Dragon-teeth Men (Sparti)

Dragon-teeth men were armed warriors who sprang out of the earth, after the teeth of a dragon were sown in the soil. They would immediately attack anyone in their presence.

One way to defeat them was to make them fight one another. A hero could hurl rocks at them so they would face and attack one another.

Cadmus came to face-to-face against them when he was looking for a new home in Boeotia. Cadmus killed a dragon that guarded a spring, sacred to Ares. Athena advised Cadmus how to defeat dragon-teeth men. Only five of the dragon-teeth men survived.

These became Cadmus' most loyal supporters when he founded the city of Thebes. They were known as the Sparti, which means "Sown-Men". Some of them married into Cadmus' royal families. The five original Sparti were named: Echion, Chthonius, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Udaeüs or Udaeus.

Echion had married Agave, Cadmus' daughter, and became the father of Pentheus.

Chthonius was the father of Nycteus and Lycus, and both sons became regents of Thebes after Pentheus' death. Chthonius' granddaughter Nycteis married Polydorus, son of Cadmus. Chthonius's other granddaughter Antiope was the mother of the twins Amphion and Zethus, co-rulers of Thebes. Both Nycteis and Antiope were Nycteus' daughters.

Udaeüs was the ancestor of the blind Theban seer, Teiresias.

Jason, the hero of the Argonautica, also faced these dragon teeth warriors as one of the tasks set by Aeëtes (Aeetes), the king of Colchis. Medea, Aeëtes' own daughter, helped Jason defeat them with the same strategy: making them fight one another.