Agave
Mother of Pentheus and daughter of Cadmus who tore her own son apart while possessed by Dionysian madness.
The Legend of Agave
She carried her son's severed head through the streets of Thebes — believing it was a lion's. Agave, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, denied that her nephew Dionysus was divine. As punishment, Dionysus drove her and her sisters into a Bacchic frenzy on Mount Cithaeron. When Pentheus came to spy on them, Agave led the attack, ripping off his arm, then his head. She mounted it on a thyrsus and brought it to her father Cadmus, boasting of her hunt. The moment Cadmus makes her recognize what she holds is the most devastating recognition scene in Greek tragedy. Euripides's Bacchae ends with her exile.
Parents
Cadmus, Harmonia
Children
Pentheus
Symbols
Fun Fact
The recognition scene in the Bacchae — Agave realizing she holds her son's head — is considered the peak of Greek tragic writing.
Explore Further
Pentheus
🗡 heroNone recorded
King of Thebes torn apart by his own mother for opposing the worship of Dionysus
Pentheus
🗡 herohubris
King of Thebes who denied Dionysus's divinity and was torn apart by his own mother and aunts in a Bacchic frenzy.
Megara
🗡 heroNone recorded
First wife of Heracles, given to him as a reward and later killed in his madness
Procne
🗡 herovengeance
Athenian princess married to Tereus who killed her own son Itys to avenge her sister Philomela's rape.
Hecuba
🗡 heroQueen of Troy
Hecuba was the queen of Troy who watched her husband, sons, and city destroyed — embodying the total devastation that war inflicts on women.
Clytemnestra
🗡 heroQueen who murdered Agamemnon
Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon on his return from Troy, driven by rage over Iphigenia's sacrifice.
Tereus and Philomela
🗡 herovengeance, transformation
The myth of a Thracian king who assaulted his sister-in-law and cut out her tongue, only for the sisters to exact gruesome revenge.
Tydeus
🗡 herowar
One of the Seven against Thebes who was denied immortality by Athena after she caught him eating his enemy's brain.
Althaea
🗡 heroNone recorded
Queen of Calydon and mother of Meleager who killed her own son by burning the magical brand that the Fates had tied to his life at birth
Ajax
🗡 heromadness
Ajax the Great's descent into madness and suicide after losing the contest for Achilles's armor to Odysseus.
Phaedra
🗡 heroQueen consumed by forbidden love
Phaedra was the wife of Theseus who was cursed by Aphrodite to fall hopelessly in love with her stepson Hippolytus — her suicide and false accusation destroyed him.
Cassiopeia
🗡 heroQueen whose vanity endangered her daughter
Cassiopeia was the queen who boasted her beauty exceeded the sea nymphs — provoking Poseidon to demand her daughter Andromeda as sacrifice.