Kadmos (Cadmus) of Thebes

The Problems with the House of Oedipus

Oedipus (Oidipous)

Two NamesSwollen-Foot, One-Foot Know-Foot

OidiphallosSwollen Penis, One-Foot

The House of Cadmus

Cadmus, brother of EuropaCadmus or Kadmos, Ancient Greek: Κάδμος) was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa.He was originally 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.

Phoenician ScriptCadmus was credited by the ancient Greeks with introducing the original Alphabet or Phoenician alphabet -- phoinikeia grammata, "Phoenician letters" -- to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet. Herodotus estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, or around 2000 BCE.

Boeotian Thebes

Cadmus consults the Delphic OracleCadmus came in the course of his wanderings to Delphi, where he consulted the oracle. He was ordered to give up his quest and follow a special cow, with a half moon on her flank, which would meet him, and to build a town on the spot where she should lie down exhausted.

Cadmus and the SerpentIntending to sacrifice the cow to Athena, Cadmus sent some of his companions to the nearby Castalian Spring, for water. They were slain by the spring's guardian water-dragon, which was in turn destroyed by Cadmus.

Cadmus and the Serpent

The Spartoi, ‘Sown-Men’By the instructions of Athena, he sowed the dragon's fangs in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called the Spartoí ("sown"). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmeia or citadel of Thebes, and became the founders of the noblest families of that city.

Cadmus sowing the Serpent’s fangs

Spartoi

The Sown-Men, sprouted from the fangs of the serpent

Cadmus, with Athena, River Ismenos, Spring Nymph Krenaie, and Thebe

Cadmus and Harmonia, metamorphosed into serpents

While the conqueror stares at the vast bulk of his conquered enemy, suddenly a voice is heard. It is not easy to imagine where it comes from, but it is heard. ‘Why gaze, son of Agenor, at the serpent you have killed? You too shall be a serpent to be gazed on.’Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 3.95.

Son of Cadmus and Harmonia

• Polydoros succeeded Pentheus, marrying Nykteïs, the daughter of Nykteus. When their son Labdakos was still young, Polydorus died of unknown causes, leaving Nycteus as regent for the child Labdakos.

Daughters of Cadmus and Harmonia

•With Harmonia, Cadmus was the father of three daughters: Ino, Autonoë, Agave and Semele.

Agave’s son Pentheus

Sparagmos

The daughters of Cadmus saw him in a tree and thought him to be a wild animal. They pulled Pentheus down and tore him from limb from limb.

Autonoë’s son Actaeon

SparagmosWhen Actaeon came into the clearing, he caught a glimpse Artemis bathing. Although the nymphs tried to cover her naked body, it was too late. In a rage, Artemis reached for her bow and arrow. When she was unable to reach it, she instead turned Actaeon into a stag. Actaeon was not aware of the change until he saw his own reflection in the river; however, by that time, his hounds were closing in on him and despite his best efforts to call out to them, the hounds confused Actaeon with prey and tore him to pieces.

Ino’s stepson, Phrixos

SparagmosAthamas ruled in Orchomenus in Boeotia. His first wife was Nephele, a cloud-goddess, who bore him two children, a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle.Nephele had little interest in her mortal husband, so he eventually found another wife, Ino, one of the daughters of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.But Nephele was angered that he had remarried, so she and Hera arranged to punish Athamas, inflicting a madness upon Ino which drove her to try to destroy her husband's children.

Ino was wet-nurse of DionysusIno was a primordial Dionysian woman, nurse to the god and a divine maenad.

Ino’s son MelicertesMelicertes, later called Palaemon Παλαίμων) is the son of the Boeotian prince Athamas and Ino, daughter of Cadmus.Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth. Both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea, Melicertes as Palaemon.

The Second Founding of Thebes

• Antiope is the daughter of Nykteus, regent for the infant Labdakos. Nykteus was succeeded by his brother Lykos.

• Lykos and his brother Nycteus were the sons of Chthonios, one of the Spartoi.

• Hence Antiope is a cousin of Pentheus, who was the son of Echion, one of the Spartoi.

Herakles and Lykos

• Herakles, the hero whose exploits always celebrate the new Olympian order over the old traditions, came to Thebes, one of the ancient Mycenaean cities of Greece, and found that the Greeks were paying tribute of 100 cattle each year to Erginos, king of the Minyans. Heracles attacked a group of emissaries from the Minyans, and cut off their ears, noses and hands. He then tied them around their necks and told them to take those for tribute to Erginos. Erginos made war on Thebes, but Heracles defeated the Minyans with his fellow Thebans after arming them with weapons that had been dedicated in temples.

Herakles and Lake CopaïsHeracles, the hero whose exploits always celebrate the new Olympian order over the old traditions, came to Thebes, one of the ancient Mycenaean cities of Greece, and found that the Greeks were paying tribute of 100 cattle each year to Erginos, king of the Minyans. Heracles attacked a group of emissaries from the Minyans, and cut off their ears, noses and hands. He then tied them around their necks and told them to take those for tribute to Erginos. Erginos made war on Thebes, but Heracles defeated the Minyans with his fellow Thebans after arming them with weapons that had been dedicated in temples.

The Ogygian Deluge

Lake Copais, BoeotiaThere was a legend that the lake came into being when the hero Herakles flooded the area by digging out a river, the Kephissos, which poured into the basin.He did this because he was fighting the Minyans of Orchomenos: they were dangerous horseback fighters, and Heracles dug the lake in order to unhorse them. Another story has the lake overflow in the mythical time of Ogyges, resulting in the Ogygian deluge.Ogygia is the name of Circe’s island.

Zeus as a satyr seduces AntiopeAntiope’s beauty attracted Zeus , who, assuming the form of a satyr, took her by force. This is the sole mythic episode in which Zeus is transformed into a satyr.After this she was carried off by Epopeus, who was venerated as a hero in Sicyon; he would not give her up till compelled by her uncle Lykos. On the way home she gave birth, in the neighborhood of Eleutherae on Mount Cithaeron, to the twins Amphion and Zethus, of whom Amphion was the son of the god, and Zethus the son of Epopeus. Both were left to be brought up by herdsmen.

Zeus and Antiope

Zeus as a satyr seduces Antiope

Amphion and ZethosWarring BrothersTwo FathersAmphion (Ἀμφίων) and Zethus (Ζῆθος) (also Zethos) were the twin sons of Zeus by Antiope. They are important characters in one of the two founding myths of the city of Thebes, because they constructed the city's walls.

Amphion and ZethosAmphion became a great singer and musician after Hermes taught him to play and gave him a golden lyre. Zethos became a hunter and herdsman, with a great interest in cattle breeding. They built the walls around the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes. While Zethos struggled to carry his stones, Amphion played his lyre and his stones followed after him and gently glided into place.

Seven-Gated ThebesThe wall that Amphion and Zethos built had seven gates. They renamed the city "Thebes", after Zethos' wife, for up until that time the city had been called "Cadmea" after the citadel that Cadmus had built.

Ruins of the Elektra GateIn the circuit of the ancient wall of Thebes were gates seven in number, and these remain to-day. One got its name, I learned, from Elektra, the sister of Cadmus, and another, the Proetidian, from a native of Thebes. He was Proetus, but I found it difficult to discover his date and lineage. The Neistan gate, they say, got its name for the following reason. The last of the harp's strings they call nete, and Amphion invented it, they say, at this gate. I have also heard that the son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion, was named Neis, and that after him was this gate called.

Amphion and Zethos rescue their mother AntiopeThey punished King Lycos and Queen Dirke for cruel treatment of Antiope, their mother, whom they had treated as a slave. Dirke was tied to the horns of a bull as revenge.

Dirke tied to a Dionysian bull

SparagmosAntiope was badly mistreated by Lykos' wife Dirke, who treated her as little more than a slave. But when Antiope learned that her sons were alive and now fully grown, she fled from Thebes and asked them to avenge her. They captured Dirke on Mount Kithairon as she was celebrating the revels of Dionysos and tied her to a bull to be torn apart. They then slew King Lykos and seized the throne of Thebes.

Antiope, with her twin sons Amphion and Zethos

Dismemberment of Dirke • Nero martyrs a

Christian woman as a theatrical reenactment of the myth of Dirke

Royal Line of Thebes

Laius (Laïos) and ChrysipposChrysippos, the natural and favorite son of Pelops (grandson of Zeus and King of Phrygia) was killed by his step-mother Hippodamia, out of jealousy, whilst he was in the arms of Laios (King of Thebes and father of Oedipus, who later killed him and married his step-mother Jocasta). According to one Greek tradition the love of Laios and Chrysippos was the first occasion of male same sex relations in Greece.

Laios abducts Chrysippos from PelopsWhen Laios reached manhood, Pelops entrusted his son, Chrysippos, ‘Golden Horse,' to him so that he would teach the boy the charioteer's art. The king loved Chrysippos best of all his sons, and wanted him well trained in the arts of war. Laios did as he was asked, but fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful youth. During the Nemean games, in which the pair competed in the chariot races, Laios kidnapped the boy.

Laius and JocastaLaius married Jocasta, the daughter of Menoikeos, a descendant of the Spartoi. Laios received an oracle from Delphi which told him that he must not have a child with his wife, or the child would kill him and marry her. One night, however, Laios was drunk and fathered Oedipus with her. On Laios's orders the baby, Oedipus, was exposed on Mount Cithaeron with his feet bound (or perhaps staked to the ground), but he was taken by a shepherd, who did not have the resources to look after him, so he was given to King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth who raised him to adulthood.

The Child Conceived in Drunkenness

• Compare: Ion and Xouthos in the Corycian Cave

• Theseus and Aithra at Troizen

• The theme suggests a Dionysian maenadic rite

• Oedipus as a one-foot phallic source of ecstatic knowledge found on a mountainside

Laïos and Jocasta

The Herdsman finds the infant Oedipus

Oedipus taken down from the treeJean François Millet

Phorbas, the herdsman, with the infant Oedipus

The exposed infant Oedipus, with bolted feet, found by the herdsman

Where Three Roads Meet

Where three roads meet

Murder of Laios

Riddle of the Sphinx• What goes on

four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

The Sphinx as Seductress

Sphinx raping Oedipus

Sanctuary of the Sphinx, Mount Kithairon

Oedipus and the Sphinx

Oedipus and the SphinxGustave Moreau

Oedipus and the Sphinx

Victorious SphinxGustave Moreau

Oedipus and the Sphinxin the marketplace

Jocasta (Iokaste) and Oedipus

Jocasta as Sphinx

Oedipus TyrannusPlague in Thebes

Oedipus RexPlague im Thebes

Plague in Thebes

Oedipus and Teiresias

Teiresias

Oedipus questioning Phorbas

Oedipus Blinded

Oedipus and Apollo• When Oedipus learns of

the death of Polybos, he imagines his father as the child of some mate of Apollo or Hermes or Bacchus.

• Two Fathers Theme

Oedipus as the ally of Apollo

Ally of Apollo

Oedipus with his daughters Antigone and Ismene

Those who know what Oedipus doesn’t know

• Actor Sequence:• Oedipus• Kreon, Teiresias, Jocasta, Kreon• Messenger from Corinth, Phorbas, Messenger

(Death of Jocasta, blinding of Oedipus)• Antigone and Ismene (mute actors)• Oedipus, Kreon, Teiresias, and Apollo are all a

WANAX, lord, god, priest-prophet

Does Oedipus leave Thebes?

• A blind Oedipus now exits the palace and begs to be exiled as soon as possible. Creon enters, saying that Oedipus shall be taken into the house until oracles can be consulted regarding what is best to be done. Oedipus's two daughters (and half-sisters), Antigone and Ismene, are sent out, and Oedipus laments that they should be born to such a cursed family. He asks Creon to watch over them and Creon agrees, before sending Oedipus back into the palace.

Euripides’ Phoenician Women

• The play opens with a summary of the story of Oedipus and its aftermath told by Jocasta, who in this version has not committed suicide. She explains that after her husband blinded himself upon discovering that he was her son, his sons Eteocles and Polyneices locked him away in hopes that the people might forget what had happened. He curses them, proclaiming that neither would rule without killing his brother.

Warring Brothers, Sisters

• Children of Oedipus and Jocasta (Io-kaste, the ‘good Io’)

• Eteolkles (‘True-Fame’) and Polyneikes (‘Quarrelsome’)

• Antigone and Ismene• Oedipus is their half brother• Jocasta is a typical Turncoat Mother

The Death of Oedipus• Oedipus at Colonus (also

Oedipus Coloneus, Οἰδίπους ἐπὶ Κολωνῷ, Oidipous epi Kolōnō) is one of the three Theban plays of Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles' death in 406 BCE and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles) at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BCE.

Sanctuary of the Furies, Kolonos (Colonus)

Sanctuary of the Furies

Grove of the FuriesChorus

Oedipus cursing his sons

Oedipus curses Polyneikes

Theseus as burier

The Mystery of the Death of Oedipus

• Oedipus was no more, and we saw Theseus shielding his eyes, as if seeing something terrible and unbearable to watch. Then he kneeled down in worship to the earth and to the heavens, both together. No one could say what happened, except Theseus, whether it was a lightning flash, an abducting whirlwind, some escort from the celestial gods, or a beneficent split in the fundament of the lower world. It was a miracle. But if you can’t understand what I am saying, I’d rather speak to someone who can.

• —Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, describing the death of Oedipus

The Seven Against Thebes

Seven Against Thebes

• The Seven against Thebes (Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας, Hepta epi Thēbas; Septem contra Thebas) is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to as the Oedipodea. It concerns the battle between an Argive army led by Polyneikes and the army of Thebes led by Eteocles and his supporters. The trilogy won the first prize at the City Dionysia. Its first two plays, Laius and Oedipus as well as the satyr play Sphinx are no longer extant.

Revised Ending

• Due to the popularity of Sophocles's Antigone, the ending of Seven against Thebes was rewritten about fifty years after Aeschylus' death. Where the play was meant to end with somber mourning for the dead brothers, it instead contains an ending that serves as a lead-in of sorts to Sophocles' play: a messenger appears, announcing a prohibition against burying Polyniekes; Antigone, however, announces her intention to defy this edict.

Euripides’ Phoenician Women

• The Phoenician Women ( Φοίνισσαι, Phoinissai) is based on the same story as Aeschylus' play Seven Against Thebes. The title refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi who are trapped in Thebes by the war. Polynices talks a great deal about his love for the city of Thebes but has brought an army to destroy it; Kreon is also forced to make a choice between saving the city and saving the life of his son.

The oath of Adrastos• On hearing the noise, Adrastos hastened

to them and separated the combatants, in whom he immediately recognized the two men that had been promised to him by an oracle as the future husbands of two of his daughters, for one bore on his shield the figure of a boar, and the other that of a lion, and the oracle was that one of his daughters was to marry a boar and the other a lion. Adrastos, therefore, gave his daughter Deipyle to Tydeus, and Argeia to Polyneikes, and at the same time promised to lead each of these princes back to his own country. Adrastos now prepared for war against Thebes, although Amphiaraos foretold that all who should engage in it should perish, with the exception of Adrastos.

Necklace of Harmonia• Hephaistos, blacksmith of the Olympian gods, discovered his

wife, Aphrodite, having a sexual affair with Ares. He became enraged and vowed to avenge himself for Aphrodite's infidelity by cursing any lineage of children resulting from the affair. Aphrodite bore a daughter, Harmonia, from Ares' seed. Harmonia grew up and was later betrothed to Cadmus of Thebes. Upon hearing of the royal engagement, Hephaistos presented Harmonia with an exquisite necklace and robe as a wedding gift. In some versions of the myth, only the necklace is given. In either case, the necklace was wrought by Hephaistos' own hand and was cursed to bring disaster to any who wore it.

Polyneikes bribing Eripyle, wife of AmphiaraosThe necklace was worn by Semele on the day she asked Zeus to appear in his true form. It passed on to Jocasta and was the reason that she didn’t age so that she could marry Oedipus.

Polynieikes then inherited the Necklace. He gave it to Eriphyle, so that she might use it to persuade her husband, Amphiaraos, to undertake the expedition against Thebes, even though, as a prophet, he knew it would cause his death.

The Necklace of Harmonia

Shrine of Amphiaraos

• Amphiaraos in his attempt to escape his persecutor Periklymenos, son of Poseidon, flees at the banks of Ismenos river. There, Zeus opened the earth in two by a struck of his lighting bolt. He was worshiped at his shrine Amphiareion near modern Oropos in Attica.

Polyneikes allies against his brother Eteokles

• Seven Against Thebes, preparing for battle: an expedition to determine control of Thebes, after Oedipus' curse on his sons Eteokles and Polyneikes. The attack is fought out at Thebes' seven gates, and repulsed. The attackers are Polyneikes, Adrastos, Tydeus, Kapaneus, Parthenopaios (the youngest, son of Atalanta), Mekisteus, Amphiaraos. None survive, and a common scene is of their fateful arming for battle and departure. Their sons, the Epigonoi, have a return match and are successful.

Attack on Thebes

• Capaneos scales the city walls of

Thebes

Eteokles and Polyneikes kill each otherWarring Brothers

Warring Brothers

Eteokles and Polyneikes

Antigone• Antigone ( Ἀντιγόνη) by Sophocles written in

or before 441 BCE. Chronologically, it is the third of the three Theban plays but was written first. The play expands on the Theban legend that predated it and picks up where Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes ends.

Antigone

Kreon forbidding the burial of Polyneikes

Antigone

Ismene and Antigone

The burial of Polyneikes

Corpse of Polyneikes

Antigone, burying Polyneikes

Kreon condemns Antigone

Haimon, son of Kreon

Kreon with the corpses of his son Haimon and Antigone

Kreon with the corpses of his son Haimon and Antigone

It took two generations of heroes to settle the Theban problem

• Epigoni (Ἐπίγονοι, meaning "offspring") are the sons of the Argive heroes who had fought and been killed in the first Theban war, the subject of the Thebaid, in which Polyneikes and six allies (the Seven Against Thebes) attacked Thebes because Polyneikes' brother, Eteokles, refused to give up the throne as promised. The second Theban war, also called the war of the Epigonoi, occurred ten years later, when the Epigonoi, wishing to avenge the death of their fathers, attacked Thebes.