Ismenian Dragon

The Ismenian Dragon is the serpent sacred to Ares that guarded a spring at the future site of Thebes, killed by Cadmus, whose sown dragon's teeth sprang up as armed warriors.

The Story

Cadmus, a Phoenician prince, left home to search for his sister Europa, whom Zeus had carried off. The oracle at Delphi told him to give up the search, follow a cow, and found a city wherever it lay down. The cow led him into Boeotia. Wanting to sacrifice it, Cadmus sent his companions to fetch water from a nearby spring.

The spring belonged to Ares, and a monstrous serpent lived in a cave beside it. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the serpent kills the men one after another, some with its bite, some by crushing them in its coils, some with its poisonous breath. When Cadmus comes looking for them, he finds the serpent feeding on their bodies. He hurls a rock, which does nothing, then drives a spear through its jaws and pins it to an oak tree.

Athena then told Cadmus to sow the dragon's teeth in the ground. Armed men sprang up from the furrows and, after Cadmus threw a stone among them, turned on each other. Five survived. Known as the Spartoi, the "sown men," they helped Cadmus build the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes, and became the ancestors of its noble families. Some of the teeth were said to have been given to King Aeetes of Colchis, who later set Jason the same task.

Appearance and Powers

Ovid gives the fullest description: a golden crest, eyes flashing fire, a body swollen with venom, a triple-forked tongue, and three rows of teeth. It rears up so high that it looks down on the treetops. Several ancient writers call it a child of Ares; the name "Ismenian" comes from the Ismenus, the river of Thebes. It does not breathe fire or fly.

Origins and Sources

The fight was a favorite scene for Greek vase painters long before Ovid. A Euboean black-figure vase in the Louvre from about 560 to 550 BCE shows Cadmus attacking the serpent, and the subject appears on later Attic and South Italian pottery. Euripides refers to the dragon of the spring and the sown men in his Phoenician Women, and Apollodorus's Library summarizes the story. In some versions Cadmus had to serve Ares for eight years to atone for killing his serpent.

Legacy

The story has a strange ending. After a lifetime of troubles in Thebes, Cadmus and his wife Harmonia were themselves turned into serpents, which some ancient writers read as the old curse of Ares coming full circle. "Sowing dragon's teeth" became a proverb in English for doing something that stirs up conflict. For related Greek serpents, see the drakon and the dragon of the Golden Fleece.

Related

• Colchian Dragon: The Colchian Dragon is the sleepless serpent of Greek myth that guarded the Golden Fleece in the grove of Ares at Colchis until Medea's magic, or Jason's sword, overcame it.
• Python: Python is the giant serpent of Greek myth that lived at Delphi until the god Apollo shot it with arrows, took over the site, and founded his famous oracle there.
• Ladon: Ladon is the serpent-dragon of Greek myth that coiled around the tree of golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides, guarding it until Heracles came for the apples.
• Lernaean Hydra: The Lernaean Hydra is a many-headed water serpent of Greek myth that grew new heads when one was cut off, killed by Heracles and Iolaus as his second labor.
• Dragon Species
• The Golden Fleece
• Dragons Across Cultures

Sources and Further Reading

• Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A. D. Melville (Oxford World's Classics, 1986)
• Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, trans. Robin Hard (Oxford World's Classics, 1997)
• Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993)
• Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2013)

Cite this entry: “Ismenian Dragon,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/ismenian-dragon.