Kadmos (Cadmus) of Thebes
The Problems with the House
of Oedipus
Oedipus (Oidipous)
Two Names
Swollen-Foot, One-Foot
Know-Foot
Oidiphallos
Swollen Penis, One-Foot
The House of Cadmus
Cadmus, brother
of Europa
Cadmus 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
Script
Cadmus 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 Oracle
Cadmus 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
Serpent
Intending 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
Sparagmos
When 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
Sparagmos
Athamas 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 Dionysus
Ino was a primordial
Dionysian woman,
nurse to the god and a
divine maenad.
Ino’s son
Melicertes
Melicertes, 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 Copaïs
Heracles, 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, Boeotia
There 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 Antiope
Antiope’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
Zethos
Warring Brothers
Two Fathers
Amphion (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
Zethos
Amphion 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
Thebes
The 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 Gate
In 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 Antiope
They 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
Sparagmos
Antiope 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
Chrysippos
Chrysippos, 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 stepmother 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
Pelops
When 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
Jocasta
Laius 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 tree
Jean 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 Sphinx
Gustave Moreau
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Victorious Sphinx
Gustave Moreau
Oedipus and the Sphinx
in the marketplace
Jocasta (Iokaste) and Oedipus
Jocasta as Sphinx
Oedipus Tyrannus
Plague in Thebes
Oedipus Rex
Plague 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 Furies
Chorus
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
Amphiaraos
The 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 other
Warring 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.