Cadmus of Miletus, according to some ancient authorities the oldest of the logographi. Modern scholars, who accept this view, assign him to about 550 BC; others regard him as purely mythical. A confused notice in the Suidas mentions three persons of the name: the first, the inventor of the alphabet; the second, the son of Pandion, according to some the first prose writer, a little later than Orpheus, author of a history of the foundation of Miletus and of Ionia generally, in four books; the third, the son of Archelaus, of later date, author of a history of Attica in fourteen books, and of some poems of an erotic character. As Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Judicium de Thucydide, c. 23) distinctly states that the work current in his time under the name of Cadmus was a forgery, it is most probable that the two first are identical with the Phoenician Cadmus, who, as the reputed inventor of letters, was subsequently transformed into the Milesian and the author of an historical work. In this connection it should be observed that the old Milesian nobles traced their descent back to the Phoenician or one of his companions. The text of the notice of the third Cadmus of Miletus in the Suidas is unsatisfactory; and it is uncertain whether he is to be explained in the same way, or whether he was an historical personage, of whom all further record is lost. Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 600s BC - 590s BC - 580s BC - 570s BC - 560s BC - 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC - 520s BC - 510s BC - 500s BC Events and Trends Carthage conquers Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica 559 BC - King Cambyses I of Anshan dies... Suda (Σουδα or alternatively Suidas) is the name of a massive medieval lexicon, not an author as was formerly supposed. ... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ... Pandion can have several meanings. ... Prose blah blah blahProse generally lacks the formal structure of meter or rhyme that is often found in poetry. ... The head of Orpheus, from an 1865 painting by Gustave Moreau. ... Miletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia (in what is now the Aydin Province of Turkey), near the mouth of the Maeander River. ... Ionia (Greek Ιωνία; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was an ancient region of southwestern coastal Anatolia (now in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea. ... Attica (in Greek: Αττική, Attike;; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a periphery (subdivision) in Greece, containing Athens, the capital of Greece. ... Eroticism is an aesthetic focused on sexual desire, especially the feelings of anticipation of sexual activity. ... Dionysius Halicarnassensis (of Halicarnassus), Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, flourished during the reign of Augustus. ... Phoenician can mean: The Phoenician ancient civilization The Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician languages This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

See C. W. Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. 2-4; and 0. Crusius in Roschers Lexikon der Mythologie (article "Kadmos", 90, 91).

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.