The Bacchae
Sign in to saveAlso known as The Bacchantes, The Bacchæ, The Bacchanals, Bacchae, Bacchanals, Eur. Ba., Bakkhai
ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides
Key facts
- Written by
- Euripides
- Chorus
- Bacchae , female followers of Dionysus
- Characters
- Dionysus , Tiresias , Cadmus , Pentheus , Servant, Messenger, Second Messenger, Agave
- Date premiered
- 405 BC
- Place premiered
- Athens
- Original language
- Ancient Greek
- Genre
- Tragedy
- Setting
- Thebes
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Author
- Euripides
- Genre
- Greek tragedy
- Narrative location
- Thebes
- Image
- Pompeii - Casa dei Vettii - Pentheus.jpg
Show 8 more facts
- location of first performance
- Classical Athens
- title
- Βάκχαι
- Commons category
- Bacchae
- characters
- Cadmus
- language of work or name
- Ancient Greek
- date of first performance
- 0405-00-00
- form of creative work
- play
- entry in abbreviations table
- Eur. Ba.
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~25 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Bacchae (/ˈbækiː/; Ancient Greek: Βάκχαι, Bakkhai; also known as The Bacchantes /ˈbækənts, bəˈkænts, -ˈkɑːnts/) is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, 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 Alcmaeon in Corinth, and which Euripides' son or nephew is assumed to have directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.
The tragedy recounts the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, who were punished by the god Dionysus (who is Pentheus's cousin) for rejecting his cult. The play opens with Dionysus proclaiming that he has arrived in Thebes with his votaries to avenge the slander, repeated by his aunts, that he is not the son of Zeus. Disguised as a foreign holy man, the god intends to introduce Dionysian rites into the city, but the Thebans reject his divinity and king Pentheus orders his arrest.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Bacchae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.