Agaue and Pentheus (page 483 upper, with art) – Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)

Chapter 14: Thebes

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♦ Once Heidelberg, private collection: Attic red-figure pyxis with Pentheus as hunter with two spears, flanked by Mainades on right and Artemis and Apollo on left

H. Philippart, ‘Iconographie des “Bacchantes” d’Euripide,” Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 9.1 (1930), pl. 7b

Beazley Archive Pottery Database

ApB 3.5.2 – Apollodorus, Bibliotheke (Library)

Having traversed Thrace and the whole of India and set up pillars there, he came to Thebes, and forced the women to abandon their houses and rave in Bacchic frenzy on Cithaeron. But Pentheus, whom Agave bore to Echion, had succeeded Cadmus in the kingdom, and he attempted to put a stop to these proceedings. And coming to Cithaeron to spy on the Bacchanals, he was torn limb from limb by his mother Agave in a fit of madness; for she thought he was a wild beast. Greek Text

Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.551-733

Yet Pentheus, bold despiser of the Gods,
son of Echion, scoffed at all his praise,
and, sole of man deriding the great seer,
upbraided him his hapless loss of sight…. Latin Text

Hyginus, Fabulae 184

PENTHEUS AND AGAVE: Pentheus, son of Echion and Agave, denied that Liber was a god, and refused to introduce his Mysteries. Because of this, Agave his mother, along with her sisters Ino and Autonoe, in madness sent by Liber tore him limb from limb. When Agave came to her senses and saw that at Liber’s instigation she had committed such a crime, she fled from Thebes . In her wanderings she came to the territory of Illyria to King Lycotherses, who received her. Latin Text

Hyginus, Fabulae 240

Agave killed Lycotherses in Illyria, in order to give the rule to Cadmus her father. Latin Text

Hyginus, Fabulae 254

Agave, daughter of Cadmus, in Illyrica killed King Lycotherses and gave the kingdom to her father. Latin Text

VM ΙΙ 83 Second Vatican Mythographer

Latin Text

Nonnos 46.81-127

Greek Text

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