Bacchae

Bacchae (‘women of Bacchus’, i.e. female celebrants of the rites of Bacchus or Dionysus), Greek tragedy by Euripides probably written during the poet's stay in Macedonia and found after his death in 406 BC. It was subsequently produced at Athens (probably in 405) by the poet's son (or nephew) also named Euripides, together with Iphigeneia at Aulis and Alcmaeon in Corinth (the latter now lost).

Dionysus, divine son of Zeus and the Theban Semelē, travelling through the world to make himself known to men as a god, comes to Thebes, where his divinity has been denied even by Semele's sister Agavē, mother of Pentheus, king of Thebes. Dionysus has driven the women of Thebes mad and compelled them to celebrate his rites on Mount Cithaeron. Pentheus is implacably hostile to the new religion in spite of the remonstrances of his grandfather Cadmus and of the seer Teiresias, and imprisons Dionysus (who claims to be not the god himself but a votary). Dionysus proves his power over material things by causing Pentheus to bind a bull in his stead and by making an earthquake destroy the palace. A messenger arrives and describes the behaviour of the Theban women on the mountains. Dionysus induces Pentheus to disguise himself as a woman in order to see for himself, and then engineers Pentheus' discovery by the women, who tear him to pieces. Agave, in her frenzy, bears his head triumphantly to Thebes. It is only when she recovers that she finds she has killed her son. The family of Cadmus is doomed to banishment from Thebes and the play ends with their departure.

The Bacchae is about a supposed historical event, the introduction into Greece of a new religion which by Euripides' time had long been accepted as part of Greek life. Worship of Dionysus offered a different religious experience from that expressed in the cult of the traditional Olympian gods, and this play shows the power of Dionysus, a power beyond good and evil, and the fate of those who resist him.