Cadmus. In Greek mythology, Cadmus, was the founder and first king of Thebes. Cadmus was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. A Greek prince, son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, he was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. In early accounts, Cadmus and Europa were instead the children of Phoenix. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour. Cadmus was credited by the ancient Greeks with introducing the original Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet. Herodotus estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, which would be around 2000 BC. 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. On one of the tripods there was this inscription in Cadmean writing, which, as he attested, resembled Ionian letters. Although Greeks like Herodotus dated Cadmus's role in the founding myth of Thebes to well before the Trojan War, 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 the late 9th or 8th centuries BC, in any case, the Phoenician alphabet properly speaking was not developed until around 1050 BC. The Homeric picture of the Mycenaean age betrays extremely little awareness of writing, possibly reflecting the loss during the Dark Age of the earlier Linear B script. Indeed, the only Homeric reference to writing was in the phrase, grammata lygra, literallybaneful drawings, when referring to the Bellerophontic letter. Linear B tablets have been found 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. But such a suggestion, however attractive, is by no means a certain conclusion in light of currently available evidence. The connection between the name of Cadmus and the historical origins of either the Linear B script or the later Phoenician alphabet, if any, remains elusive. However, in modern-day Lebanon, Cadmus is still revered and celebrated as the 'carrier of the letter' to the world. According to Greek myth, Cadmus's descendants ruled at Thebes on and off for several generations, including the time of the Trojan War. The etymology of Cadmus' name remains uncertain. Possible connected words include the Semitic triliteral root qdm signifies east, and the Greek kekasmai to shine. Therefore, the complete meaning of the name might be: He who excels or from the east. After his sister Europa had been carried off by Zeus from the shores of Phoenicia, Cadmus was sent out by his father to find her, and enjoined not to return without her. Unsuccessful in his search, or unwilling to go against Zeus, he came to Samothrace, the island sacred to the Great Gods or the Kabeiroi, whose mysteries would be celebrated also at Thebes. Cadmus did not journey alone to Samothrace; he appeared with his mother Telephassa in the company of his nephew Thasus, son of Cilix, who gave his name to the island of Thasos nearby. An identically composed trio had other names at Samothrace, according to Diodorus Siculus: Electra and her two sons, Dardanos and Eetion or Iasion. There was a fourth figure, Electra's daughter, Harmonia, whom Cadmus took away as a bride, as Zeus had abducted Europa. The wedding was the first celebrated on Earth to which the gods brought gifts, according to Diodorus and dined with Cadmus and his bride. Cadmus came in the course of his wanderings to Delphi, where he consulted the oracle. He was ordered to give up his quest and follow a special cow, with a half moon on her flank, which would meet him, and to build a town on the spot where she should lie down exhausted. The cow was given to Cadmus by Pelagon, King of Phocis, and it guided him to Boeotia, where he founded the city of Thebes.