Note 1066 — ANTIENT HEROES.

It is said of Cadmus, that he introduced the rites of [1066]Bacchus into Greece. But how is this possible, if Bacchus was his descendant, the son of his daughter Semele? To remedy this, the latter mythologists suppose, that there was a prior Bacchus, who was worshipped by Cadmus. This is their usual recourse, when they are hard pressed with inconsistencies. They then create other personages, to help them out of their difficulties. They form, with great facility, a new Semiramis, or Ninus; another Belus, Perseus, Minos, Hermes, Phoroneus, Apis, though to little purpose: for the mistake being fundamental, the inconveniencies cannot be remedied by such substitutes. We are told that Cadmus was a Phenician: but Diodorus Siculus speaks of him as assuredly of Egypt; and mentions moreover, that he was a native of the Thebaïs: [1067]Καδμον εκ Θηβων οντα των Αιγυπτιων. Pherecydes Syrus also, from whom most of the mythology of Greece was borrowed, makes Cadmus an [1068]Egyptian, the son of Agenor and Argiope, who was the daughter of Nilus. By others he is said to have been the son of Antiope, the daughter of Belus: consequently he must originally have been of Babylonish extraction. His father Agenor, from whom he is supposed to have been instructed in the sciences, is represented by Nonnus as residing at Thebes.