Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

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.