In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, Pentheus was a king of Thebes

Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)

See Thebes, Greece for the modern city built on the ancient ruins.Ancient Thebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain...

, son of the strongest of the Spartes

Spartes

In Greek mythology, Spartoí are a mythical people who were held to be Ares' children.-Spartoi in Thebes:Cadmus arrived in Thebes, Greece after following a cow at the urging of the oracle at Delphi, who instructed him to found a city wherever the cow should stop. Cadmus, wishing to sacrifice the...

, Echion

Echion

In Greek mythology, the name Echion "son of the viper", cf. ἔχις echis "viper") referred to five different beings.*One of the Gigantes.*One of the surviving Spartoi, the "sown men" that sprang up from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus; "it was Echion who, for his great valor, was preferred by...

, and of Agave

Agave (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Agave was the daughter of Cadmus, the king and founder of the city of Thebes, Greece, and of the goddess Harmonia. Her sisters were Autonoë, Ino and Semele, and her brother was Polydorus. She married Echion, one of the five Spartoi, and was the mother of Pentheus, a king of...

, daughter of Cadmus

Cadmus

Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...

, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia

Harmonia (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia, and her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.-Origins:...

.

Much of what is known about the character comes from Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

' tragic play, The Bacchae

The Bacchae

The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...

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Fictional biography

The king of Thebes, Cadmus, abdicated in favor of his grandson, Pentheus, due to his old age. Pentheus soon banned the worship of the god Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

, who was the son of his aunt Semele

Semele

Semele , in Greek mythology, daughter of the Boeotian hero Cadmus and Harmonia, was the mortal mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths. In another version of his mythic origin, he is the son of Persephone...

, and did not allow the women of Cadmeia to join in his rites.

An angered Dionysus caused Pentheus' mother Agave

Agave (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Agave was the daughter of Cadmus, the king and founder of the city of Thebes, Greece, and of the goddess Harmonia. Her sisters were Autonoë, Ino and Semele, and her brother was Polydorus. She married Echion, one of the five Spartoi, and was the mother of Pentheus, a king of...

 and his aunts, Ino

Ino (Greek mythology)

In Greek mythology Ino was a mortal queen of Thebes, who after her death and transfiguration was worshiped as a goddess under her epithet Leucothea, the "white goddess." Alcman called her "Queen of the Sea" , which, if not hyperbole, would make her a doublet of Amphitrite.In her mortal self, Ino,...

 and Autonoë

Autonoe

In Greek mythology, Autonoë was a daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, Greece, and the goddess Harmonia. She was the wife of Aristaeus and mother of Actaeon and possibly Macris...

, along with all the other women of Thebes, to rush to Mount Cithaeron in a Bacchic frenzy. Because of this, Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus, but his chains fell off and the jail doors opened for him.

Dionysus then lured Pentheus out to spy on the Bacchic rites. The daughters of Cadmus saw him in a tree and thought him to be a wild animal. Pentheus was pulled down and torn limb from limb by them (as part of a ritual known as the sparagmos

Sparagmos

Sparagmos refers to an ancient Dionysian ritual in which a living animal, or sometimes even a human being, would be sacrificed by being dismembered, by the tearing apart of limbs from the body. Sparagmos was frequently followed by omophagia...

), causing them to be exiled from Thebes. Some say that his own mother tore his head. The name "Pentheus", as Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

 and Tiresias

Tiresias

In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo; Tiresias participated fully in seven generations at Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus...

 both point out, means "Man of Sorrows" and derives from πένθος, pénthos, sorrow or grief, especially the grief caused by the death of a loved one; even his name destines him for tragedy. Pentheus was succeeded by his uncle Polydorus

Polydorus (son of Cadmus)

Polydorus was the only son of Cadmus and Harmonia and king of Thebes. His sisters were Semele, Ino, Agave, and Autonoë.Upon his father's death, Pentheus, the son of his sister Agave and Echion, one of the Spartoi, ruled Thebes. Pentheus, however, ruled only for a short time, before Dionysus caused...

.

Before or possibly after Pentheus was killed, his wife gave birth to a son named Menoeceus

Menoeceus

In Greek mythology, Menoeceus was the father of Creon and Jocasta and both grandfather and father-in-law of Oedipus. Another Menoeceus was the son of Creon, named after his grandfather...

, who became the father of Creon

Creon

Creon is a figure in Greek mythology best known as the ruler of Thebes in the legend of Oedipus. He had two children with his wife, Eurydice: Megareus and Haemon...

 and Jocasta

Jocasta

In Greek mythology, Jocasta, also known as Jocaste , Epikastê, or Iokastê was a daughter of Menoeceus and Queen consort of Thebes, Greece. She was the wife of Laius. Wife and mother of Oedipus by Laius, and both mother and grandmother of Antigone, Eteocles, Polynices and Ismene by Oedipus...

, and therefore the grandfather of Oedipus

Oedipus

Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...

.

Pentheus is also discussed by Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 in his Metamorphoses (3. 511–733).