r of Mars and Venus: and his nuptials were
graced with the presence of all the Gods, and Goddesses; each of whom
conferred some gift upon the bride. He had several children; among whom was
a daughter Semele, esteemed the mother of Bacchus. After having experienced
great vicissitudes in life, he is said to have retired with his wife
Harmonia to the coast of Illyria, where they were both changed to serpents.
He was succeeded at Thebes by his son Polydorus, the father of Labdacus,
the father of Laius. This last was the husband of Jocasta, by whom he had
Oedipus.

Bochart with wonderful ingenuity, and equal learning, tries to solve the
aenigmas, under which this history is represented. He supposes Cadmus to
have been a fugitive Canaanite, who fled from the face of Joshua: and that
he was called Cadmus from being a Cadmonite, which is a family mentioned by
Moses. In like manner he imagines, that Harmonia had her name from mount
Hermon, which was probably in the district of the Cadmonites. The story of
the dragon he deduces from the Hevaei, or Hivites; the same people as the
Cadmonites. He proceeds afterwards with great address to explain the rest
of the fable, concerning the teeth of the dragon, which were sown; and the
armed men, which from thence arose: and what he says is in many particulars
attended with a great shew of probability. Yet after all his ingenious
conjectures, I am obliged to dissent from him in some points; and
particularly in one, which is of the greatest moment. I cannot be induced
to think, that Cadmus was, as Bochart represents him, a Phenician. Indeed I
am persuaded, that no such person existed. If Cadmus brought letters from
Phenicia, how came he to bring but sixteen; when the people, from whom he
imported them, had undoubtedly more, as we may infer from their neighbours?
And if they were the current letters of Greece, as Herodotus intimates; how
came it to pass, that the tablet of Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, the
third in descent from Cadmus, could not be understood, as we are assured by
[1062]Plutarch? He says, that in the reign of Agesilaus of Sparta, a
written tablet was found in the tomb of Alcmena, to whom it was inscribed:
that the characters were obsolete, and unintelligible; on which account
they sent it to Conuphis of Memphis in Egypt, to be decyphered. If these
characters were Phenician, why were they sent to a priest of a different
country for interpretation? and why is their date and an