The fall of the House of Cadmus - Iseult Gillespie
When Cadmus walked the earth,
just a few generations separated him
from his divine ancestors.
From atop Mount Olympus, they scrutinized
and meddled with mortals like himself.
Cadmus was a skilled warrior
and heir to the Phoenician throne.
But he wouldn't stay
in the gods' favor for long.
First, Zeus coveted
Cadmus' sister, Europa.
So, he snuck into the palace garden
in the form of a bull and stole her away.
Their father tasked Cadmus and his men
with the impossible duty
of bringing Europa back.
Cadmus journeyed to the sacred
Oracle of Delphi to plead for help,
where he was told to find and follow
a sacred, wild cow.
At the spot where the cow rested,
he was to found a new city.
Cadmus and his men did as the oracle said,
then ventured into the nearby
forest for supplies.
But a giant serpent soon appeared.
It choked some of Cadmus' men
and blasted others with venom.
Cadmus leapt into action,
hurled his javelin,
and pinned the snake to a tree.
Without knowing it, he had just slain
Ares', the god of war's, precious serpent—
and sealed tragedy into his own fate
along with it.
Suddenly, a disembodied voice boomed:
"You too shall be a serpent
to be gazed on."
Taking pity on the prince,
the goddess Athena instructed
Cadmus to till the earth
using the serpent's teeth.
As he nestled its fangs into the soil,
a band of warriors sprouted
from the ground.
Together, they built the magnificent
city of Thebes.
And eventually, Cadmus fell in love
with Harmonia,
daughter of Ares and Aphrodite,
and the two married.
As years passed,
and his city and family grew,
hope that all strife might be forgotten
between Cadmus and the gods
glimmered briefly.
But, soon enough, his family's luck
began souring once more.
Tragedy struck when Cadmus'
grandson, Actaeon,
was tracking a stag in the forest
with his hunting hounds.
The young man unwittingly infringed
on the sacred grove of Artemis,
goddess of the hunt,
as she was bathing.
Artemis punished Actaeon,
transforming him into a skittish stag.
And in this form Actaeon's own hounds
could no longer distinguish him
from the object of the hunt—
and they went in for the kill.
Then, Zeus visited again—
this time taking advantage of Semele,
one of Cadmus' four daughters.
When Zeus' wife Hera learned
that he'd been unfaithful yet again
and that Semele was pregnant,
she tricked Zeus into revealing himself
to Semele in his divine form.
But even the feeblest of his thunderstorms
was too much for a mortal to witness,
and Semele perished.
Zeus managed to save their unborn child,
who grew into Dionysus, god of wine.
His wild, revelrous rituals
drew devoted followers.
But they eventually got out of hand.
On one occasion,
two of Cadmus' four daughters,
Agave and Autonoë—
Dionysus' own aunts—
had a hallucinatory fit and killed
Agave's own son,
believing he was a lion.
Next, Hera targeted the family again.
Alongside the Furies,
the goddesses of vengeance,
she cursed Cadmus' fourth daughter, Ino,
with an intolerable madness
that drove her into the sea.
Besieged by bad luck
and overcome with grief,
Cadmus and Harmonia wandered
the wilderness.
They considered the many tragic turns
their lives had taken—
which Cadmus traced back to the time
he killed the serpent.
Realizing that the animal
could have been sacred
and that his act might have incited
the unabating wrath of the gods,
Cadmus prayed to recompense his error.
Suddenly, he felt his body change
and he embraced Harmonia.
The two melted to the ground
and shed their human skins,
until finally, two snakes were
left coiled in the field.
Cadmus' debt was at last repaid—
to the snake he slayed
in a desperate moment,
and to the gods,
who guarded their grudges
and dispensed of their
punishments liberally.
