Pentheus in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Pentheus

39 passages from 6 ancient authors that tell of Pentheus, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Pentheus was a king of Thebes in Greek mythology, son of Echion, one of the Spartoi, and Agave, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. He was the brother of... For the story in one place, read our article on Pentheus.

Apollodorus (1)

Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome 3.5.1–9Dionysus, Pentheus, Niobe and OedipusDionysus roams Egypt, Syria and Thrace, where Lycurgus is punished, and returns to Thebes, where Agave tears her son Pentheus apart; he also turns the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins. Cadmus and Harmonia go to the Encheleans and become serpents, and the house of Labdacus continues through Laius, Antiope with Zethus and Amphion, and Niobe, whose children are shot by Apollo and Artemis. Laius, warned against fathering a son, exposes the infant Oedipus, who kills him unknowingly, answers the Sphinx's riddle, marries Jocasta and learns the truth.

Euripides (19)

Euripides, Bacchae 775–847Third episode: Pentheus calls for arms; Dionysus persuades him to spyThe Chorus Leader warns Pentheus that Dionysus is inferior to no god, but Pentheus orders his troops to assemble against the Bacchae. Dionysus offers to bring the women without weapons, and tempts Pentheus to go and watch them as a spy. Pentheus hesitates at the thought of a woman's dress, but agrees and goes inside.
Euripides, Bacchae 434–508Second episode: Pentheus questions the captive strangerA servant brings in the stranger, who gave himself up without resistance, and reports that the imprisoned Bacchae were freed of their own accord. Pentheus questions the stranger, who says that he comes from Lydia and that Dionysus himself initiated him. The stranger will not describe the rites to the uninitiated, and Pentheus threatens to cut his hair and imprison him.
Euripides, Bacchae 912–976Fourth episode: Pentheus dressed as a maenadDionysus calls Pentheus out of the palace in the dress of a maenad. Pentheus, now deranged, sees two suns and a double Thebes and a bull leading him, and asks to be set right. Dionysus leads him off toward Kithairon, saying that he alone bears the burden for the city and will return carried in his mother's arms.
Euripides, Bacchae 642–676Third episode: Pentheus confronts the escaped strangerPentheus comes out and is enraged to find the stranger free before his house. The stranger tells him to listen to a messenger who has come from the mountain. The messenger from Kithairon asks for immunity before reporting the doings of the Bacchae, and Pentheus grants it.
Euripides, Bacchae 576–641Third episode: the earthquake and the palace shakenThe voice of Dionysus is heard from within, calling on the earth to shake and the lightning to burn Pentheus' house, and the Chorus cries out as the palace collapses. The stranger comes out unharmed and tells the frightened women how he mocked Pentheus, who bound a bull in his place and then stabbed at a phantom.
Euripides, Bacchae 1024–1094Exodos: a second messenger announces Pentheus' deathA servant of Pentheus comes out to lament the house of Kadmos, and tells the Chorus that Pentheus is dead. He tells how he went up Kithairon with his master and the stranger, and how Pentheus asked to climb a tree to see the Maenads better. The stranger bent a pine to the ground, set Pentheus on it and let it spring upright, and a voice from the air told the women to punish the man who mocked them.
Euripides, Bacchae 509–575Second episode: the stranger is imprisoned; second choral ode to DircePentheus orders the stranger shut up near the horse stable and threatens to sell the Bacchae as slaves. The stranger goes, warning that Dionysus, whom Pentheus denies, will punish him. The Chorus sings to Dirce, who refused the infant god, and calls on Dionysus to come and restrain Pentheus.
Euripides, Bacchae 1095–1152Messenger speech: the death of PentheusThe Maenads stone Pentheus in the pine, then tear the tree up by the roots. Pentheus falls and pulls off his headband so that his mother will know him, but Agave, possessed, begins the killing, and Ino, Autonoe and the others tear him apart. Agave carries his head on a thyrsos toward the palace, and the messenger leaves, urging reverence for the gods.
Euripides, Bacchae 343–432First episode: Pentheus orders the stranger seized; first choral odePentheus tells Teiresias to hold his revels but not infect him, and orders his men to overturn the old man's seat of augury and to hunt down the stranger, bound, for stoning. Teiresias warns him and goes off with Kadmos to entreat the god. The Chorus sings to Holiness about Pentheus' insolence, longs for Cyprus and Pieria, and praises the quiet life of the man who honors Dionysus.
Euripides, Bacchae 1153–1201Exodos: the Chorus greets Agave with her trophyThe Chorus honors Bacchus with a dance and a shout over Pentheus' fate, and sees Agave coming home with her eyes contorted. Agave tells them of her catch, a young lion she says she has killed on Kithairon with the help of her sisters, and the Chorus echoes her. The Chorus Leader asks her to show the citizens.
Euripides, Bacchae 1202–1232Exodos: Agave displays the head; Kadmos brings back the bodyAgave calls on the Thebans to come and see the prey that she and her sisters took with their bare hands, and asks for Pentheus to nail the head to the palace. Kadmos arrives with his slaves, carrying the body of Pentheus, which he found torn apart on Kithairon. He sees Agave approaching.
Euripides, Bacchae 1233–1301Exodos: Agave recovers her sensesAgave boasts to Kadmos that she and her sisters have caught a lion, and he answers in grief that they have committed murder. He makes her look at the sky and answer questions about her husband and son, until her madness lifts. She recognizes the head in her hands as that of Pentheus and learns that she and her sisters killed him on Kithairon.

7 more passages of Euripides that name Pentheus

Theocritus (1)

Theocritus, Idylls 26.1–38Idyll 26: The Bacchae and PentheusIno, Autonoe and Agave lead their bands of Maenads to the mountain and build altars to Semele and Dionysus. Pentheus, watching them from a hidden place, is discovered, and the women tear him to pieces. The poem ends with a plea that no one blame what the gods demand.

Ovid (2)

Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511–583Pentheus and DionysusThe blind prophet Teiresias (Tiresias) tells Pentheus, the king of Thebes, to worship the new god Dionysus (Bacchus), and Pentheus scorns him. Pentheus orders his guards to arrest the stranger who has come to Thebes with the rites of the god, and the guards bring in a prisoner, one of the god's followers, who begins to tell his story.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.584–733Acoetes and the sailors turned into dolphins; the death of PentheusAcoetes, the prisoner, tells how he was a ship's pilot who found a beautiful boy asleep on a shore, and how his crew, against his advice, carried the boy aboard. The boy, who is Dionysus (Bacchus), wakes and asks to be put ashore at Naxos, and the crew lie and sail on, and the ship stops in mid-sea as ivy grows over the oars and sails, and the sailors are turned into dolphins. Pentheus orders Acoetes to be tortured, but his chains fall off, and Pentheus, rushing to Mount Cithaeron, is torn apart by his own mother and her sisters.

Pausanias (3)

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.20.1–7Athens: Street of Tripods, theatre of Dionysus and Sulla’s capture of AthensThe Street of Tripods holds the Satyr of Praxiteles, with the story of Phryne tricking him into naming his finest work. The oldest sanctuary of Dionysus lies beside the theatre, with Alcamenes’ image and paintings of Hephaestus brought to heaven, Pentheus, Lycurgus and Ariadne. Near it stands a copy of Xerxes’ tent burnt by Sulla, which prompts an account of Mithridates, Aristion and Sulla’s siege and sack of Athens.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.2.1–8Corinth: Palaemon’s shrine, the ports, the tomb of Lais and the market-placeWithin the Isthmian precinct Pausanias describes the temple of Palaemon and the altar of the Cyclopes, and the conduct of the Isthmian games after Mummius. He then describes Lechaeum and Cenchreae with their sanctuaries and the bath of Helen, and on the road to Corinth the tomb of Diogenes and the Craneum, where the grave of Lais lies. In the market-place he lists images of Artemis, Dionysus and others, with the story of the images made from Pentheus’ tree.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.2.1–7Plataea: the tomb of Mardonius, the graves of the Persian war and the temple of HeraPausanias describes the ruins of Hysiae and Erythrae on Mount Cithaeron and the supposed tomb of Mardonius, and the spring and rock at which Actaeon is said to have looked on Artemis. He discusses the places linked to Pentheus and Oedipus on Cithaeron. At Plataea he describes the graves of the Greeks who fought the Medes, the altar of Zeus of Freedom and the Eleutheria games, the trophy and the shrine of the heroine Plataea. He ends with the temple of Hera, with its Praxitelean images of Rhea and Hera Full-grown and the seated Bride by Callimachus.

Nonnus of Panopolis (13)

Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 46.97–209Book 46: Pentheus in women's dress climbs the tree on CithaeronMaddened by Dionysos and Mene, Pentheus puts on Agaue's robe and veil and dances in the streets, seeing two suns and two Thebes. He goes out to Cithaeron and climbs a tree to spy on the Bacchants. They find him, Agaue uproots the tree, and Pentheus, his madness gone, falls to the ground and begs his mother in vain to spare him.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 44.0–79Book 44: Dionysos reaches Thebes; omens and Agaue's dreamDionysos crosses Illyria and Thessaly into Boeotia, founding dances as he goes, and the noise of his rites reaches King Pentheus. Pentheus arms and shuts the gates, but they open of themselves and his soldiers tremble before unarmed Seilenoi. Omens shake the palace and temples, and his mother Agaue dreams that he is torn apart by wild beasts and that she shows his head to Cadmos in triumph.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 46.265–369Book 46: Agaue's lament; Dionysos leaves Thebes for AthensDionysos restores Agaue's senses, and she mourns over Pentheus's head, cursing her sanity and calling herself a child-murderer. Pentheus is buried, and Dionysos gives the mourners a drink of forgetfulness and sends Cadmos and Harmonia wandering west towards their fate as stone snakes. He then goes in procession to Athens.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 45.0–95Book 45: Agaue runs to the mountain; Pentheus rebukes TeiresiasAutonoe and Agaue, maddened by Dionysos, rush to the hills to join the Bacchic dance, and Agaue swears she will defy Pentheus. The hills ring with the revels of Thebes' women. Pentheus meets the garlanded Teiresias and angrily accuses him of lying oracles and taking Lydian gold, arguing that Dionysos, with his horns and fawnskin, cannot be a son of Zeus.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 46.0–96Book 46: Pentheus questions Dionysos and is persuaded to dress as a womanPentheus, learning that the prisoners escaped, confronts Dionysos, scoffing at his claim to be a son of Zeus and mocking Semele's fate. Dionysos, calm, answers with warnings and advises Pentheus to put off his armour and disguise himself in women's clothes so that he may watch the mysteries unseen.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 45.169–272Book 45: The giant Alpos; Pentheus binds a bull instead of DionysosTeiresias adds the story of the giant Alpos, who terrorised the Alpine slopes until Dionysos pierced his throat with a thyrsus. Pentheus, unmoved, sends soldiers to arrest the god, who vanishes and then reappears as a soldier leading a bull. Pentheus is tricked into chaining the bull as Dionysos and jailing the Bassarids in a dungeon.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 44.80–183Book 44: Teiresias' sacrifice, the snakes of Cadmos, and Pentheus' defianceTeiresias tells Agaue to sacrifice to avert the dream, while privately knowing what it means. At the altar a serpent winds harmlessly about Cadmos and another about Harmonia, foretelling their transformation into stone snakes. All Thebes takes up the Bacchic dance, and Pentheus rages, vowing to kill Dionysos and denying that a mortal can be a god.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 46.210–264Book 46: Agaue kills Pentheus and shows his head to CadmosThe women tear Pentheus apart, and Agaue, believing him a lion, cuts off his head and carries it in triumph to Cadmos, boasting of her kill. Cadmos laments over her words, tells her that she holds her own son, and curses Cithaeron and Dionysos for the ruin of his family.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 44.184–252Book 44: Dionysos prays to Selene for help against PentheusPentheus sends his army to hunt the unseen Bacchic god in the woods. At night Dionysos calls on the Moon, in her many forms, to destroy his persecutor. Mene answers that she shares his rule over madness, promises her help, and recalls his earlier victories over Lycurgos, Deriades, the Tyrsenian pirates and Orontes.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 45.273–358Book 45: The Bacchants break free; fire in Pentheus' palaceThe Bacchic women dance their chains off and the dungeon doors fly open, and they return to the mountains, where they work wonders: milk and wine spring from the ground, a girl nurses a child, snakes become ivy, and Satyrs ride beasts. Dionysos shakes the palace of Pentheus with a bull's bellow and fills it with fire that burns nothing, and water poured on it only makes it blaze up.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 5.533–621Book 5: Autonoe's grief; Zeus desires PersephoneiaAutonoe gathers her son's bones and buries them. Agaue bears Pentheus, and Ino marries Athamas and bears Learchos and Melicertes. Zeus, who once begot Zagreus on Persephoneia in the shape of a dragon, watches her bathe and is caught by desire for her.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 44.253–318Book 44: The Furies and Dionysos drive the Theban women to the mountainPersephone sends a Fury who sprinkles water of Styx and Cocytos over Agaue's rooms and buries the knife of Procne under a fir tree on Cithaeron, smearing it with Gorgon's blood. Dionysos, wearing a bull's head, enters the palace and drives the women mad. He calls to Autonoe with a false tale that her son Actaeon lives and is the lover of Artemis, urging her to run to the mountains.
Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 45.96–168Book 45: Teiresias tells the story of the Tyrsenian piratesTeiresias answers that Dionysos is the son of Zeus and warns Pentheus against impiety. He tells how Tyrsenian pirates, seizing Dionysos in the shape of a rich-looking boy, saw him grow huge and horned, their ropes turn to snakes, vines and ivy cover their ship, and wine pour over the deck. Terrified, they leapt into the sea and became dolphins.