See also: Sparte (homonymy)

In the Greek Mythology, the Spartes (in Greek old Σπαρτοί / Spartoí , of the verb σπείρω / speírô , “to sow”), also called sown men , is fantastic people implied in the myth of Cadmos, founder of Thèbes.

They are born from the ground very armed when Cadmos sows, as Athéna ordered to him, the teeth of the dragon, descendant of Arès which it has just killed. At once, they start to fight between them. According to Phérécyde of Athens, it is rather Cadmos which launches on them a rock, which makes them turn the ones against the others and entretuer. Only five of them survive: Échion (“the snake”), Udée, Chthonios (“of the ground”), Hypérénor and Péloros. They help Cadmos to found Thèbes and are the ancestors of the nobility thebaine.

According to Pausanias, Épaminondas went down from Spartes, and for this reason raised the emblem of a dragon.

Sources

• (I, 9,23; III, 4,1; III, 6,5).

• (CLXXIX).
• (IV, 421 and suiv.).
• (III, 126).
• (VIII, 11,8).
• (VII, 610 and suiv.).