PLATE XVI
The Death of Pentheus
The artist has been true to the Theban myth in making the rocky summit of Kithairon the theatre of this tragedy. Pentheus, nude and defenceless, is being beaten to the ground by the onslaught of three wild votaries of Dionysos, evidently the surviving daughters of Kadmos—Agave, Ino, and Autonoë. The fiercest of the three who attacks Pentheus with a thyrsos and tears out his hair, is probably Agave, his unnatural mother, but the other two cannot be definitely distinguished by name. In the upper corners of the background are two Maenads brandishing whips and torches. From a wall-painting in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii (Hermann-Bruckmann, Denkmäler der Malerei des Altertums, No. 42). See p. 47.
