Cults. The Greeks seem to have been generally believed that there was a "race of heroes," occurring in the period immediately preceding and following the Trojan War (thirteenth-twelfth centuries B.C.E.) Hesiod sets this era in between the Bronze (3000-1100 B.C.E.) and Iron (1100- 700 B.C.E.) periods. Most of the heroes were held to have lived in the heroic age or in some mythic period that did not precisely correspond with historical time. Note that these stories were mythical in nature and had little direct correspondence with historical fact, although they may have grown up around historical kernels.

Cadmus (Greek Kadmos). The son of Agenor, King of Tyre, Cadmus traveled to Greece in search of his sister, Europa, who had been abducted by Zeus. Cadmus founded the city of Thebes. At the advice of Athena he killed a dragon and...