MYTH OF CADMUS AS THE PROOF OF ANTIQUITY OF SLAVIC CIVILIZATION

In this paper the author used analytical-synthetic and comparative methods to analyse an ancient myth of the hero Cadmus from Caucasian Colchis who in the 2nd millennium BC estab© CC BY S. Suljagic, 2019.

Th e analysis of an ancient myth of Cadmus who in the 2nd millennium BC arrived from Caucasian Colchis to the Balkan Peninsula and established legislation, built cities and spread literacy among local Slavic people explains a claim of Constantinopolitan historian Laonicus Chalcocondyles that «he knows with certainty that Serbs Triballs are oldest people in the world» 1 along with the fact that antique amphorae, vases and tablets with inscriptions «Heracles the Slav» 2 and «Serbs Heracleides» 3 regarding Cadmus' mythic counterpart Heracles were found in the sea and seacoast in the south of the Balkan and Apennine peninsulas. Th e analysis of the myth of Cadmus also explains the claims from medieval Russian Laurentius script and various world historians regarding the relation between Illyrian Slavs (modern Russians) who lived in the settlements of metallurgists and traders in Ladoga and Novgorod 4 with Illyrian Slavs (modern Serbs) who lived in the Balkan Peninsula 5 because the myth of Cadmus explains a historical link of Japhetite Slavic Dardans from eastern Mediterranean with Japethite Scythic 6 Dardans-Isedones from the territory of modern Estonia 7 stretching from their territory passing through ancient port Olbia 8  Peninsula. In general the myth of Cadmus describes the development of human civilization aft er the Great Flood which occurred 5.508 years BC 1 according to the ancient Serbian and Russian calendar which was abandoned in Russia in time of emperor Peter the Great and in Serbia in time of King Milan Obrenovic 2 . Th e myth of Cadmus is also a Balkan Slavic version of the universal myth of Cadmus's counterpart hero Noah, who with his wife and their three sons with their wives and animals survived the Great Flood in Noah's Ark on the mountain Ararat and from there they migrated to various sides of the world. Just like the mythical hero Cadmus, aft er the Great Flood «ancient Serbs-Slavs-Sarmatians» from their ancient homeland in northern Caucasus migrated to various sides of the world «under various names», and among them there were «Serbs-Slavs who lived on the bank of 1890 the river Danube» 3 . Until a major change which occurred in the world historiography during the 19 th century 4 on the basis of antique historical sources there was a consensus in the world historiography that «indigenous people in Sarmatia were the Serbs as the oldest branch of Sarmatians-Slavs» 5 and that in the Balkan-Black Sea region there lived only «one and the same people Serbian-Sarmatian Triballs» 6 or «Sardians» 7 («Sards», «Scordisci or 3 Quandt Johann Ludwig, Die Liutizen und Obodriten, Baltische Studien, Band 4 Athanassoglou-Kallmyer N. Excavating Greece: Classicism between Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-CenturyEurope // Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: [сайт]. URL: http:// www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn08/38-autumn08/autumn08article/94-excavatinggreece-classicism-between-empire-and-nationin-nineteenth-century-europe: «Under the regime of Bavarian baron fon Vittelsbach ancient archeological sites in Greece were placed under the monopoly of British, French and German archeological grupations whose «operational agenda» was defi ned by political interest and scholarships».

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Rascians» who were descendants of the ancient goddess of the moon, fertility and grain Venus Sirbis (Aphrodite, Shiva, Hera, Demeter, Isis) 1 who had the knowledge of a solar calendar and adopted and governed their life activities in their fi rst social communities in accordance with their ancient calendar 2 .

Th e Key to the Origin of Slavic People's Ethnonyms in the Myth of Cadmus
According to the ancient myth of Cadmus, Cadmus from Colchis followed a cow and arrived to the Balkan Peninsula and there he killed by a stone a dragon that guarded the water source of the dragon's father, who was Th racian god of war Ares (Tyras or Mars) 3  «nomadic» 6 , gigantic 7 warrior-like 8 and just 9 «Earth-born» people 10 . Th e Spartans lived in Sparta or Serbeika -«the land of Serbs» on the mythical mountain Olymp in Greece 11 for which a historian Gordon Child claimed that it was built about 3.760 years BC on the river Haliakmon as a cultural province of prehistoric civilization Vinca and the fi rst cultural and educational center of ancient Macedonia 12 6 Бернштајн Ј. Х. О расејаном илирскорасцијанском народу (1761) Delphi oracle in ancient Greece. Aft er the murder of the dragon Cadmus married the goddess of arts and harmony Harmonia 7 who was the daughter of King Ares (Mars) and Ares' wife Aphrodite (Venus Sirbis), 8 while the Spartoi, who in the beginning used to kill each other in the wars, calmed down 9 and were taught by Harmonia to play the instruments which could cause war-like spirit or peaceful spirit in people 10 . According to one version of the myth of Cadmus, one family branch of Cadmus' sons Illyrius, Dardan and Scordisc disappeared with the death of his descendent Oedipus 11 while according to another version Cadmus' descendants and people became some sort of snakes or dragons with a tail attached to human torso 12 , which was a metaphor for Noah's oldest son Japhet («Iatus, expandus» 13 ), whose descendants «spread all over the world», as it was written in «Genesis» in Old Testament 14 2 . Th e proof of this claim, among other proofs, is a carved relief of the Dardans (Earth born Spartans) 3 with a fi gure of Japhet as a gigantic Slavic man with a fi sh tail in Pergamon 4 , or a myth of sirens who seduced sailors in the Bosphore moreus, or a mythic trident of Ruric's Slavs in Ladoga and Novgorod. Ancient Greeks used to call Cadmus' father Agenor «the father of sea-people Pelasgians» 5 and represented him with a human torso and a fi sh tail 6 . He also had a trident 7 -the sea god Poseidon from the family of Neptune (Japhet  4 Whitaker Richard, Art and Ideology: Th e Case of the Pergamon Gigantomachy, Acta Classica, 2005, XLVIII, p. 171. 5 Homer, Iliad, 1. 35-39: With his trident Poseidon made Th racian island Delos in Egeian sea and there the sea people sacrifi ed victims to their pagan idols before departing on their sea journies. 6 Diodor of Sicily, 5.58.2: King Agenor's son Cadmus established a Phoenician colony on the island Rhodos whose ancestors and inhabitants were from the family of Poseidon. 7 Homer, Iliad, 1. 35-39 8 «Red copper» (Homer, Iliad, 9.365) or «grey mean «bronze» or «copper» 9 . Colchisbased Dardan «Saqalibs» (arab. chalyb; gr. χάλυψ) 10 as Arabian writers used to call the Slavs 11 or Th racians, who were the fi rst ironsmiths and metallurgists in the world 12 and traded metals 13 , were known as the descendents of Japhets. In other historical sources they were also called by their counterpart ethnonymes Kimmerians and Medes and «med» or «mjed» in the Serbian language means «copper», just like Cadmus's homeland Colchis 14 . According to Homer, in the trade process copper» (Pindar, Pythia 3.48) is a «raw metal» and it is a semantic addition to the attribute «red» and it was used by the Slavs. About it see Alinei Mario, Interdisciplinary and linguistic evidence for Palaeolithic continuity of IndoEuropean,Uralic and Altaic populations in Eurasia, with an excursus on Slavic ethnogenesis. In: the Conference Ancient Settlers in Europe, Kobarid May 29-30 2003-Quaderni di Semantica, p. 48. 9 Homer, Iliad 9.365. 10  these fi rst metallurgists used copper -«halkos» as a medium of exchange 1 , just like the people mentioned in the Eighth Book of Rg Veda who used copper coins «shulka» 2 . Th eir connection with the Balkan Peninsula is proved also by the fact that the ancient settlement Kimmerium in the Black Sea, named by a descendent of Japhet's oldest son Gomer Kimmerians, was originally named Serberion 3 . Th e attribute «red», which is connected to «cadmium» (Cd) -red coloured imperial garment of the fi rst man in the Earth Pelasg or King Agenor, Cadmus' father 4 , is also applied to Cadmus himself (Pelasg, Peleus) and his wife Harmonia (Th alassa, Teuta) and the descendents of their imperial dynasty. 5 King Agenor's red imperial garment is a metaphor for the creation of the fi rst state order with an imperial father fi gure as the leader and civilizer of primordial primitive humankind following the end of the Great Flood, or in other words, it is a metaphor for the creation of the fi rst states and social institutions, beliefs, customs and manners of the humankind. Before King Agenor's son Cadmus gave legislation to the people in the Balkan Peninsula, he fi rstly had to spread literacy among the people of the Balkan Peninsula 6 , which is proved by the same- 1 Homer, Iliad, 2.7. 472. 2 7 , It is also proved by the toponymes in Greece related to the metal made in Th eba and its surrounding cities which was used for the production of the alloys for printing letters 8 . During the 8th century BC these symbols were accepted by Hellenic migrants to Greece 9 and used until the 5th century BC, when the Athenian tyrant Pisistrat ordered a linguistic revision of the edition of Homer's Illiad 10 . Th e archeological discovery of the metal used for the production of printing alloys in Th eba and its surroundings 11 explains the paintings on antique vases representing Cadmus who kills a dragon with a stone and then builds Th eba in which literacy and metallurgy developed and both these actions explain the meaning of integral ethnonyme of the Slavs as "literthat he was the fi rst man who wrote history in the form of prose. 7 Vahanyan Vahan, Vahanyan Grigori. of an ancient Slavic-Aryan Manu's Law, which was reportedly created by the fi rst man Manu (Noah, or Cadmus' father King Agenor), and some charters of this ancient Manu's Law were also present in some charters of the medieval law of the Serbian Emperor Stefan Dušan Nemanjic Dušanov zakonik, although Dušanov zakonik was written in the form of Constitution 6 . As for Manu's Law or Solon's Law, which was the creation of «Scythian people from the East», the Romans adopted it from the Balkan people in order to stabilize the situation in the Apenine Peninsula aft er the fall of Etrurian ruler Tarquinius and subsequent decrease of the import of products from eastern states 7 . Because of the existing explanation that the notions «Roscian law» in Cicero's Philippics (2.44) is related to «lex Roscia theatralis» of a Roman offi cial Lucius Roscius Otho 8 , the fact that the origin of Roman law, Th eodosian Codex and later Constantinopolitan and Slavic laws goes back to ancient Slavic legislators and philosophers is widely neglected in the fi eld of humanities. Other legal refl ections of Manu's Law immigrants to Rome, prisoners and slaves from surrounding states as well as the matters of property, money, land posession and the rights of nobles, common citizens and slaves. 6 Слободан М. Филиповић, Речник српскоариј(ев)ски или архаично-српски с додатком корена, Београд, Сардонија, 2010., с. 21, 214-215, цит. Петковић. 7 On why the Romans adopted from the Greeks Solon's Tablets 4 . Th erefore the legacy of the lawyer and poet Solon in the Balkans had been long established and was also proved by the discovery of a vase with the verses of Solon's Song to Muses of Justice 5 in the tomb of a Th racian man near Plovdiv in modern Bulgaria in the 1st century BC 6  (one of various ethnonyms of «the men from the East» from Scythia), were described by the antique authors Herodotus and Strabo as «the justest people in the world» (dichaiotatoi anthropoi 7 ), «people who practice justice» (cultores justissimi 8 ), or Dakioi («just and wise people from the East») 9 . Th erefore the myth of Cadmus from the East who taught the Greeks various kinds of knowledge is related to the Scythians philosophers and thinkers 10 and ascetics 11 who arrived from their «barbarian» eastern states and gave legislation to the Athenians and Romans 12 , and invented an anchor and taught the Greeks the skill of navigation and other kinds of knowledge in the fi eld of science and arts 13 , for which the antique Greeks used to express their gratitude to them 14 . Th ey called these Scythian philosophers and prophets («shamans»), dioi («sacred»), dictatoi («just») and ieroi («heroic») people 15 . Th e just Scythians built various pagan oracles for prophecies in Greece. On the Greek island Delos 16 (originally named Scythia) 17 Кисiов Archeological Museum, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. 7 Homer, Iliad, 13.5. 6. Вестник Московского государственного областного университета. Серия: Юриспруденция 2019 / № 2 they dedicated the oracle to their supreme pagan god Zeus who in their belief distributed justice to people 1 and to the goddess of justice Dike (Nike) 2 . In addition to pagan oracles Dodona 3 and Delphi 4 , they also established the cult of pagan Eleusine mysteries in Greece, 5 which they named «Eleusia» by their homeland beyond the river Don 6 . Th e concept of «just reign» of Scythian legislators, or Cadmus' metallurgists «saqlabi» 7 (the Slavs 8 from Colchis), was celebrated in the myths of the Argonauts and «just kings» 9 and in the myth of King Midas who used to make gold of everything he touched, 10 9 Herodote, 1,14 on king Mida and his imperial throne in Delphi for distribution of justice. 10  cestors of modern Russians 6 . In Brahmi version of Vedic literature and in Hindu mythology these «Variagi» or «bhairagi» were ascetics («sadhu») who abandoned public life for the purpose of meditation 7 and were considered «holy, just and moral people» 8 , just like in antique Greek sources. In addition to this fact, in these sources Cadmus was frequently identifi ed with the pagan god of literacy, shamanism and music Orpheus 9 . Th erefore in accordance with the role of Cadmus' wife Harmonia to spread peace, civilization and fi ne arts worldwide, Cadmus' countrymen did not practice Dionysian way of shamanism and wild bacchanalias, but Orphic shamanism which was connected with meditation, calmness and asceticism, refl ecting the claim of the historian Herodotus that «the Scythians did not like southern customs such as bacchanalias» 10 . 6 Dahiya Bhim Singh. Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study),: New Delhi Sterling Publishers, 1980, p. 62, cit. R. Sankrityayana; MAKI, Vol. II, p. 565: «Russian Slavs who were called Sakas in the past, were assimilated in India as Saka Brahmi, Rajputi, Jati, Hindu Gujari, etc. Great similarity between Sanskrt and Russian language is understood by looking at theiry histories, because the Russians are descendents of these same Saka, whose brothers Aryans inhabited India and Iran since ancient times». 7 Flood Gavin.  historical sources also mentioned as Magi philosophers and ascetics, settled down in the eastern region of the river Tigris. Just like Brahmi in India, these Magi people were members of the leading priest cast «bhairagi» («kshatriya», «ksanthi»the synonym of «Jati» and Scythiann worshippers of Heracles also called «Dacians» and «Spartans») 2 in their societies 3 . Th e myth of Cadmus is similar to Hindu myth of Sarba who killed Narashima 4 , the myth of the Baltic-Indo-Mediterranean «shining» Sandan, Heracles, Dardan, Nergal, Tarhunt or Ksant Sirbis who killed the snake Typhoon (Iluanka) and lions 5  cient Ohrid were Slavic Illyrians who traditionally wore the symbol of a wild boar on their helmets as a ritual symbol of imperial reign and heroism 1 , because back in the ancient time people believed that only a wise, masculine and moral man was capable of killing wild boars 2 . Th e proof of this belief is the ancient symbol of a wild boar pierced by an arrow which used to be represented on the Serbian coats of arms and fl ags throughout the history 3 . Such a coat of arms is also the proof of the continuity of the Serbian civilisation on the Balkan Peninsula from prehistory to contemporary age, taking into consideration the fact that Constantinopolitan historians used to name Serbian medieval kings of various generations «the rulers of the Serbs Triballs» 4 .
Regarding this fact, on the vase painted by Diosphos dated from the 6th century BC there is a couple of Cadmus and Harmonia driven by the pagan solar god Apollo in the carriage pulled by a tamed and domesticated lion and a wild boar. In this painting Cadmus is a masculine hero showing to his wife Harmonia, in accordance with the tradition of Ancient Greece and Macedonia, the caught and tamed prey -the wild boaras a symbol of his masculinity 5 . In addition to this, on this vase the fi gures of Cadmus and Apollo personify also the myth of Orpheus who received the lyre from Apollo and instead of killing wild animals started to tame them. Th e peaceful tamer of wild animals Orpheus unifi ed the concept of music with the earliest forms of philosophy, theology and legislation 6 , and that was also the concept and attribute of the famous Th racian «horse tamer» as a «hero civilizer», which had been attached to the whole branch of the Slavic people and produced other synonymic ethnonymes -Th racians, Illyrians, Triballs and Dardans from the dynasty of «Serbs Heracleides». In addition to one more explanation of the myth of Cadmus, it is necessary to mention Hyginius' Fabulae in which Apollo in the Scythian oracle in Delphi prophesied to King Adrastus that his two daughters would get married to two young men who would kill a lion and a wild boar. His future sons-in-law Tadeus and Polynick, the son of Cadmus' descendant Oedipus, appeared before King Adrastus dressed in the skins of a lion and wild boar, which refl ected 5    is a metaphor for pre-Christian and Christian understanding of asceticism, tolerance and harmony which calmed down the rage and ferocity of the fi rst people who used to fi ght against each other and tame wild animals 2 . Harmonia used to be represented, just like pagan goddesses Athena, Minerva, Darda (Сарда, Сара, Venus Sirbis) or Benzaiten, with the instrument in her hands, which stood for creative arts and science and symbolized the knowledge creating harmony in the world. 3 Also, in Dupljaja vil- («slove») and so they were called «Sloveni» (the Slavs) or «Slavni» (the glorious ones), but also they were known as «the people of Bulgarian King Krum» in 813 1 .
All these above mentioned facts prove that the ancient Slavs were engaged in the creation of the fi rst signifi cant elements of human civilization, science and arts aft er the Great Flood, including the mythology that testifi es to it. Also at the same time the myth of Cadmus proves that the Serbs, Russians and other Slavic people created their own states, social institutions and achievements, such as legislation, mar-riage, philosophy, metallurgy, navigation, mythology and fi ne arts much earlier than it was presented in their offi cial educational systems. Th erefore it is possible to conclude that in fact the fi rst ancient Caucasian-Balkanian-eastern Mediterranean legislation aft er the Great Flood was created by ancient Slavic legislators and philosophers and that the so-called «Greek/Roman» mythology describes the creation of ancient Slavic civilization, and that it was later taken over and retold in various versions by other peoples in the eastern Mediterranean.