Mind Map of The Bacchae

"The Bacchae" is a tragedy-based play. The Bacchae was probably composed around 410 BCE, although it was only performed posthumously at the City Dionysia festival in 405 BCE as part of a tetralogy that also featured his "Iphigenia at Aulis." Euripides' son or nephew, Euripides the Younger, who was also a playwright, took the play back to Athens, and it was most likely directed by him.

In Thebes, Zeus takes a fancy to Cadmus' daughter Semele, and she becomes pregnant. Semele, duped by Zeus' wife, asks to see him in his divine form, and dies in the heat of his blazing glory. It received first prize in the competition, a prize Euripides had eluded his entire life. In fact, no drama appears to have been more popular in the ancient theatre, or to have been repeated and imitated more frequently.

The Bacchae is considered to be not only one of Euripides's greatest tragedies, but also one of the greatest ever written, modern or ancient. During Euripides' lifetime, powerful Asian and Near Eastern influences infiltrated cult rituals and beliefs, and the god Dionysus (still only partially integrated into Greek religious and social life at the time) changed, taking on new shapes and absorbing new abilities. In play's prologue, Dionysus himself stresses apparent invasion of Greek religion by Asian cults.