However, Pentheus and Polydorus both died soon after, and Nycteus became regent for Labdacus.

In Euripides ' play The Bacchae, Theban maenads murdered King Pentheus after he banned the worship of Dionysus.

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

The tragedy is based on the mythological story of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agauë, and their punishment by the god Dionysus ( who is Pentheus ' cousin ) for refusing to worship him.

Complicating matters, his cousin, the young king Pentheus, has declared a ban on the worship of Dionysus throughout Thebes.

In Euripides ' play, The Bacchae, she and her sisters were driven into a bacchic frenzy by the god Dionysus ( her nephew ) when Pentheus, the king of Thebes, refused to allow his worship in the city.

In Ovid's Pentheus, Acoetes was brought before the King to determine if Bacchus was truly a god.

Pentheus questions him, still not believing that Dionysus is a god.

However, being a god, he is quickly able to break free and creates more havoc, razing the palace of Pentheus to the ground in a giant earthquake and fire.

As Thebes succumbs to the " dementia and the delirium of the new god ", Pentheus laments the fall of his kingdom and demands the arrest of Bacchus.

In The Bacchae, by Euripides, Tiresias appears with Cadmus, the founder and first king of Thebes, to warn the current king Pentheus against denouncing Dionysus as a god.

Apollodorus writes that he, like his cousin Pentheus, was ripped apart by women in a bacchic frenzy for disrespect to the god Dionysus.

Teiresias and Cadmus try to propitiate Dionysus but Pentheus attacks the god who tells him the story of the Tyrsenian pirates.

Pentheus imprisons Dionysus, but the god destroys the palace and escapes.

The scene in The Bacchae wherein Dionysus appears before King Pentheus on charges of claiming divinity is compared to the New Testament scene of Jesus being interrogated by Pontius Pilate.

Dionysus, Pentheus ' cousin, himself lured Pentheus to the woods, where the maenads tore him apart.

Dionysus came to his birthplace, Thebes, where neither Pentheus, his cousin who was now king, nor Pentheus ’ mother Agave, Dionysus ’ aunt ( Semele ’ s sister ) acknowledged his divinity.

This greatly angers Pentheus, who has Dionysus locked up.

Dionysus wishes to punish Pentheus for not worshipping him or paying him libations.

Dionysus dresses Pentheus as a woman and gives him a thyrsus and fawn skins, then leads him out of the house.

Pentheus begins to see double, perceiving two Thebes and two bulls ( Dionysus often took the form of a bull ) leading him.

The production was eventually fashioned into an independent feature film which, interestingly, featured Will Shepherd — the Pentheus of Richard Schechner's Dionysus in ' 69 — in the role of Cadmus.

An angered Dionysus caused Pentheus ' mother Agave and his aunts Ino and Autonoë, along with all the other women of Thebes, to rush to Mount Cithaeron in a Bacchic frenzy.

Because of this, Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus, thinking the man simply a follower, but his chains fell off and the jail doors opened for him.

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

The name " Pentheus ", as Dionysus and Tiresias 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.

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.

Aphrodite, who married Hephaistos, nevertheless had an affair with Ares to have Eros ( Love ), Phobos ( Fear ), Deimos ( Cowardice ), and Harmonia ( Harmony ), who would later marry Cadmus to sire Ino ( who with her son, Melicertes would become a sea deity ), Semele ( Mother of Dionysos ), Autonoë ( Mother of Actaeon ), Polydorus, and Agave ( Mother of Pentheus ).

The old men Cadmus and Tiresias, though not under the same spell as the Theban women ( who include Cadmus ' daughters Ino, Autonoe and Agave, Pentheus ' mother ), have become enamored of the Bacchic rituals and are about to go out celebrating when Pentheus returns to the city and finds them dressed in festive garb.

Before or possibly after Pentheus was killed, his wife gave birth to a son named Menoeceus, who became the father of Creon and Jocasta.

Pentheus, wishing to prevent or stop these riotous proceedings, was persuaded by a disguised Dionysus to go himself to Cithaeron, but was torn to pieces there by his own mother Agave, who in her frenzy believed him to be a wild lion.

* 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 Cadmus to be his son-in-law :" Echion was father of Pentheus ( see Spartes ).

Nycteis married Polydorus, who was the successor of Pentheus, and their son was Labdacus.

Crassus ' head was thus used in place of a prop head representing Pentheus and carried by the heroine of the play, Agave.

In Greek mythology, Pentheus ( or ) was a king of Thebes.

Pentheus was succeeded by his uncle Polydorus.

Driven to a frenzy the participants thought Pentheus was a boar and attacked him.

Ino, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, had an end just as tragic as her siblings: Semele died while pregnant with Zeus ' child, killed by her own pride and lack of trust in her lover ; Agave killed her own son, King Pentheus, while struck with Dionysian madness, and Actaeon, son of Autonoe, the third sibling, was torn apart by his own hunting dogs.

She married Echion, one of the five Spartoi, and was the mother of Pentheus, a king of Thebes.

Oedipus was exposed on the mountain, while Aktaion and Pentheus were both dismembered on its slopes.

After the messenger has relayed this news, Pentheus ' mother, Agave, arrives carrying the head of her son.

Echion later married Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, and Pentheus their son succeeded Cadmus as king.