Editing Cadmus (section)

==Overview==
[[File:Workshop of Peter Paul Rubens 002.jpg|thumb|Sowing the Dragon's teeth. Workshop of [[Rubens]]|left]]
Cadmus was credited by the Greek historian [[Herodotus]] with introducing the original [[Phoenician alphabet]] to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their [[History of the Greek alphabet|Greek alphabet]].<ref>"Herodotus' ''Histories'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+5.58&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 Book V, 58].</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Woodard|2013|p=37}}.</ref> Modern scholarship has almost unanimously agreed with Herodotus concerning the Phoenician source of the alphabet.<ref>{{harvnb|Woodard|2013|p=37}}</ref>

Herodotus estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, which would be around 2000 BC.<ref>Herodotus. ''Histories'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D145%3Asection%3D4 Book II, 2.145.4].</ref> Herodotus had seen and described the Cadmean writing in the temple of [[Apollo]] at Thebes engraved on certain tripods. He estimated those tripods to date back to the time of [[Laius]] the great-grandson of Cadmus.<ref>Herodotus. Histories, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+5.59.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 Book V.59.1]</ref> On one of the tripods there was this inscription in Cadmean writing, which, as he attested, resembled [[Ionic Greek|Ionian letters]]: {{lang|grc|Ἀμφιτρύων μ᾽ ἀνέθηκ᾽ ἐνάρων ἀπὸ Τηλεβοάων}} ("[[Amphitryon]] dedicated me from the spoils of [the battle of] Teleboae.").

Although Greeks like Herodotus dated Cadmus's role in the [[founding myth]] of Thebes to well before the [[Trojan War]] (or, in modern terms, during the [[Aegean civilizations|Aegean Bronze Age]]), this chronology conflicts with most of what is now known or thought to be known about the origins and spread of both the Phoenician and Greek alphabets. The earliest Greek inscriptions match Phoenician letter forms from [[History of the Greek alphabet#Chronology of adoption|the late 9th or 8th centuries BC]]—in any case, the [[Phoenician alphabet]] properly speaking was not developed until around 1050 BC (or after the [[Bronze Age collapse]]). The [[Homer]]ic picture of the Mycenaean age betrays extremely little awareness of writing, possibly reflecting the loss during the [[Greek Dark Ages|Dark Age]] of the earlier [[Linear B]] script. Indeed, the only Homeric reference to writing<ref>There are several examples of written letters, such as in Nestor's narrative concerning [[Bellerophon]] and the "[[Bellerophontic letter]]", another description of a letter presumably sent to [[Palamedes (mythology)|Palamedes]] from [[Priam]] but in fact written by [[Odysseus]] ([[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]]. ''Fabulae'', [http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae3.html#105 105]), as well as the letters described by [[Plutarch]] in ''[[Parallel Lives]]'', Theseus, which were presented to [[Ariadne]], presumably sent from [[Theseus]]. Plutarch goes on to describe how Theseus erected a pillar on the [[Isthmus of Corinth]], which bears an [[inscription]] of two lines.</ref> was in the phrase "σήματα λυγρά", ''sēmata lugra'', literally "baneful signs", when referring to the [[Bellerophontic letter]]. Linear B tablets have been found [[Thebes tablets|in abundance at Thebes]], which might lead one to speculate that the legend of Cadmus as bringer of the alphabet could reflect earlier traditions about the origins of Linear B writing in Greece (as [[Frederick Ahl]] speculated in 1967<ref>F. M. Ahl. "Cadmus and the Palm-Leaf Tablets". ''American Journal of Philology'' 88.2, Apr. 1967, pp. 188–194.</ref>).

According to Greek myth, Cadmus's descendants ruled at Thebes on and off for several generations, including the time of the [[Trojan War]].