Bacchae" by Euripedes in "Bacchae,"

¶ … Bacchae" by Euripedes In "Bacchae," Euripedes wrote cautionary tale about defying the will of the gods. Pentheus, the King of Thebes, defies the "new god in town, Dionysus, with terrible results. From Pentheus' point-of-view, Dionysus has come to Thebes to make unacceptable changes. He knows that Dionysus comes from Asia, where he has dominated the land and converted all the people to his new religion. Pentheus belleves that the practices followed by the Bacchae, or Dionysus' followers, will destroy Thebes.

Pentheus is familar with and comfortable with the old gods and the old ways of practicing religion, but Dionysus brings a new religion that is both disturbing and subtly fascinating to him. The Bacchae, mostly women, not only dance with abandon in the mountains but commit what anyone else would see as horrific crimes, including abandoning children, kidnapping children, and even infanticide committed by the mother.

Pentheus sees Dionysus' arrival and subsequent influence over the women of the city as nothing less than an invasion, and plans to deal with the crisis militarily. Pentheus believes that Dionysus seeks some sort of compromise that would allow the new god to remain in Thebes, but have the citizens of Thebes adopt this new religion. However, Pentheus is suspicious. He sees the new religion as Asian, not Greek, and knows that since Pentheus and he have the same grandfather, Dionysus may eventually seek to remove Pentheus from the throne.

Penththeus is acting like a good Greek king, trying to protect his population from a serious threat, but in the process, he is defying a god. He cannot win. By the end of the play it does appear that Dionysus would not have been open to any true compromise. The palace is in ruins and he has brutally punished all the major characters. He seems contemptuous of the people of Thebes. However, Pentheus is a flawed king.

He seems driven by inner needs and is fascinated as well as revolted by the changes Dionysus is bringing. He is easily swayed, and sees some aspects of the new religion as alluring as well as a threat to the status quo. Part of him wants a compromise so that the new religion will not completely fade away. He seems to find it a little titillating.

This ambivalence results in a fatal weakness in Pentheus: while he logically knows that Dionysus is not bringing good changes to Thebes, like a person who is both horrified and fascinated by a train wreck and cannot look away, Pentheus studies Dionysus. Dionysus sees this weakness of resolve in Pentheus, and has no trouble tricking him. As a god, he could change the apparent reality of things. In the process, he makes himself look even more powerful in Pentheus' eyes.

First he causes Pentheus to see him as a bull, and then he makes it look to Pentheus as if the palace is.