Ovid Projects

    My section, the battle between Cadmus and the Serpent, came to being from a string of misfortunes at the end of Ovid’s Metamorphoses book II going into book III; at this time, the Metamorphoses is still in the early era of Gods widely roaming the Earth. First, at the end of book II, Jupiter sends Mercury to Sidon (somewhere in the Middle East) to find a herd of cattle and bring it to the sea. The gods meet the local king, King Agenor, as the cattle Mercury is driving are his. King Agenor has a beautiful daughter, Europa, and Jupiter immediately takes a notice to her. Disguised as a bull, Jupiter gains her confidence and ultimately gets her to climb onto his back. At this point, Jupiter, still a bull, walks to the water and begins to swim, taking Europa out into the sea where she will find herself in an unpleasant situation alone with Jupiter. Second, at the beginning of book III, King Agenor has reached Crete. He then sends his son Cadmus to find his daughter, not knowing what Jupiter has done. If Cadmus should fail, he would be punished with exile, showing the King’s opinions of his daughter compared to his son. Cadmus had no chance of finding Europa because nobody could possibly catch Jupiter cheating. Third, Cadmus seeks the oracle of Apollo for advice about where he should go to live. The oracle sends him to follow heifer, and establish a city by the name of Boeotia where the heifer rests. Cadmus quickly finds the heifer, and when she lays down he sends his men to find pure water for sacrifice, but they never return. Cadmus sets out to look for them when he finds the massive serpent with his dead men sprinkled around it. In the battle, fierce fighting allows Cadmus to prevail in his first victory. Cadmus will go on to found the city later known as Thebes in this spot. Finally, Ovid transitions to the ill-fated story of Actaeon, Cadmus’s grandson, and his encounter with the naked God Diana.

    The Story of Cadmus is Ovid’s retelling of a very similar Greek Myth. The largest difference between them is Ovid’s focus on Cadmus’s struggles and adventures, while other tellings include Cadmus’s other siblings also exiled by King Agenor and more details about Cadmus’s experiences after the founding of Thebes. For history, it is said that Cadmus first introduced writing and alphabet to Greece from the Phoenicians, a land named after one of his brothers. Furthermore, in ancient times, the nobles of Thebes called themselves direct descendants of Cadmus and the five men he originally founded the city with.

 

​

​

Sources:

​

​“Myth of Cadmus, the Founder of Thebes.” Greeka, www.greeka.com/greece-myths/cadmus.htm.

​Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Metamorphoses Book 2 Summary.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008,

www.shmoop.com/metamorphoses/book-2-summary.html.

​

​

​