Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia at Thebes, wed to long-haired Aristaeus the rustic culture-god and mother of Actaeon the hunter. Like her sisters, she was driven mad by Dionysus for doubting Semele's divine affair, and joined Agave in tearing Pentheus apart on Mount Cithaeron.1
Hesiod and Apollodorus name her among Cadmus' daughters given in marriage at Thebes: Autonoe to Aristaeus, from whom she bore Actaeon, bred by Chiron to be a hunter before his own hounds devoured him on Cithaeron. Pausanias saw mother and son together on the Delphic painting, a young deer in their hands and a hunting dog at their side.2
When Dionysus came to Thebes, Autonoe and her sisters were the first to be struck with his madness because they had slandered Semele, claiming she had slept with a mortal. They abandoned their homes to rave in Bacchic frenzy on Mount Cithaeron.3
When king Pentheus spied on their rites, the frenzied women attacked him. In Ovid's telling, as Pentheus pleaded for his life, Autonoe joined the slaughter alongside her sister Agave, helping to tear his limbs from his body.4
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