234 Angela Ganter, née Kühr
That is the pre-eminent foundation myth of Thebes. If we look at the sources chrono-
logically, an even more complex picture emerges. In theOdyssey, for example, the twins
Amphion and Zethos are said to have founded Thebes:
And after her I saw Antiope (...), who boasted that she had slept even in the arms of Zeus,
and she bore two sons, Amphion and Zethus, who first established the seat of seven-gated
Thebe, and fenced it in with walls, for they could not dwell in spacious Thebe unfenced,
how mighty soever they were. (Hom.Od. 11.260–5; translation by A. T. Murray)Who came first, Kadmos or the twins? Several explanations are possible (Berman 2004).
Perhaps the stories are complementary ones that only had to fit together when mytho-
graphers of later ages tried to establish a coherent sequence of myths, or in Greek terms:
of early historical periods. Sources of later provenience seem to confirm this assumption.
In Pausanias, for instance, Kadmos and his men founded the acropolis, but are expelled
after a period of time; later on, Amphion and Zethos re-founded the city. The oldest
sources, however, give another impression. By stressing that the twins not only founded,
but were the first who founded Thebes, the verses of the Odyssey cited in the preceding
text seem to allude to a competing version, presumably the story of Kadmos as the hero
after whom the Kadmeioi, the people living on the Theban acropolis called Kadmeia,
were named.
Before discussing how to bring these conflicting myths of the Theban past together, we
may find a concise overview on the chronological development of the stories instructive.
Around 700BC, at roughly the time as when the Homeric epics were written, Amphion
and Zethos founded the city by constructing its walls. Kadmos, in contrast, is the head
of the Theban royal house; nothing is said about his relations to Phoenicia, Europa,
or Delphi. While the story of Amphion and Zethos stayed broadly the same over the
following centuries and was locally bound, the myth of Kadmos began to develop in an
extraordinary way. It included new elements and expanded all over the Mediterranean.
Kadmos was so attractive that many other cities claimed to have been founded by him
as well. From the fifth centuryBConward, Kadmos was the Phoenician who came from
the East in order to look for his sister and founded a city after consulting the oracle at
Delphi. Being said to have been one of the very first human beings in the region and
having brought the alphabet from Phoenicia, he became a Panhellenic civilization hero,
a civilization hero fighting a monster, plowing the ground, installing cults, and sowing
the first citizens of Thebes.
Though, from the fifth century onward, civilization was no longer equated with the
construction of walls to protect an inhabited area, and though Amphion and Zethos
represented an older model of civilization heroes, from Boiotian perspectives they had
one advantage. Being the grandchildren of a Boiotian river, they were of autochthonous
origins. And that was an important criterion for primordiality, a criterion with which the
stranger Kadmos could not compete. Did that mean thatethnefrom southern parts of
Boiotia could claim older rights than the Kadmeioi settling on the Theban citadel? Yes
and no. In the long run, the Kadmeioi, or the Thebans, were in a stronger position when
relying on their foundation hero, because the foundation myths that centered on Kadmos
were so varied that they provided Thebes with both regional connections and interna-
tional links. While the immigration from Phoenicia stood for an old cultural heritage,