Pentheus

Pentheus is torn up by Ino and Agaue , cover of a Lekane , approx. 450 BC. BC , Louvre

Pentheus ( Gr . : Πενθεύς) was in Greek mythology the son of Echion and Agaue , the daughter of Kadmos . While his predecessor Kadmos was still alive, this Pentheus transferred control of Thebes .

When Dionysus came to Thebes and the women celebrated a bacchanalian festival in his honor on the Kithairon (a mountain between Thebes and Corinth ) , Pentheus tried to prevent it and to capture Dionysus, who had appeared in the appearance of a bacchant, what however, it failed. Finally, Dionysus can persuade the already deluded Pentheus, disguised as a woman, to eavesdrop on the maenads swarming in the mountains . However, when he climbed to the top of a tree there, he was discovered and torn in Bacchanalian fury by his own mother and aunts Ino and Autonoë , who thought he was a wild animal. An oracle from Pythia instructed the women to find the tree again and to worship it like a god. As a result, two images depicting Dionysus were carved out of the wood of the tree. Pausanias saw these pictures during his visit to Corinth.

After Pentheus' death, Kadmos left Thebes and Polydorus , son of Kadmos, became king of Thebes. A grandson of Pentheus is Menoikeus , the father of Creon and Iocaste .

The saga of Pentheus was of Euripides the tragedy The Bacchae used. In the (not handed down) tragedy Pentheus by Aeschylus , Pentheus is not torn apart by his mother, but falls in battle. In addition, the Pentheus legend appears in Hyginus , Ovid (there Pentheus does not take Dionysus himself prisoner, but a Tyrrhenian navigator named Akoites, a companion of the god), Apollodor and Nonnos .

literature

• Adolf Rapp : Pentheus . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.2, Leipzig 1909, Sp. 1925-1943 ( digitized version ).
• Willi Göber : Pentheus. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XIX, 1, Stuttgart 1937, Sp. 542-549.
• Theodor Heinze: Pentheus. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 , column 530 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pausanias, Journeys in Greece , 2, 2, 7.
2. ^ Pausanias, Reisen in Greece , 9, 2, 4.
3. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 76 and 184
4. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphosen 3,513ff. 3,693ff [1]
5. ↑ Apollodor, Libraries 3, 36.
6. ^ Nonnos, Dionysiaka 44, 46

predecessor	Office	successor
Cadmos	King of Thebes 15th century BC Chr. (Fictional chronology)	Polydoros

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