Page "Agave (mythology)" Paragraph 1

In Euripides's play, " The Bacchae ", Theban Maenads murdered King Pentheus after he banned the worship of Dionysus because he denied Dionysus's divinity.

Dionysus, Pentheus's cousin, himself lured Pentheus to the woods, Pentheus wanting to see what he thought were the sexual activities of the women, where the Maenads tore him apart and his corpse was mutilated by his own mother, Agave.

She, thinking he was a lion, carried his head on a stick back to Thebes, only realizing what had happened after meeting Cadmus.