Who was the first Superhero? Part 2a (The Greeks)
Welcome back to Part 2 of the question that’s occupied my mind for the last couple of weeks — “Who was the first Superhero?”. A quick recap — in Part 1, we focused on the exploits of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian King, and arguably the earliest known Superhero. Before we continue, I should share that I have decided to exclude Gods from being classed as “Superheroes”. Hence, no God defined by mythology as being divine and having immense power will be considered. My reasoning is simple — it takes the fun out of being “Heroic”. However, in cases where someone was given a God status later on (such as the case with Gilgamesh), they may be considered. Exceptions can come from Norse mythology as they have been unwittingly dropped into the Marvel universe. However, their characters from the comics will be the ones considered for the title. And now, with housekeeping out of the way, let’s focus on a new interpretation of “Super” “Hero” today:
“very good or pleasant person (in mythology and folklore) of superhuman qualities and often semi-divine origin, in particular one whose exploits were the subject of ancient Greek myths.”
NOTE: I have consciously not considered the Super definition of “of a manufactured product very good; superfine” in conjunction with their existence in Greek myths, as that will be part of a separate post.
It’s impossible to consider an account of the first Superheroes without looking at the Greeks. Their mythology had incredible superbeing — Gods, Titans, Nymphs and most important to us, Heroes. In fact, the word “Hero” comes from the Greek hḗrōs, an offspring of a human and a God. However, we find from stories that the Hero gene often travelled down lineages, and Heroes are more defined by their brave actions as is the case for some of our featured guests.
We probably all know the more popular Greek heroes — Achilles, Heracles (or the Roman Hercules), and Odysseus, among others. However the first among the equals, if they ever were equals, were three — Cadmus, Perseus and Bellerophon. Claimed as the first Heroes by one of the earliest known historians — Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC), these three put the ‘Super’ in our title way before the likes of Heracles and Achilles came to take over the headlines for generations to come. I firmly believe these three deserve some, if not as much, recognition. Cadmus, Perseus and Bellerophon probably didn’t co-exist at exactly the same time, but from the chain of events I have studied, they might have been just a few generation apart in the mentioned order. Hence I have clustered them in accordance with Herodotus’ wishes as the firsts. Let’s get into their stories.
Cadmus
Cadmus was the first Hero in Greek mythology. In fact, he had many firsts in his life. He founded the city of Thebes, and brought the Phoenician alphabet to Greece (which, after a bit of post-processing gave Greece a language, and future engineers nightmares). That said, he didn’t really have as many great Heroic moments. In fact, through the story he doesn’t come off looking too great. However, I make special allowances for him as he technically was the first to slaughter a monster, and thus fitting the definition we are chasing today.
Cadmus was the grandson of Poseidon and was a Phoenician Prince of Tyre (present day Lebanon). His story begins like many a Greek myth — the abduction of Europa, his sister, by Zeus disguised as a white bull (immortalized as the Taurus constellation). His father, King Agenor, furious with the God, told his son “go get Europa back or don’t come back at all”.
Now, Cadmus didn’t know his ‘hero’ capabilities yet. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have gone up against Zeus. So, he wandered aimlessly for a while with a few of his buddies, either because he was unable to find Mt. Olympus on a map, or because he just decided to not take on the God of Thunder at all.
As It turned out, aimless wandering to challenge Zeus with a crew wasn’t really a lucrative career for a prince. So, to gain some wisdom, Cadmus landed at the steps of the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle did her crystal ball thing and told him to quit this pipe dream of finding Zeus. Instead, she suggested he go look for a cow with a half-moon on her back and set up shop wherever it stops (sounds absurd, I know). But Cadmus decided that since he was wandering anyway, might as well let a cow lead the way. Conveniently for him, he was gifted said cow by the local King Palegon, and he followed it till it went plonk on the ground. At this point, Cadmus put his hands up and went all “I am the King of this land!”, or something to that affect. But before he could start his rule, tradition demanded that he offer a sacrifice of the exhausted cow to Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom. I’m not sure about their rituals, but it turns out that they needed spring water, for which Cadmus sent a couple of his champions — Deioleon and Seriphus to the nearby Ismenian spring. At the spring, they were met by a dragon who was guarding that lake, and unprepared for a fight, they ended up slain by it. Now, this the moment Cadmus realises his power (Cue Epic Hero music). Our Hero, Cadmus marches to the lake himself after hearing news of his dead champions. Upon getting to the lake, he confronts the dragon
Cadmus: ”You there, dragon.”
Dragon licking itself: “What?”
Cadmus: “Did you kill my men?”
Dragon (pointing at corpses of two men lying on the banks of the spring): “Those two?”
Cadmus: “Yeah”
Dragon, nodding: “They were trying to take the spring water. What do you want?”
Cadmus: “I am Cadmus, founder of the town down yonder.”
Dragon: “What town?”
Cadmus: “The town, that I have just started. I have to please the Goddess Athena by building a temple and sacrificing this cow I have been following. It’s bound to get bloody and I need water to wash it off. So, let me have some.”
Dragon: “Can’t do little man. This spring here, I am it’s guardian. I can’t let even a drop vanish.”
Cadmus: “What about evaporation?”
Dragon: “What’s that?”
Cadmus: “It’s when water becomes water vapour. Never mind, you’re a dragon. You’re losing water anyway, you overgrown lizard.”
Dragon: “No I’m not. And who’re you calling a lizard you puny wanderer?”
Cadmus: “That’s not a comeback. Now step aside, I’m taking the water.”
Public Service Announcement: All conversations, unless mentioned otherwise are completely hypothetical and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
This conversation ended with Cadmus drawing his sword, and leaping at the dragon. If the images are to be believed, Cadmus’ head was in the dragon’s mouth at some point during the battle. But ultimately, Cadmus prevailed and killed the giant lizard.
This was to become, his first and most significant Hero moment and thereby giving the Greeks a new concept of “someone more than a man” but, as Cadmus would learn soon, still “less than a God”.
Once Athena, the Goddess of wisdom, heard the tale, she asked Cadmus (in his dreams or on Zoom, we don’t quite know) to bury the tooth of the dragon. And Cadmus did as told. From the ground, sprang a race of fierce armed men, called the Spartoi (“sown”). Cadmus, unsure of this new lot of warriors, decided to chuck a stone between them. The new sown army, thinking that one of the warriors among them had attacked, ended up fighting and killing each other, until only 5 were left. Not the brightest of men, but I’ll cut them some slack given that they were dirt just a few minutes ago. It is said that the remaining 5 warriors helped Cadmus build the citadel of Thebes, a great ancient city, and became the Kennedy’s and Rockefellers of their time. But lest we forget the dragon — turns out it had the favour of Ares, the God of War. As penance for his ‘Heroic’ act, Cadmus had to serve Ares for eight years. At the end of his service the Gods (or Areas or Athena, depending on which story you listen to) gifted him with Harmonia as a wife.
Now, I’d like to say Cadmus lived happily ever after being a Hero and ruling his new land. But there wasn’t much opportunity for our Hero to be make use of this new-found heroism. He was far from the perfect hero, and had a string of bad luck tied to a necklace his wife received on their wedding day. But for the records, he was the first Hero and his contributions to Greece and slaughtering the dragon made him Super. For those interested in learning more about him, I recommend reading about his wedding, the cursed necklace of Harmonia and his time fighting for another kingdom. As a side note, his story ends with the showcase of what was possibly the earliest depiction of angst and depression in Greek mythology. Cadmus couldn’t get over the 8 years he had to spend as Ares’ servant and in his angst asked the Gods to turn him into a serpent. His wife, Harmonia, was herself a really interesting character, but I’ll leave her story for the reader to look up.
