for the muttering in the ranks of his retinue had not reached his ears. He blithely lit the incense and completed his sacrifice to Athena, feeling that things were still going very much his way. This feeling was reinforced by Athena’s immediate and benign appearance. Pleased by the offering of the heifer, she glided down from the cloud of fragrant smoke that Cadmus had sent up and favoured her humble worshippers with a grave smile.

The Dragon’s Teeth

‘Rise, son of Agenor,’ said the goddess, stepping forward and raising the supplicant Cadmus to his feet. ‘Your sacrifice was agreeable to us. If you follow my instructions carefully all will be well. Plough the fertile plain. Plough it well. Then sow the furrows with teeth from the dragon you have slain.’

With these words she stepped back into the smoke and disappeared. If Cadmus had not the assurance from Harmonia and the others that they had heard just the same words from Athena too, he might have believed that he had dreamed it. But divine instructions are divine instructions, however odd. In fact the odder, Cadmus was becoming aware, the more likely to be divine.

First he carved a ploughshare from holm oak wood. Then, since no draught animals were available, he harnessed a willing team of his most loyal attendants. They would have laid down their lives for this charismatic Prince of Tyre, so pulling a plough was nothing to them.

It was late spring and the soil of the plain was free-moving enough to be pulled into shallow but straight and well-marked furrows without too terrible an effort from the straining Tyrians.

The field ploughed, Cadmus now set to dibbling the furrows an inch or two deep with the blunt end of a spear. Into each dibbled hole he dropped a dragon’s tooth. As we all know, humans have thirty-two teeth. Water dragons have rows and rows of them, like sharks, each ready to advance when the row in front has been worn down with too much grinding of men’s bones. Five hundred and twelve teeth Cadmus planted in all. When he had finished he stood back to survey the field.

A light wind blew across the plain, catching the crests of the furrows and sending up powdery flurries of soil. Dust devils whipped and whirled around. A great hush descended.

Harmonia was the first to see the earth in one of the furrows shift. She pointed and all eyes followed. A gasp and a muffled cry went up from the watching crowd. The tip of a spear was pushing through, then a helmet appeared, followed by shoulders, a breastplate, leathern-greaved legs … until a fully armed soldier rose up, wild and fierce, stamping his feet. Then another, and another, until the field was filled with fighting men, marching on the spot in furrowed lines. The clanging and banging of their armour, the clashing and bashing of their buckles, belts and boots, the clamour and smacking of the metal and leather of their cuirasses, greaves and shields, their rhythmic grunting and martial shouts all built into a great and horrid din that filled the onlookers with fear.

All but Cadmus, who stepped boldly forward and raised a hand.

‘Spartoi!’ he called out across the plain, giving them a name that means ‘sown men’. ‘My Spartoi! I am Prince Cadmus, your general. At ease.’

Perhaps because they were born of dragon’s teeth pulled from the jaws of a creature sacred to the god of war, these soldiers were filled from the first with extraordinary aggression. In reply to Cadmus’s command they simply clattered and rattled their shields and spears.

‘Silence!’ yelled Cadmus.

The warriors paid no attention. Their marching on the spot turned into a slow march forward. In exasperation Cadmus picked up a rock which, with his customary skill and strength, he hurled into their ranks. It struck one of the soldiers on the shoulder. The man looked at the soldier next to him and, taking him to be the aggressor, lunged at him with a mighty roar, sword drawn. Within moments blood-curdling battle-cries were heard all around the field as the soldiers fell upon each other.

‘Stop! Stop! I command you to stop!’ yelled Cadmus like a frantic parent on the touchline watching their son being squashed in a scrum. Stamping the ground in frustration he turned to Harmonia. ‘What is the point of Athena taking all this trouble to force me to create a race of men, only for them to destroy each other? Look at this violence, this bloodlust. What does it mean?’

But even as he spoke, Harmonia was pointing to the centre of the fray. Five of Cadmus’s Spartoi stood in a circle, the sole survivors. The rest lay dead, their blood soaking back into the soil from which they had come. Forward came the five, their swords pointing to the ground. They reached Cadmus and knelt down, heads bowed.

Great was the relief, great the rejoicing from the Tyrians. The day had been strange, as strange a day as mortals had known in all history. But some kind of order seemed to have emerged.

‘What is the name of this place?’ Cadmus asked. ‘Does anyone here know?’

A voice spoke up, the voice of the man who had warned that the Ismenian Dragon was sacred to Ares. ‘I’m from hereabouts,’ he said. ‘We call this “the plain of Thebes”.’

‘Then on this plain shall I build a great city. From now on we are not Tyrians, but Thebans’ – a great cheer went up – ‘and these five Spartoi shall be my Theban lords.’

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia

The Five Founding Lords of Thebes were given the names ECHION, UDAEUS, CHTHONIUS, HYPERENOR and PELOR.fn8 Under the supervision of Cadmus and his loyal army of Tyrian followers they slowly built up a citadel (the Cadmeia) from which grew a flourishing town. In time this town became the powerful city state of Thebes.fn9 The strong wall that encircled it was pierced by seven great bronze gates, each dedicated to the glory of an Olympian god.

The wall was constructed by AMPHION and ZETHUS, twin sons of Zeus by ANTIOPE, the daughter of the local river god ASOPOS. Hermes had been a lover of Amphion and taught him to play the lyre. When it came to the construction of the great wall around the Cadmeia, Amphion sang to the accompaniment of the lyre and the heavy stones carried by Zethus were so enchanted by the music that they floated into place and the city walls were finished in no time. As a result Amphion and Zethus, as well as Cadmus, are credited as co-founders of Thebes.

The work completed, Cadmus and Harmonia turned to the matter of their marriage. Descended from Titans and gods, allied to and punished by Olympians, but very mortal and very human, the pair might nowadays be called an ‘iconic power couple’. Today’s press and social media, one suspects, would hardly be able to resist dubbing them ‘Cadmonia’.

Their status as the foremost lovers of the known world meant their wedding feast was an honour never before accorded a mortal union, attended by the highest in the land and the highest from heaven. The gifts were stupendous. Aphrodite lent Harmonia her girdle, a magical item of lingerie that had the power to provoke the most dizzying and rapturous desire.fn10 It is said that Harmonia was bed-shy and that her love for Cadmus had yet to be consummated. This girdle, loaned for the duration of her honeymoon by the goddess of love and beauty (who may well have been Harmonia’s natural mother), was therefore a gift of great value.

But no wedding gift outshone the necklace that Cadmus conferred upon his bride. It was the most beautiful piece of jewellery yet seen. Fashioned from the choicest chalcedony, jasper, emeralds, sapphires, jade, lapis, amethyst, silver and gold, it caused gasps of wonder amongst the guests when he clasped it about his beautiful wife’s neck.fn11 The whisper went round that it too had been given by Aphrodite.

The whisper added that it had been made by Hephaestus. The whisper went further and suggested that Hephaestus had been urged to make it by his wife Aphrodite because she in turn had been urged to do so by her lover Ares, who – if you remember – nursed a grievance against Cadmus for slaying the Ismenian Dragon. For the cruel and shocking truth about the necklace was that it was cursed. Deeply and irrevocably cursed. Miserable misfortune and tragic calamity would rain down upon the heads of whosoever wore or owned it.

This is all confusing and fascinating in equal measure. If Ares and Aphrodite were indeed Harmonia’s true parents, why would they want to doom their own daughter? All to avenge a dead water snake? Besides, could sweet Harmony really be the child of Love and War? And, if so, why would the gentle issue of those two powerful and frightening forces be cursed by them with such unnatural cruelty?

The pairing of Cadmus and Harmony seems, like that of Eros and Psyche, to suggest a marriage of two leading and contradictory aspects of ourselves. Perhaps the eastern tradition of conquest, writing and trade represented by Cadmus – his name derives from the old Arabic and Hebrew root qdm, which means ‘of the east’ – can be seen here fusing with love and sensuality to create a new Greece endowed with both.

But in this story, as in so many others, what we really discern is the deceptive, ambiguous and giddy riddle of violence, passion, poetry and symbolism that lies at the heart of Greek myth and refuses to be solved. An algebra too unstable properly to be computed, it is human-shaped and god-shaped, not pure and mathematical. It is fun trying to interpret such symbols and narrative turns, but the substitutions don’t quite work and the answers yielded are usually no clearer than those of an equivocating oracle.

So back to the story. The marriage was a great success. The girdle did its (literally) aphrodisiac work and the happy pair were blessed with their own issue: two sons, POLYDORUS and ILLYRIUS, and four daughters:– AGAVE, AUTONOË, INO and SEMELE.

Cadmus still had to pay for his killing of the dragon, however. Ares bound him to labour on his behalf for an Olympian year, which seems to have been eight human years.

After this, Cadmus returned to rule over the city he had built. But the curse of the necklace was to pollute any happiness or satisfaction he might have enjoyed as king.

Consigned to the Dust

After many years of peace and prosperity in Thebes, Cadmus and Harmonia’s daughter Agave had married PENTHEUS, the son of Echion, one of the Five Founding Lords (the last five Spartoi standing, you will remember). Tiring of kingship, but like so many heroes after him unable to restrain the itchy feet of wanderlust, Cadmus said to Harmonia one day: ‘Let us travel. Let us see more of the world. Pentheus is ready to take the throne in our absence.’

They saw much. Many towns and many cities. They went as an ordinary middle-aged couple, asking for no great welcome or banquets in their honour. Only a small party of attendants accompanied them. It was unfortunate, though, that Harmonia included the cursed necklace in her luggage.

After a great deal of travelling around Greece they determined on a visit to the kingdom up towards the western Adriatic, south of the Balkans and facing the east coast of Italy, that had been established by their youngest boy, Illyrius, and which was unsurprisingly called ‘Illyria’.fn12

Once there, Cadmus suddenly fell weary and was filled with an insupportable dread. He called up to the skies.

‘For the last thirty years I have known in my heart that in killing that cursed water snake I killed any chance of happiness for me or my wife. Ares is remorseless. He will not rest until I am as flat on the earth as a snake. If it will calm him and bring more peace to my troubled life then let me end my life sliding through the dust. Let it be so.’fn13

No sooner were those words out of his mouth than his unhappy prayer became an unhappy reality. His body began to shrink sideways and stretch lengthways, his skin to blister and form smooth scales, and his head to flatten into a diamond shape. The tongue that had shouted that dreadful wish to the heavens now flicked and darted out from between two fangs. The man who was once Cadmus, Prince of Tyre and King of Thebes, fell writhing to the ground, a common snake.

Harmonia let out a great howl of despair.

‘Gods have pity!’ she cried. ‘Aphrodite, if you are my mother show love now and let me join upon the earth the one I love. The fruits of the world are dust to me. Ares, if you are my father show mercy. Zeus if, as some say, you are my father then, in the name of all creation, take pity, I beg you.’

It was, however, none of those three who heard her prayers, but merciful Athena who transformed her into a snake. Harmonia glided through the dust after her serpent-husband and they coiled about each other with love.

The pair lived out their days in the shadows of a temple sacred to Athena, only showing themselves when they needed to heat their blood in the noonday sun. When the end came, Zeus returned them to their human shapes in time to die. Their bodies were taken to be buried with great ceremony in Thebes, and Zeus sent two great serpents to guard their tombs for eternity.

We will leave Cadmus and Harmonia to their everlasting rest. They died quite unaware that their youngest daughter, Semele, had, in their absence, unleashed a force into the world that would change it for ever.