CADMUS, in fabulous history, the son of Ageno•, king of Plurnicia, and brother of Europa. His sister . having been carried off by Jupiter, he was ordered by his father to go in search of her, and not to return till he had found her. Being completely disappointed in the object of his mission, and not dating to return into his own country, he began to look out for a place in which he might fix his residence. By the advice of the Del phic oracle, he followed a cow, and where ever she lay down he determined to build a city. In the mean time he sent his associates to a fountain to bring water ; they were all destroyed by an enormous serpent. Cadmus, not knowing what detained them, went in search of them, when he saw the dead bodies, and the monstrous serpent lying beside them, lie immediately attacked Ihe monster, and after a dreadful contest, w hick is beautifully described by Ovid, he slew him ; and by the advice of Pallas sow ed his teeth in the ground, from which immediately sprung up a crop of armed men, who were prepared to assail Cadmus. By the direction of Pallas, he threw a stone amongst them, when they immediately turned their arms against each other, and all fell by mutual slaughter, except five, who assisted him to build the walls of Thebes. Cadmus and his wife llermione, who was given to him by the gods, WCIT themselves at last changed into serpents.
Such is the fabulous history of this celebrated per son, from which it will he extremely difficult to extract any thing like a rational meaning. It is not easy to ac count for the frequent introduction of the serpent in this story. Shuck ford has given a Hebrew sentence de scriptive of the exploits of Cadmus, svhich may either be translated " Ile raised a company of men armed with brazen weapons," or " lie raised five armed men from the teeth of a serpent." This is merely conjectural, although we think it extremely probable that the greater part of mythological fables has arisen from mistransla tion.
The learned Bochart has also endeavoured to show. but on different grounds, that the fabulous story of Cad mus has arisen from the errors of the Greeks in inter preting the Phoenician or Syriac language. lie sup poses that Cadmus was a Ilivite, who fled from the face of Joshua; that the Ifivites were called Cadmonites, which signifies easterlings, because they inhabited mount Hermon, the most eastern part of Canaan ; and that 11 ermione or Harmonia, Cadmus's wife, had her name from this mountain. He explains the fable of their being changed into serpents, from the circum stance of their retaining the name of Mites, which word, in the Syriac language, signifies a serpent. We want nothing here but facts, to establish the ingenious conjectures of the mythologist.
Sir Isaac Newton, with a facility of assumption which lie would have been the last to countenance in physical science, supposes that Cadmus headed a colony of Phoe nicians and Syrians, who lied from the conquests of Da vid ; and he alledgcs that he flourished about the year t045 A. C.
Mr Bryant disputes the existence of Cadmus as an in dividual ; but thinks, according to his usual mode of in terpreting mythology, that what is in this case ascribed to an individual, applies only to different colonies, which at various periods emigrated from the East into Greece, Cadre, in Hebrew, signifies the East.
The only thing which seems to be known with tolera ble certainty is, that Cadmus first introduced the know ledge of alphabetical letters into Greece. The Cadmean letters were sixteen in number, a, 13, 7, (Y, t, i, Y, A, (4, f, 7T, Cr, 7", v. To these, four were added by Palame des, in the time of the Trojan war, 9, x. The other four were afterwards introduced by Simonides. (g)