‘No time. Come, men. With us!’ cried Cadmus, summoning his retinue of Tyrian servants, men-at-arms, camp-followers and attendants. Buckling up their armour on the run, dropping food and kissing farewell to new acquaintances they caught up with Cadmus, Harmonia and the cow.
‘Mad,’ said Amphidamas, watching the plume of dust spiral upwards in the distance as Cadmus’s ragtag army disappeared from view. ‘Quite mad. Said so from the first.’
The Water Dragon
For three days and three nights Cadmus, Harmonia and their train of loyal Tyrians followed the heifer with the half-moon markings as it lumbered up and down hills, through meadows, over fields and across streams. They seemed to be travelling in a southeasterly direction towards the province of Boeotia.fn6
Harmonia believed that the heifer might turn out to be Europa herself. After all, in ravishing her Zeus had transformed himself into a bull, so why mightn’t she have taken bovine form too? Cadmus, hypnotized by the rhythmic swaying of the cow’s broad posterior, was more inclined to think that the whole thing was a cruel hoax sent to perplex him.
Quite suddenly, after descending a steep hill and arriving at the edge of a wide plain, the heifer sank heavily down and gave vent to an exhausted groan.
‘Good lord,’ said Cadmus.
‘Just as the oracle prophesied!’ cried Harmonia. ‘What did the Pythia say? “Where the cow falls, there must you build.” So.’
‘So?’ said Cadmus, irked. ‘What do you mean, “So”? Build? Build what? Build how?’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Harmonia. ‘Let’s sacrifice the cow to Pallas Athena. The poor thing’s almost dead anyway. Athena will guide us.’
Cadmus agreed and elected to pitch a primitive kind of camp right there. So that he could properly purify the sacrifice he sent some of his men to fetch water from a nearby spring.
Cadmus slit the cow’s throat and was just sprinkling its blood on a makeshift altar bedecked with wild flowers and burnt sage when one of the Tyrians returned in the most pitiable state of distress, bearing awful news. A dragon, in the grotesque form of a giant water serpent, guarded the spring. It had already killed four men, constricting them in its coils and biting off their heads with its enormous jaws. What could be done?
Heroes do not wring their hands and wonder, heroes act. Cadmus hurried to the spring, picking up a heavy boulder on the way. Hiding behind a tree he whistled to attract the dragon’s attention, and then threw the boulder at the dragon’s head, smashing its skull and killing it outright.
‘So much for water snakes,’ said Cadmus, looking down at the monster’s blood and brains as they mixed with the waters of the spring.
A voice sounded out loud and clear. ‘Son of Agenor, why do you stare at the snake you have slain? You too shall be a snake and endure the stares of strangers.’
Cadmus looked around but could see no one. The voice must have sounded inside him. He shook his head and returned to the camp, delighted alike by the cheers of his supporters and the admiring kisses of Harmonia, to whom he said nothing about the voice he had heard.
Far enough away to be able to do so without Cadmus hearing, one of his men was drawing in his breath through his teeth with the irritating relish of those who have bad news to impart. This man came from Boeotia and whispered to his companions with a wise shake of the head that Drakon Ismenios, the Ismenian Dragon, which Cadmus had just slain, was known to be sacred to Ares, the god of war. Indeed, he went on, some believed that the creature was actually a son of Ares!
‘No good will come of this deed,’ he said, tutting and clicking. ‘You do not cross the god of battles with impunity. No, sir. Makes no difference who your grandfather is.’
It is worth recognizing here that one of the most burdensome challenges faced by the heroes and mortals of that time concerned their relationships with the different gods. Picking your way around the jealousies and animosities of the Olympians was a delicate business. Show too much loyalty and service to one and you risked provoking the enmity of another. If Poseidon and Athena favoured you, as they did Cadmus and Harmonia, for example, then the chances were that Hera, or Artemis, or Ares, or even Zeus himself would do everything possible to hinder and hamper you. And heaven help anyone foolish enough to kill one of their favourites. All the sacrifices and votive offerings in the world couldn’t mollify an affronted god, a vengeful god, a god who had lost face in front of the others.
Cadmus, by slaying an Arean favourite, had certainly made an enemy of the most aggressive and remorseless of the gods.fn7 But he knew none of this, for the muttering in the ranks of his retinue had not reached his ears. He blithely lit the incense and completed his sacrifice to Athena, feeling that things were still going very much his way. This feeling was reinforced by Athena’s immediate and benign appearance. Pleased by the offering of the heifer, she glided down from the cloud of fragrant smoke that Cadmus had sent up and favoured her humble worshippers with a grave smile.
The Dragon’s Teeth
‘Rise, son of Agenor,’ said the goddess, stepping forward and raising the supplicant Cadmus to his feet. ‘Your sacrifice was agreeable to us. If you follow my instructions carefully all will be well. Plough the fertile plain. Plough it well. Then sow the furrows with teeth from the dragon you have slain.’
With these words she stepped back into the smoke and disappeared. If Cadmus had not the assurance from Harmonia and the others that they had heard just the same words from Athena too, he might have believed that he had dreamed it. But divine instructions are divine instructions, however odd. In fact the odder, Cadmus was becoming aware, the more likely to be divine.
First he carved a ploughshare from holm oak wood. Then, since no draught animals were available, he harnessed a willing team of his most loyal attendants. They would have laid down their lives for this charismatic Prince of Tyre, so pulling a plough was nothing to them.
It was late spring and the soil of the plain was free-moving enough to be pulled into shallow but straight and well-marked furrows without too terrible an effort from the straining Tyrians.
The field ploughed, Cadmus now set to dibbling the furrows an inch or two deep with the blunt end of a spear. Into each dibbled hole he dropped a dragon’s tooth. As we all know, humans have thirty-two teeth. Water dragons have rows and rows of them, like sharks, each ready to advance when the row in front has been worn down with too much grinding of men’s bones. Five hundred and twelve teeth Cadmus planted in all. When he had finished he stood back to survey the field.
A light wind blew across the plain, catching the crests of the furrows and sending up powdery flurries of soil. Dust devils whipped and whirled around. A great hush descended.
Harmonia was the first to see the earth in one of the furrows shift. She pointed and all eyes followed. A gasp and a muffled cry went up from the watching crowd. The tip of a spear was pushing through, then a helmet appeared, followed by shoulders, a breastplate, leathern-greaved legs … until a fully armed soldier rose up, wild and fierce, stamping his feet. Then another, and another, until the field was filled with fighting men, marching on the spot in furrowed lines. The clanging and banging of their armour, the clashing and bashing of their buckles, belts and boots, the clamour and smacking of the metal and leather of their cuirasses, greaves and shields, their rhythmic grunting and martial shouts all built into a great and horrid din that filled the onlookers with fear.
All but Cadmus, who stepped boldly forward and raised a hand.
‘Spartoi!’ he called out across the plain, giving them a name that means ‘sown men’. ‘My Spartoi! I am Prince Cadmus, your general. At ease.’