David as Cadmus (Part One)



John R. Salverda

I have already identified the Greek mythological character "Cadmus," with the Judean King "David," in an article called "Europa Lost" (See http://westerncivilisationamaic.blogspot.com/2012/02/europe-is-named-after-descendant-of-ios.html ). However the "David" that I used in that article was not the actual, historical, King David of the Scriptures, it was the Messianic, prophesied, David, the "David My servant," the "Branch," or "Root of Jesse," that I used to correspond with Cadmus, the heir to the throne, whose job it was to bring back the lost Europa (therein identified with the lost ten tribes). "… I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: … And David my servant shall be king over them; …" (Eze.37:21-24). "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:10-12). ". . . I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man's seed hath God ‘according to his promise’ raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus. " (Acts 13:22,23). Accordingly, I felt justified in equating this facet of David, with the Greek mythological character Cadmus, the heir to the Phoenician throne, whose mythic role was to bring Europa (whom I suppose to be named after Jeroboam, the first king of the northern ten tribes of Israel,) back into her own land.

I overlooked the historical King David in that article because I knew that he never personally searched out "Europa" (she was not yet lost in David's lifetime). The alphabet that Cadmus brought when he founded Boeotian Thebes, has been dated to about 850 BC. (long after the days of King David). And it seemed to me that the founding of Thebes in Greece belonged to a later age than the time of David. The Phoenicians who founded the Greek Thebes brought the story of David to Greece, (Could the Alphabet have come without a few current stories written in it?) he was something of a culture hero to them, they knew him as "Cadmus." And in the story of how Cadmus founded Thebes, they apparently used the story of how David founded Jerusalem, for in as much as David was the founder and first king of Jerusalem, so too Cadmus was the founder and first King of Thebes. Those who saw "Europa" as lost among the nations as a consequence of adoring God in the form of a bull, were almost certainly Judeans (It is the Jewish Scriptures that proclaim the "sins of Jeroboam" to be the blame for the loss of the Northern Ten Tribes.). Now, as to why the place was called "Thebes" instead of "Jerusalem" I suspect that this is where the identification of King David with the Egyptian Pharaoh Tuthmose I (postulated by Damien Mackey, Dr. Ed Metzler, and a few others) comes into play. Before we get into the triple identification, let us look into some points of coincidence between the Greek myth of Cadmus and the first part of the historic David's story.

Casting the Stone

"Cadmus ... with a straight cast of the stone smashed the top of the dragon’s head; then drawing a whetted knife from his thigh he cut through the monster’s neck. The hood severed from the body lay apart," (Nonnus, Dionysiaca Book 4. 406) David also cast a famous stone that smashed the top of, not a serpent's, but a giant's, head. He also followed up by cutting the head off. "David ... took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, ... Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith." (1st Samuel 17:49,51) How many times, in either history or myth, can you find such a story? An ordinary man engages in single handed combat with a gigantic monster, he tosses a stone, hits it on the head, and knocks it out. Then he runs up on it and cuts it's head off with a sword. These specific circumstances comprise a fairly rare story, and yet David and Cadmus hold it in common. The question arises; Why would the Greek myths recast Goliath, a giant, as a serpent? As a giant, Goliath was called a son of "Repha," one of the Rephaim. To many who have studied comparative religions, these Rephaim were analogous to the Earth-born Giants of Greek mythology. However, the Greeks considered the Earth-born Giants to be serpentine in nature, either having serpent legs or serpent hair or both, (see the frieze upon the altar at Pergamon); "These creatures (the Giants) were unsurpassed in the size of their bodies and unconquerable by virtue of their power. They were frightening in appearance, with long hair that swept down from their heads and chins, and serpent-scales covering their lower limbs." (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 34) "The serpent-footed Giants ..." (Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 1. 185) "The coiling sons of Gaia . . ." "Giants, the snaky sons of Gaia . . . with huge serpents flowing over their shoulders equally on both sides much bigger than the Inakhian snake." (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25. 85, 206 ff) It therefore seems plausible at least, for the Greeks to have pictured Goliath, a Giant, as a serpent. (Schickard, Novidius, and other biblical scholars said that the constellation of Perseus, with the head of the serpent haired Medusa, was David with the head of Goliath. Once again the giant is identified with a serpent monster.)

It is worth noting that the Scriptures link the "Giants" with a Serpent as well. The Giants are the offspring of the fallen angels whose leader is supposed to be the ancient Serpent. "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Revelations 12:9) In the Scriptures the seed of the Serpent is supposed to die as a result of a crushing blow to the head. It should here be pointed out that, the deed of David killing Goliath, seems obviously to be ascribed to him as a Messianic attribute, therefore the fact that the mythological retelling of this episode resorts to the full poetic symbolism of Cadmus, wounding the head of the serpent, or transfixing it to a tree to stare upon it (as in Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 3. 90-95), is fully appropriate. In fact the Greek mythographers have Cadmus playing much more of a Messianic role than Samuel's David plays (Of course the later prophets clearly portray "My Servant David" in more obvious Messianic terms.). That David was a foreshadowing of the Messiah might have been left to the point that he killed Goliath with a wound to the head, but for the following enigmatic Scriptural statement; "And David took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem;" (1st Samuel 17:54). Some take this statement to be an apparent anachronism, for Jerusalem was still in the hands of the Jebusites at the time. A more likely supposition, however, is that Golgotha (skull place), just outside the walls of Jerusalem, was the site of the burial of the skull of Goliath. Thus Christ, in his death, figuratively bruised the head of the serpent just where David placed the bruised head of the giant Philistine. "And I will put enmity between thee (the Serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:15). David perhaps displayed the head of Goliath upon a wooden stake as an ensign warning the Jebusites of his eventual victory against them as well (thus giving a justification to Ovid for his version of Cadmus' killing of the Serpent, whereby it was transfixed to a tree nearby the site where Cadmus was destined to build Thebes.).

Cadmus, like David, wore no armor protection for this, his defining battle. "Cadmus, ... Clothed in a skin torn from a lion," (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3, 50) David famously claimed to have killed a lion (earlier in that same day, according to the Quranic version of the story). In my view, the fact that Cadmus performed what seems to be an obvious messianic task, (wounding the head of the serpent) dressed as a lion, is steeped in meaningful symbolism. The lion is the totem of the tribe of Judah and especially of it's King David. ". . . behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed . . ." (Revelations 5:5).

The Spartoi

Cadmus had a sleight group of companions to begin with, but in killing the monster he was able to earn an elite group, not unlike the "mighty men" of King David. By planting the teeth of the serpent, Cadmus was able to grow a fighting force known in the Greek myths as "the Spartoi," these would serve him just as the "Gibborim" (mighty men) of David, as a personal guard, his generals, and as the aristocracy of his newly founded city. The word used to describe David's mighty men, Gibborim, is the same one that is used to define the giants "which were of old men of renown" who were "born to the sons of God" who "came into the daughters of men" in Genesis 6:4. Why were the mighty men of King David linked to the giants of old? I don't know. But I do know that the Spartoi of Cadmus were also linked to the Greek version of the Biblical giants, whom they called the "Earthborn giants." See how Nonnus describes them; "... take the creature’s horrible teeth, sow the ground all about with the snaky corn, reap the viperous harvest of warrior giants, join the battalions of the Earthborn in one common destruction, and leave only five living: let the crop of the Sown sprout up to glorious fruitage for Thebes that shall be.” (Nonnus Book 4.393)

We know what it means, in modern parlance, when we hear something like, "planting the seeds of discord with seditious speech in order that people may rise up in rebellion." However, the ancient mythographers heard something like, "planting the serpent's teeth in order to raise up a crop of armed men," and they, in writing a myth, took it literally, and we, in reading it, are completely misled. It wouldn't be the first time that a myth grew out of a metaphor or an allegory. One can imagine how the story of David may contain the original prosaic version of this same myth, for as David kills Goliath and becomes a rival to King Saul, the "seeds of discord" are being planted. "David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men." (1st Samuel 22:1,2). Furthermore, we can see that the term "to rise up from the ground" was used by the Hebrews as a metaphor that had the literal meaning of, oppressed people joining in armed rebellion, just as those who joined David at the cave. An example of just such an usage occurred at the Exodus "And he [the pharaoh] said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.”(Exodus 1:9-10)

Another source of David's army, a group of volunteers from Gath, called "Gittites" (also called "might men" or "Gibborim." These Gittites are called Gibborim by the Septuagint and by Josephus.) may have served as an "inspirational" model for the Greek myth. David seems to have earned no small measure of respect amongst the Philistines, especially those of Goliath's hometown Gath, this may be due to the giant's, little noted, taunting pledge; "And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, . . . And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, . . . choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us." (1st Samuel 17:4-9). These, the words of Goliath's own mouth, may indeed have had something to do with the fact that David was able to find refuge among the Philistines at the city of Gath when King Saul had made him his enemy. David stayed with the Philistines for more than a year and was eventually made a commander of a Gittite contingent of the Philistine army. David retained the city of Ziklag and 600 soldiers from Gath who swore allegiance to him and were his faithful men. It is almost as if many of the Philistines from the city of Gath, the home town of Goliath, were honoring the pledge of their champion to serve under David in the event that he should kill Goliath. This is perhaps another way to understand how Cadmus could obtain soldiers from the teeth (his word) of the slain monster (Goliath).

The town of Gath actually, was full of giants. A race of giants called the "Anakim" were flushed out of Hebron by Caleb and found refuge among the Philistines (a kind of Greek mythical verification of this fact is borne out in a report told by the Danaans, or rather the Danite immigrants, who say that the "Inachids" lived among the "Pelasgians") "There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained." (Joshua 11:22). Goliath was supposed to have been one of this race, and it would be of no surprise to find the other six hundred Gittites were called Gibborim because they were of the same racial makeup. It would further be no stretch of the imagination to think that a regiment made up of the Anakim fought among the Philistines under the leadership of their champion Goliath. These then, being bound by his pledge, became the "Gibborim" who were loyal to King David. Having a foreign guard who was loyal to the king has often proved itself a strategic advantage especially in the face of a national insurrection such as the Absalom incident.

Five of David's mighty men received special rank and mention, "the three," Jashobeam (otherwise known as Adino the Eznite), Shammah, Eleazar, and two more, Abishai, who was made chief of the three, and Benaiah who was as honorable as the three but had not been named among the three. (2nd Samuel 23). In the Greek myth, the Spartoi (of Cadmus' mighty men) had a famous "civil war" in which they fought each other and only five survived namely, Chthonius, Udaeus, Hyperenor, Pelorus, and Echion.

The Civil War

An internecine battle between factions of what would become King David's army certainly occurred. "And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise, and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise. Then there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin, which pertained to Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow's side; so they fell down together: wherefore that place was called Helkathhazzurim, which is in Gibeon." (2nd Samuel 2:14-16) The Scriptural term "Helkath-hazzurim" is usually interpreted to mean, "the field (or plot) of strong men (or heroes)," sometimes it's "the field of sharp blades." A compromise reading is not really that far from the Greek idea of, "a crop of armed men." See how the Scriptural version of the story uses, three times, the term "arise," and makes note of the youth of the young participants, "Let the young men now arise, and play before us." See how this event was a spectacle, not to be joined in by David, but to be observed (just as Ovid tells us Cadmus was told, "Lay down your arms!" ... "Take no part in civil strife." not to join in the fraternal battle of the Spartoi.) This "civil war" between brothers had a profound effect upon the memories of those "Phoenicians" who brought the story to Greece, and told it as an episode of the "myth" of Cadmus; "He too who dealt him death was dead as soon and of that new-given life breath breathed his last. In the same mould of madness all that host, that sudden brotherhood, in battle joined, with wound for wound fell dead. That prime of youth, whose lot was life so short, lay writhing ..." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3. 101 ff). "they (the Spartoi) ... went wild with warlike fury and destroyed each other with the steel of their cousin, and found burial in the dust. One fought with another: with ruddy gore the surface of the shield was drenched and spotted and darkened, as a giant died; the crop of that field was shorn by the brother-murdering blade of an earth grown knife." (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 4.455 ff) The Scriptural field itself, memorialized with the name, "Helkathhazzurim," also received a kind of fame at the location to which it was transferred in Greece, as ghosts of the slain warriors were sometimes seen by local farmers to be reenacting the grizzly event of their deaths; "Of vast extent, stretches the plain of Ares, the field that bore its harvest to Cadmus. ... when the black sons of earth arise to phantom combat: with trembling limbs the husband-man flees and leaves the field unfinished, ..." (Statius, Thebaid 4. 410 ff) This combat of the "brothers" took place at the site of a large well, or pool; "And Joab the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David, went out, and met together by the pool of Gibeon: and they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool." (2nd Samuel 2:13). In the Greek myth the Spartoi of Cadmus fought their civil war, brother against brother, beside "... a beauteous stream of water welled serene." (Ovid Metamorphoses Book 3.26 ff). The fraternal skirmish in each case, Hebrew and Greek, ended as suddenly as it had begun. A leading member of one of the factions of the civil battle loudly remarked upon the futility of brothers killing brothers so they gave up the fight and fought no more. And David's forces waxed stronger from that day, just as the Spartoi pledged allegiance to Cadmus; " Echion, ... called on his brothers to give up the fight, and cast his arms away in pledge of faith." (Ovid Meta. Book 3.115 ff) "Then Abner called to Joab, and said, Shall the sword devour for ever? Don't you know that it will be bitterness in the latter end? how long shall it be then, before you bid the people return from following their brothers? And Joab said, As God lives, unless you had spoken, surely then in the morning the people had gone up every one from following his brother. So Joab blew a trumpet, and all the people stood still, and pursued after Israel no more, neither fought they any more." (2nd Samuel 2:26-28).

The Expedition to Bring Water for the Libation

There is an episode coincidental in both stories, that of David's founding of the City of David, as well as that of Cadmus founding Cadmea, concerning the respective founders sending men to fetch water, not to drink, but to be poured out as a libation. In each case the lives of the men were jeopardized, for the waters were guarded. First let us examine the tale as told by the Greek mythographers; "Cadmus ... sought a rill of spring water, that he might cleanse his ministering hands and pour the pure water over the sacrifice. … Cadmus ... pouring the libation to Ares as the firstling feast of harvest-slaughter, ..." (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 4. 352 - 5. 6). "Then he prepared to make large sacrifice to Jove, and ordered his henchmen to seek the living springs whose waters in libation might be poured. There was an ancient grove ... a beauteous stream of water welled serene." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.26). "Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athena, he sent some of his companions to draw water from the spring of Ares." (Apollodorus 3.4.1). Next we have the Scriptural version of the story; "Now three of the thirty chief men went down to the rock to David, into the cave of Adullam; and the army of the Philistines encamped in the Valley of Rephaim. David was then in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David said with longing, “Oh, that someone would give me a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!” So the three broke through the camp of the Philistines, drew water from the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless David would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord. And he said, “Far be it from me, O my God, that I should do this! Shall I drink the blood of these men who have put their lives in jeopardy? For at the risk of their lives they brought it.” Therefore he would not drink it. These things were done by the three mighty men." (1st Chronicles 11:15-19)

The Cave of Adullam and the Seer Gad

In both the Hebrew story of David, and the Greek myth of Cadmus, there is a certain cave where both heroes consult a prophet who advises each of them as to how they should proceed from the cave to the site where they would found the new city. David and his men went to a certain cave, the cave of Adullam Scripturally referred to as "stronghold," and "fortress," (castle?), where he was to consult with "a prophet of the Lord," the seer's name was Gad. Gad advised David to go from the cave into the land of Judah. "And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hold ("the hold" is the cave of Adullam) depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. …" (1st Samuel 22:5). In the Greek myth, the cave episode is transferred to a Greek cave called "Castalia" where Cadmus consults with the inspirer of all prophets, Apollo, who sends him on his way to found Thebes. "Cadmus, ... consulted the famed oracles of Phoebus, and enquired of them what land might offer him a refuge and a home. And Phoebus answered him; “When on the plains a heifer, ... and when she lies, to rest herself upon the meadow green, there shall thou stop, as it will be a sign for thee to build upon that plain the walls of a great city: and its name shall be the City of Boeotia.” Cadmus turned; but hardly had descended from the cave, Castalian, ere he saw a heifer …" (Ovid Metamorphoses Book 3.1 ff) Presumably even the Greeks understood that Cadmus was not speaking directly to the god Apollo, but rather to a human prophet, a servant/priest of Apollo, who spoke on behalf of the god. Now, for an association between the prophet Gad and the Greek god of prophecy Apollo; The Greek name "Apollo" is just a slight transliteration of the Hebrew "Baal" and there was a character known in the land of Israel as Baal-Gad (lord of fortune) a northern town was named for him. Furthermore, Gad spoke on behalf of the "Lord" and Baal (Apollo) means lord. "And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the LORD." (1st Chronicles 21:19)

Now is the time to point out a bit of confusion about the geography that comes, quite understandably, as the result of transferring this story from the land of Israel, to the area of Thebes in Greece. Of course while David himself had never been in Greece, (he had died about an hundred years before the Phoenicians of Cadmus, as I suppose, had founded the Boeotian Thebes,) anything accomplished by Phoenicians/Israelites could be attributed to, as their culture hero, Cadmus/David. Relocating David's story to the area of Thebes necessitated surprisingly few alterations. The story requires a cave, the place where a city was to be founded, a field, and at least two (the story of David uses 4 or 5 noteworthy pools) wells, pools, or springs. The new setting in Boeotian Greece was well supplied with such of the features needed. Now, the cave where Cadmus consulted Apollo (at Delphi) had a famous spring/well associated with it called "Castalia," thus the cave was called "Castalian" by Ovid, after the spring. The cave, "Adullam" where David consulted his prophet (Gad) had no well mentioned. However, David had sent a contingent of companions from the cave Adullam, to seek out the water of another well at Bethlehem, which he would eventually pour out as a libation. The Greeks, in their rendition of the story, have apparently conflated the several springs of the Scriptural story into one spring/pool just outside the city of Thebes, and make all of the episodes in the story of David to have occurred in this one locale. The spring of Thebes was called, "the spring of Ismenios" (Hyginus, adding to the confusion, himself mistakenly refers to the spring of Ismenios as the Castilian spring.). If you read 1st Chronicles chapter 11 you can see how such a conflation could have happened. The "gutter" (probably the spring of Gihon) was instrumental in David's forces taking Jerusalem. Then the Philistines gathered against him in the valley of the Rephaim, prompting David to go to the cave of Adullam, where he longed for water from the spring at Bethlehem, which was also guarded by the Philistines. Add to this, that the gigantic monster (one of the rephaim) Goliath, was also a Philistine who, David killed and brought his head to Jerusalem. As the stories all merge together it becomes reasonable that the springs at Bethlehem and Jerusalem can get confused, after all both cities were known as the "city if David." A portion of Jerusalem became the "city of David" as David's capital, however, previously Bethlehem may have been known as the "city of David" in the sense that it was his ancestral home, from which he first ruled. Thus the Greek equivalent to the conflated Jerusalem/Bethlehem of David becomes the Thebes of Cadmus in the myth. There are certain similarities between the "City of David" and Cadmea (the City of Cadmus), for both were citadels built upon a hilltop that was within the precinct and associated with a larger city, Jerusalem for the City of David and Thebes for Cadmea, and each was named after it's founder. The spring at Boeotian Thebes had proved convenient to the story of the Spartoi as well for; There was another huge well, pool, or cistern, at Gibeon, where the field of armed young men arose to slaughter each other before the eyes of David, but the Greek mythographers placed this episode as if it had happened in the watch of Cadmus at the spring of Ismenios. Regardless of the minor chronological and geographical discrepancies practically every feature of the "myth" of Cadmus founding Thebes can be shown to have had a Scriptural origin in the story of King David.

The "Cow" and the "Cattle"

Both cities, that of David and of Cadmus, were marked by the location of cattle which were, in each case, sacrificed in thanks for the founding of the spot. In both cases the sacrificed cattle were purchased from their owner, a farmer, by the city founder. From Hyginus we have; "Cadmus in his wanderings came to Delphi. There the oracle told him to buy from farmers an ox which had a moon-shaped mark on its side, and to drive it before him. Where it lay down it was fated that he found a town and rule." (Fabulae 178). From Apollodorus; "Cadmus ... Wishing to sacrifice the cow" (3.4.1) From the Hebrew Scriptures, speaking of David coming to the oxen upon the threshing floor of Araunah, the eventual location for the new city of David; "... behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood. David insisted upon buying the cattle from the farmer Araunah (Ornan). "And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver." (2nd Samuel 24:22,24) An altar was used in each case; "Cadmus brought the sacred cow beside an altar" (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 4. 352) "And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. …" (2nd Samuel 24:25)

The Period of Servitude

There was a divine grudge held against both Cadmus and David, the reason for which was said to be expressly, because they had engaged in "slaughter," or "hast shed blood." The penalties issued to recompense the slaughtering activities of Cadmus and David were respectively, that Cadmus had to serve a period, eight years, of servitude, while David's penalty was that he would be denied permission to build the Temple in Jerusalem. However David did have to serve a period, seven and a half years (reasonably rounded to eight in the Greek myth), of "minor" kingship, not in Jerusalem over all of Israel, but in Hebron over Judah only. "David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah." (2nd Samuel 5:4,5) "But God said unto me, Thou shall not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood." (1st Chronicles 28:3) "But Cadmus, to atone for the slaughter, served Ares for an eternal year; and the year was then equivalent to eight years of our reckoning. After his servitude Athena procured for him the kingdom, …" (From Apollodorus Book 3.4.1)