This page contains the story of Dionysos' wrath against the impious King Pentheus who attempted to drive him from Thebes, and the related tale of the daughters of Cadmus. Women who did not stop themselves from raving. Dionysus was the Olympian god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness and frenzy. His corpse is mutilated by his own mother, Agave, who tears off his head, believing it to be that of a lion.A group of maenads also kill Orpheus. Dionysus c . Pentheus spies upon the maenads from a tree; in the Theocritean Idyll, by contrast, he is poised on a prominent rock. Women whose blood flowed. They bore the thyrsos, a staff that is crowned with ivy, and wore the skin of a panther, a beast loved by Dionysus 2 for being among the most excitable of animals. It is through the problematic behaviour of maenads that King Pentheus is murdered. The MAENADS or Bacchants are women sacred to Dionysus 2, maddened by his inspiring power.. Outfit . Then the god puts Pentheus in a trance, making the King think it's a good idea to dress up like a girly Maenad and go spy on all the shenanigans going on up on the mountain. His mother , Agave e . Pentheus was a king of Thebes in Greek mythology, son of Echion, one of the Spartoi, and Agave, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia.He was the brother of Epeiros. This works out terribly for Pentheus. On the exterior of this cup, one of the finest surviving vases of the early Classical period, we witness the gruesome death of Pentheus, a mythical king of Thebes who had offended the god Dionysos by denying his divinity and forbidding his worship. His corpse is mutilated by his own mother, Agave, who tears off his head, believing it to be that of a lion.A group of maenads also kill Orpheus. Maenads, Women Followers of Dionysus. Pentheus would subsequently climb a tree to gain a better view of the Maenads, but his presence was then revealed to the female followers of Dionysus by the god. Maenads b . And whereas in Euripides Agave initiates the slaughter, in the Idyll and Ovid it is Agave’s sister (and Pentheus’ aunt) Autonoe. a . However, although the name Maenad literally translates as the ‘raving ones’, these women were much more than that.The Maenads were actually sacred worshippers and holy priestesses of Dionysus- the god of wine and vegetation, festivity, madness and frenzy.Every aspect of the Maenads’ appearance echoed the … The MAENADS are followers of the god of the vine. Dionysus obliterates Pentheus' palace with fire and lightning, and he strolls out of the wreckage without breaking a sweat. Dionysus, Pentheus' cousin, himself lures Pentheus to the woods, where the maenads tear him apart.