Chthonius — whose name means "of the earth" — was one of the five Spartoi, the "Sown Men" who sprang up armed when Cadmus planted the dragon's teeth in Theban soil. He outlived the brothers' mutual slaughter alongside Echion, Udaeus, Hyperenor, and Pelorus, and from these earth-born five descended the nobility of Thebes.1
When Cadmus slew the dragon that guarded the spring of Ares and sowed its teeth in the ground, armed men rose at once from the furrows. They fell upon one another and were cut down in a single self-made battle, until only five were left standing: Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus. The earth had borne them full-grown and full-armed, and these the new city kept.2
Hyginus tells the same harvest of war: the teeth Cadmus scattered sprang up as the Sparti, who turned their weapons upon each other until five alone outlived the slaughter — named, as in Apollodorus, Chthonius, Udaeus, Hyperenor, Pelorus, and Echion.3
Ovid lingers on the dreadful crop: the earth-born brothers burst from the soil sword in hand and slew one another in their own civil war, all but a remnant. Yet in his telling only Echion is singled out among the few who survived to make peace with Cadmus — Ovid names no others, so Chthonius stands here only among the unnamed survivors of the same episode.4
As an earth-born man (gēgenēs) Chthonius had no named mother but the ground itself, which gave up the sown teeth as armed warriors. From him the line ran on into the royal house: Apollodorus calls Nycteus the son of Chthonius, and through Nycteus and his daughters Antiope and Nycteis the Spartos's blood entered the kingship of Thebes — for Nycteis married Polydorus, son of Cadmus. The descent is disputed, however, since elsewhere Apollodorus traces Nycteus instead to Hyrieus, son of Poseidon, rather than to the Sown Man.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
