HARMONIA was the goddess of harmony and concord. A daughter of Aphrodite, she presided over marital harmony, stopping discord, as a daughter of Ares, she represented harmonious action in war. Harmonia was born of Aphrodite's affair with Ares. She was awarded to Kadmos, the hero founder of Thebes, in a wedding attended by all the gods. Hephaestus, however, was still furious over his wife's betrayal, and presented Harmonia with a cursed necklace, which doomed her descendants to endless tragedy. A string of family problems caused the couple to leave to Illyria, where they battled various local tribes to establish their new kingdom. Later the pair were turned into serpents by the gods and transferred to the Islands of the Blest, to live in peace and harmony for the rest of eternity.