Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/290

 258 HISTORY OF GREECE. Kadmus, who had accompanied them in the voyage, settled and gave name to the island of Phasus. Both Herodotus and Euripides represent Kadmus as an emi- grant from Phoenicia, conducting a body of followers in quest oi Europa. The account of Apollodorus describes him as having come originally from Libya or Egypt to Phoenicia : we may presume that this wau also the statement of the earlier logo- graphers Pherekydes and Hellanikus. Conon, who historicizes and politicizes the whole legend, seems to have found two differ- ent accounts ; one connecting Kadmus with Egypt, another bring- ing him from Phoenicia. He tries to melt down the two into one, by representing that the Phoenicians, who sent out Kadmus, had acquired great power in Egypt that the seat of their king- dom was the Egyptian Thebes that Kadmus was despatched, under pretence indeed of finding his lost sister, but really on a project of conquest and that the name Thebes, which he gave to his new establishment in Bceotia, was borrowed from Thebes in Egypt, his ancestorial seat. 1 Kadmus went from Thrace to Delphi to procure information respecting his sister Europa, but the god directed him to take no further trouble about her; he was to follow the guidance of a cow, and to found a city on the spot where the animal should lie down. The condition was realized on the site of Thebes. The neighboring fountain Areia was guarded by a fierce dragon, the offspring of Ares, who destroyed all the persons sent to fetch water. Kadmus killed the dragon, and at the suggestion of Athene sowed his teeth in the earth : 2 there sprang up at once the armed men called the Sparti, among whom he flung stones, lirri TU elf Evpunqv alluded to by Pausanias (ix. 5, 4). See Wollner dc Cyclo Epico, p. 57 (Monster 1825). i * Conon, Narrat. 37. Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all is the tone of unbounded self-confidence with which Conon winds up this tissue of uncertified suppositions irepl [lev Kudfiov Kal Qrjfitiv oiKiaeuc ovrof 6 dAj/tf^f Aoyof rb 6e aAAo pi/doe KOI yojjTela UKO/JC. j * Stesichor. (Fragm. 16; Kleine) ap. Schol. Eurip. Phceniss. 680. Tho place where the heifer had lain down was still shown in the time of Pausa- nias (ix. 12, 1). ! Lysimachus, a lost author who wrote ThebaTca, mentioned Europa as having come with Kadmus to Thebes, and told the story in many other re- pects very differently (Schol Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1179).