This story doesn’t start in Thebes.
Instead, we begin our story in Phoenicia, a sizeable stretch of the Mediterranean away from what would later become Thebes. Occupying the same space as present-day Lebanon, Phoenicia was a frequent trading-partner of Bronze Age Greeks (though by the time Sophocles is writing, they were over a century into rule by the Persians, having been conquered by Cyrus the Great), famous for “Tyrian purple”, a renowned dye made from a particular sea snail.
And this story doesn’t start with Oedipus.
Instead, we start with Agenor, King of Phoenicia (a son of Poseidon and the mortal princess of Egypt, Libya), ruling from the city of Tyre six generations prior to Oedipus himself. The name of Agenor’s wife and the number of his children vary wildly from telling to telling, but two of his children are relatively consistent and, as luck would have it, they are the two we will need to push our story forward: Europa and Cadmus.
If Europa rings a bell, you probably know what’s coming next. The Princess of Phoenicia was a beauty and, as royal beauties have a tendency to do in classical mythology, caught the eye of a certain notoriously licentious deity.
On a Tyrian beach, a herd of cattle grazed upon sea-grasses and scrub brush, and on the same beach Europa wandered with her handmaidens. Her eye was caught by a snow-white bull (the first bull of many we will find in this family) a standout against the rest of the dappled cattle. She’d never seen this creature before, and surely she would have remembered the noble curve of his horns that shone like mother-of-pearl, the odd gentleness in his eyes, the spotless sheen of his hide.
“What a lovely thing you are,” she may have said, waving her nervous attendants away and drawing closer. The bull flicked his tail, giving her a bow more fitting for a noble of her father’s court than for anything on four legs. Delighted, Europa gathered flowers, stringing them in a garland for her new friend’s neck. The white bull rested his head in her lap, accepting the necklace with the same gentleness.
And so it continued, until the princess had lost enough of her fear to wrap a hand around those twisting horns and swing herself up onto the bull’s back---
And Zeus, son of Kronos, King of Mount Olympus and He Who Resounds With Thunder, still bull-shaped and triumphant, sped away across the waters. Europa clung to his back as the shoreline receded behind her, the flowers in her hands and around his neck scattering across the foam.
Maybe Cadmus saw her taken. Perhaps he came over the ridge with a hunting-party just in time to see his sister on god-back, hear her crying out for a rescue as she grew smaller and smaller, a snowy-white dot on the horizon, a wake of hoof-prints on the sea. Regardless, it was Cadmus who Agenor sent to find his god-napped sister, enjoining him to either return with Europa or else not at all.
And so Prince Cadmus of Phoenicia ventured across the Mediterranean in search of his sister. Interestingly, Herodotus credits Cadmus with the arrival of the Phoenician alphabet in Greece (which would later evolve into the Greek alphabet and, further down the centuries, the alphabet I use to write this packet); Cadmus is often thought of as the first “Greek” hero, a figure of agriculture, creativity and creation.
But even heroes fail, and so Cadmus did, for Europa was nowhere to be found. As documented in the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus (a compilation of legends from the 1st or 2nd century AD), the Phoenician prince did what every Greek hero does in a time of need, and found himself petitioning the Oracle of Delphi for advice. Perhaps a minister relayed the oracle’s instructions. Perhaps the Pythia herself spoke to Cadmus. Or perhaps Cadmus saw the prophetess’ eyes roll back, saw her limbs jolt and stiffen as though electrocuted, and heard Apollo’s voice through the mortal priestess’ mouth.
“Your sister is no longer your concern, son of Agenor. She is well. Leave her be. You may not return to your homeland, but you may make a new one on this side of the sea. Find a cow with a white mark on her flank, round as the moon. Follow her wherever she wanders until she faints from exhaustion. Whatever land, whatever ground she falls upon, that will be your home.”
Note the return of bovine imagery, and note the introduction of Apollo into this family, Apollo who dictated the location of the city he would later strike with plague.
Cadmus did as bidden and found the prophesied cow in amongst a Phocian herd, following her until she dropped down in a region that would later be dubbed Boetia (from the same root as ‘bovine’) in her honor. Thinking the cow would be a fitting sacrifice to the gods, Cadmus sent a few of his retainers for water from the nearby river.
They never came back. For the region Cadmus’ new city was to occupy was not desolate; a great serpent (in some tellings the offspring of Ares himself, in others merely sacred to the war-god) guarded the river, his scaled bulk stretched out along the banks, fangs dripping venom that hissed as it struck the damp earth below. Cadmus, tired of wandering and eager to obey Apollo’s wishes, slew the serpent where it lay (for some heroic clichés never go out of style, and dragon-slaying is high on that list).
And so Cadmus stood, blood-drenched by the water. How was he to found a city here, with most of his forces slain by the serpent? Was he to do this alone?
“Not quite,” said a voice from thin air, female and knowing. “Take the serpent’s teeth, Cadmus, and sow them in the earth as you would seeds. You can thank me later.”
Cadmus knew Athena, Counsellor of Heroes when he heard her, and did as the goddess bade him. No sooner had he laid the last clod of earth over the last serrated tooth than the ground rumbled, shook and split. Men sprang forth from where the teeth had been buried, armed and fully grown (henceforth called the Spartoi, or ‘Sown Men’). Cadmus, either on Athena’s advice or simply out of entirely-justifiable shock, hurled a stone in amongst the newly sprouted men, who turned on each other in anger.
However many came out of the earth, only five remained alive by the end, and it was those five Earthborn that Cadmus used to build his city, the seven gates, the palace Oedipus would be born in, Jokasta would die in, and the steps upon which the suppliants sit at the beginning of Oedipus Rex. Cadmus married Harmonia, a divine daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and with her bore five children, four daughters and a son: Autonoe, Ino, Agave, Semele, and Polydorus.
And so a city was founded by a prince who chased a bull across an ocean, slew a dragon, reaped a harvest that was an army, and married the daughter of Love and War.
Welcome to Thebes.
-Emma