The Spartoi

The Spartoi had no childhood, no parents, and no past. They were born from the teeth of the Dragon of Ares, the sacred serpent that guarded the spring on the Ismenian Hill near what would become the citadel of Thebes, a city in Boeotia in central Greece. Cadmus, the Phoenician prince who had come to Greece following a cow with a white mark on its flank, as the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the most sacred shrine in Greece, had commanded, had slain the dragon in battle. The dragon was sacred to Ares, the Olympian god of war, a deity whom the other gods despised for his love of bloodshed. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, who had favoured Cadmus's quest, appeared to him after the battle and commanded him to pull out the dragon's teeth and sow them in the earth like seeds. Cadmus obeyed, drawing the long, curved teeth from the serpent's jaw and scattering them across the field where the cow had fallen.

The moment the teeth touched the soil, the ground began to tremble. From each tooth an armed warrior sprang forth, fully grown and clad in bronze armour, with helmet and spear and shield. They were the Spartoi, the Sown Men, born from the bones of the dragon. But they were wild and violent, possessed of the same ferocity that had animated the serpent. They immediately began to fight one another, spear against shield, brother against brother, in a frenzy of mutual slaughter that shook the field. Cadmus, horrified at the sight of his own creations turning upon one another, threw a stone among them. The warriors, unable to see who had struck them, turned upon one another in confusion, and the battle grew even more terrible. When the slaughter was over, only five Spartoi remained alive.

The five survivors were Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus. These five warriors, born from the teeth of a monster and tempered in the fire of fratricide, became the ancestors of the noble families of Thebes. Echion, the first and most honoured of the survivors, married Agave, the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. From their union and the unions of the other Spartoi with the daughters of Cadmus, the noble houses of Thebes were born. The Spartoi built the walls of the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes, and they fought in the wars that would shape the city's destiny. They were not merely soldiers; they were the founding fathers of a city that would become one of the greatest in Greece.

The blood of the Spartoi flowed through the veins of the greatest Theban heroes and kings. Their descendants included the house of Oedipus, the king who would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta, fulfilling a prophecy spoken by the Oracle of Delphi, the priestess called the Pythia who sat upon a bronze tripod and spoke the words of Apollo. They included the warriors who fought in the war of the Seven Against Thebes, when seven champions from Argos laid siege to the city and were met by seven defenders, each pair fighting at one of the city's seven gates. The Spartoi were also the ancestors of the defenders who fought against the Epigoni, the sons of the Seven, who returned a generation later to avenge their fathers and destroy the city. The curse that had begun with the death of the Dragon of Ares, the sacred serpent slain by Cadmus, pursued the house of Cadmus and the descendants of the Spartoi through every generation.

In later tradition, the Spartoi became a symbol of the violent origins of civilisation. They were born from the earth, armed and ready for war, and they turned upon one another before they had even learned to speak. Their story was told by poets and historians as a warning about the cost of founding cities in blood, and their image appeared on Theban coins and in the art of the Greek world as a reminder of the city's strange and terrible birth. The Spartoi were not heroes in the usual sense; they were monsters made human, dragon's teeth made flesh, and their legacy was written in the tragedies that would unfold in the city they helped to build.