Pentheus

Pentheus was a king of Thebes, the grandson of Cadmus, who refused to accept the god Dionysus and was torn to pieces on Mount Cithaeron by the women of his own family, led by his mother Agave. His story is told most fully in Euripides’ tragedy the Bacchae, and it is the main Theban example of a mortal punished for resisting Dionysus.

Family

Pentheus was the son of Echion, one of the Spartoi, and Agave, daughter of Cadmus (Euripides, Bacchae 213, 507, 1274; Apollodorus, Library 3.5.2). His mother’s sister Semele was the mother of Dionysus, so the god was his cousin. Cadmus, growing old, handed his power and kingship to Pentheus, his daughter’s son (Euripides, Bacchae 43–44). Pausanias also calls Pentheus powerful through his noble birth and his closeness to the king (Pausanias 9.5.4).

Pentheus and Dionysus

In the Bacchae Dionysus comes to Thebes in disguise, because Semele’s sisters had denied that Zeus was his father. He has already driven the women of Thebes out of their houses into the mountains, and Cadmus’ own daughters are among them (Euripides, Bacchae 26–42). Pentheus, who has been away, returns to find the city in uproar. He attacks the god, refusing him libations and prayers, and says he will hunt down the women, including his mother Agave and his aunts Ino and Autonoe, and bind them (Bacchae 45–46, 215–232). He thinks the women’s rites are a cover for lovers. Euripides has him say this himself (Bacchae 222–225), and it is only Pentheus’ view of the worship.

Tiresias and Cadmus

The old prophet Tiresias and Cadmus go to the mountains in the dress of the god’s followers. Tiresias tells Pentheus that his glib tongue shows no sense, and Cadmus warns him that even if Dionysus is not a god, he should say that he is, so that Semele may have the honour of bearing a god and the family share in it. He reminds him of Actaeon, who was torn apart by his own dogs after boasting that he was a better hunter than Artemis (Euripides, Bacchae 266–270, 330–342). Pentheus will not listen, and has the seat where Tiresias takes omens overturned (Bacchae 343–351).

The Stranger in Chains

Pentheus’ guards capture the disguised god, and report that the maenads they had imprisoned in the public jail had been freed by themselves: their chains came undone and the doors opened without a mortal hand (Bacchae 434–448). Pentheus questions the stranger and has him shut in the stables (Bacchae 492–518). The palace shakes, the building collapses, and Dionysus walks out unharmed (Bacchae 576–593). A herdsman then reports on the women on Cithaeron: they draw water, wine, milk and honey from the rock and the earth, and they also tear cattle apart with their bare hands (Bacchae 704–711, 735–739). Pentheus decides to march on the mountain with his army, and Dionysus warns him not to take arms against the god (Bacchae 780–790).

The Death of Pentheus

Dionysus persuades Pentheus to go to Cithaeron in disguise to spy on the women. He dresses him in the clothes of a maenad (Euripides, Bacchae 912–917), and Pentheus, now deranged, sees two suns and two Thebes (Bacchae 918–919). On the mountain Pentheus says he cannot see the women well and asks to climb a tall fir tree. The stranger bends the top of the tree to the ground, sets Pentheus on it, and lets it spring upright, so that Pentheus sits high above them and is seen by them sooner than he sees them (Bacchae 1058–1075). A voice from the air calls on the women to punish the man who mocks the god, and they pelt him with stones and branches and then pull the tree out of the ground (Bacchae 1078–1110).

His mother Agave was the first to attack. Pentheus tore off his headdress and begged her to know him, saying “I am your son Pentheus, whom you bore in the house of Echion”, but she was possessed and foaming at the mouth. She seized his left arm, set her foot on his side and tore off his shoulder, helped by the god. Ino worked at the other side and Autonoe and the crowd of maenads pressed on until the body was torn apart (Bacchae 1114–1136). Ovid tells the same ending: Pentheus calls on his aunt Autonoe and reminds her of Actaeon, and Agave shouts that the victory is theirs while holding the head (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.701–731). Pausanias says that at Corinth the people made images of Dionysus from the tree on which Pentheus climbed, after the Pythian priestess commanded them to find it and worship it (Pausanias 2.2.7).

Aftermath

Agave carries the head on her thyrsus into Thebes, believing it to be a lion’s, and boasts of the hunt. Cadmus, returning with the remains of Pentheus, leads her slowly to recognise what she holds (Euripides, Bacchae 1139–1147, 1165–1168, 1280–1284). Dionysus appears and foretells that Cadmus will change into a serpent, and his wife Harmonia into a snake; they will lead a barbarian army, and in the end Ares will rescue them and settle them in the land of the blessed (Bacchae 1330–1339). Cadmus and Agave part in exile, and Agave goes to join her sisters in flight (Bacchae 1350–1392).

Pentheus Sources

Euripides, Bacchae 26–50, 213–232, 266–270, 330–357, 434–448, 492–518, 576–593, 780–797, 912–919, 1058–1136, 1139–1147, 1280–1284, 1330–1392; Apollodorus, Library 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.701–731; Pausanias 2.2.7, 9.5.4.

See Also: Spartoi, Cadmus, Harmonia, Dionysus, Ino, Autonoe, Agave, Semele, Tiresias