Cadmus was the first who introduced the use of letters into Greece, though others maintain that the alphabet brought by him from Phœnicia, was only different from that used by the ancient inhabitants of Greece.
It was composed of seventeen letters, and to these were added some time after, by Palamedes, an additional four, and by Simonides of Melos, also, the same number.
In addition to the alphabet, by which the name of Cadmus has become renowned, he introduced likewise, the worship of many of the Egyptian and Phœnician deities, to the inhabitants of Greece, into which country, he is believed to have come about one thousand four hundred and ninety years before the christian era.
In stories so remote, it is difficult to separate the true from the false, and still more so to give a plausible explanation of apparent incongruities: it has, however, been suggested, that the dragon's fable, arose from some country which Cadmus conquered; that the armed men who are stated to have arisen from the field, were men armed with brass, a crop very likely to arise from the attempted subjection of a free country.
We have now related the most celebrated fables in the Mythology of the Greeks and Romans, without asserting that we have given all of them, some of which would be out of keeping in a work meant to be placed in the hands of youth, while others are not sufficiently authenticated, or do not bear sufficient interest, to induce us to present them to our readers.
B E L L E R O P H O N
was son of Glaucus, King of Corinth, and named at first Hipponous. The murder of Beller, his brother, by him, procured his second name of Bellerophon or the murderer of Beller; after he had committed which, he fled to the court of Prœtus, King of Argos, where being of a noble and fine person, he won the affections of the wife of the king; he refused to listen to her passion, and in revenge he was accused by her to her husband, of attempting her virtue.