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Background

The Dionysus in Euripides' tale is a young god, angry that his mortal family, the royal house of Cadmus, has denied him a place of honor as a deity. His mortal mother, Semele, was a mistress of Zeus, and while pregnant, she was killed because she looked upon Zeus in his divine form. Most of Semele's family, however, including her sisters Ino, Autonoe, and Agave, refused to believe that Dionysus was the son of Zeus, and the young god is spurned in his home. He has traveled throughout Asia and other foreign lands, gathering a cult of female worshipers (Bacchantes), and at the start of the play has returned to take revenge on the house of Cadmus, disguised as a stranger. He has driven the women of Thebes, including his aunts, into an ecstatic frenzy, sending them dancing and hunting on Mount Cithaeron, much to the horror of their families. Complicating matters, his cousin, the young king Pentheus, has declared a ban on the worship of Dionysus throughout Thebes.