Page "Pentheus" Paragraph 5

Dionysus lured Pentheus out to spy on the Bacchic rites disguised as a woman, and Pentheus expected to see sexual activities.

The daughters of Cadmus saw him in a tree and thought him to be a wild animal.

They pulled Pentheus down and tore him from limb from limb ( as part of a ritual known as the sparagmos ).

When his true identity was later discovered, officials exiled the women from Thebes.

Some say that his own mother was the first to attack him, tearing his arm off and then tearing off his head.

She placed the head on a stick and took it back to Thebes, but only realized whose head it was after meeting her father Cadmus.