The Bacchae

Euripides' last tragedy: Dionysus returns to Thebes and the king who denies him learns what the god is.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Euripides

type

Tragedy (Greek)

era

Posthumous, Classical Athens (405 BC)

language

Ancient Greek

setting

Thebes

source text

The Dionysus myth cycle

acts

1 acts

Relative Scale in Plays

Core Principles & Analysis

• Staged in 405 BC after Euripides' death, with his son as producer.
• Pentheus's refusal of Dionysus ends with the king torn apart by the maenads.
• It is the fullest surviving dramatization of a god on the Greek stage.

Sources

• Wikipedia: The Bacchae