Cadmus

Family: Thebes · Role: founder · First appears: Sophocles, Antigone — Scene 4

Cadmus, founder of Thebes, is linked in the Sophoclean material to Laius, Antigone, Heracles, and Oedipus as elder-kin. He married Harmonia and fathered Polydorus, while Athena is associated with him as a mentor and Ares as an enemy because of the ancient wrath over the earth-born dragon.

In The Bacchæ, Cadmus is parent to Semele, Agave, Ino, and Autonoe, and elder-kin to Dionysus and Pentheus. He is friends with and guided by Tiresias, telling him, “O dearest friend! how I, being in the house, was delighted, hearing your voice, the wise voice of a wise man”. At Thebes, Cadmus transferred his honor and power over the land to Pentheus, though Pentheus opposed the Gods and drove him from sacrifices.

After Agave recognized that the severed head she carried belonged to Pentheus and regained awareness, Dionysus decreed serpentine transformations for Cadmus and Harmonia. He also banished Cadmus and his daughters to foreign lands, leaving Cadmus to lament that he and his daughters would become aged sojourners among foreigners.

Relationship record

Life events

• Cadmus transferred his honor and power over the land to Pentheus.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 1 · 📍 Thebes)
  • With: Pentheus
  • “Cadmus then gave his honor and power to Pentheus, born from his daughter, who fights against the Gods as far as I am concerned”
• Agave recognizes that the severed head she carries belongs to Pentheus.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 7)
  • With: Agave Pentheus
  • “No: but I, wretched, hold the head of Pentheus.”
• Agave regains awareness and forgets her earlier delusion.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 7)
  • With: Agave Pentheus
  • “I understand not your word; but I become somehow sobered, changing from my former mind.”
• Dionysus decrees serpentine transformations for Cadmus and Harmonia.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 7)
  • With: Dionysus Harmonia
  • “you shall become a dragon, and your wife becoming a beast, shall receive in exchange the form of a serpent, Harmonia”
• Dionysus's decree banishes Cadmus and his daughters to foreign lands.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 7 · 📍 Thebes)
  • With: Dionysus Agave Autonoe Ino
  • “Alas! a miserable banishment is the decree [for us,] old man. BAC. Why do ye then delay what must needs be? CAD. O child, into what terrible evil have we come; both you wretched and your * * * * sisters, and I miserable, shall go, an aged sojourner, to foreigners.”

Sophocles, Antigone — Scene 4

• younger kin: Antigone “Founders of Thebes, the only scion left / Of Cadmus' issue, how unworthily, / By what mean instruments I am oppressed, / For reverencing the dues of piety.”