Pentheus king of Thebes denied the god born to his aunt Semele; Dionysus drove the women to Cithaeron in frenzy, and Agave the king's mother tore her son apart with her bare hands, thinking him a lion.1
Semele's fire
Semele, daughter of Cadmus, lay with Zeus and asked to see him in his true form; the lightning consumed her, but Hermes snatched the infant Dionysus from her womb and stitched him into Zeus' thigh until the god was born again — the twice-born, whom Hera's jealousy would hound all his days.2
The stranger at the gates
When Dionysus came back to Thebes as a god, Pentheus son of Echion and Agave forbade his rites and imprisoned the maenads. The stranger — the god in disguise — escaped his bonds and promised to show the king the sacred women on Mount Cithaeron if Pentheus would dress as one of them.3
The maenads' prey
On the mountain the Theban women, maddened by Dionysus, tore Pentheus limb from limb. Agave his mother bore his head on a thyrsus, thinking it the head of a lion, and only when the frenzy passed did she see what she had done to her son.4
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
Pentheus Torn by Maenads (House of the Vettii, Pompeii)
Unknown (Roman wall-painter), Before AD 79
Pompeii's House of the Vettii — Pentheus torn by maenads on the wall, Euripides' Bacchae in Roman domestic myth.
Death of Pentheus (Douris cup, Kimbell Art Museum)
Douris, c. 480 BC
Douris' cup — the Theban king ripped apart on Cithaeron, red-figure violence for the god he refused.
Death of Pentheus (Louvre G445)
Unknown (Attic red-figure), c. 450–425 BC
Louvre G445 — Attic death of Pentheus, the spy in women's dress becoming the sacrifice the Bacchae demands.
Maenads Killing Pentheus (Meidias Painter, Kerameikos)
Meidias Painter (circle), c. 420–400 BC
Meidias Painter circle — maenads killing Pentheus, late-classical vase fury for Dionysus' Theban revenge.