Pentheus

Mythological biography

Pentheus took the throne of Thebes when his grandfather Cadmus stepped down because of his advanced age. Almost immediately, he outlawed the worship of Dionysus, the god born to his aunt Semele, and prohibited the women of Cadmeia from taking part in the god's rituals. This angered Dionysus, who drove Pentheus' mother Agave, his aunts Ino and Autonoë, and all the other women of Thebes into a Bacchic frenzy, sending them rushing to Mount Cithaeron. Pentheus then arrested Dionysus, believing him to be just a follower, but the god's chains fell away and the prison doors swung open on their own. Dionysus tricked Pentheus into dressing as a woman and going to spy on the Bacchic rites, where Pentheus hoped to witness sexual acts. The daughters of Cadmus spotted him in a tree and mistook him for a wild animal. They dragged him down and ripped him apart limb by limb in a ritual called sparagmos. According to some accounts, his own mother struck first, tearing off his arm and then his head. She put the head on a stick and carried it back to Thebes, only recognizing it as her son's when she met her father Cadmus. After the truth came out, the city's officials exiled the women from Thebes. Both Dionysus and the prophet Tiresias noted that the name Pentheus means "Man of Sorrows," coming from the Greek word for grief, especially the grief over a loved one's death. His name seemed to foreshadow his tragic end. Pentheus was followed as king by his uncle Polydorus. Either before or after his death, his wife gave birth to a son named Oclasus, who later fathered Menoeceus, who in turn fathered Creon and Jocasta, making Pentheus the great-great-grandfather of Oedipus. The story also appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book III. In that version, the blind seer Tiresias warns Pentheus to welcome Bacchus or else his blood will be spilled and defile the woods, along with his mother and her sisters. Pentheus ignores the warning and dismisses Tiresias. As Thebes falls into madness and delirium from the new god, Pentheus mourns the ruin of his kingdom and orders Bacchus arrested. His guards instead seize Acoetes of Maeonia, a sailor who affirms that Bacchus is divine and recounts how his crew was turned into dolphins after attempting to kidnap the young god.