Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

brill.nl/mnem

Perspectives on Violence in Euripides Bacchae

Simon Perris
Victoria University of Wellington, Classics Programme, Box 600, Wellington 6140,
New Zealand
simon.perris@vuw.ac.nz
Received: April 2009; accepted: May 2009

Abstract
This paper examines the treatment of violence in Euripides Bacchae, particularly
in spoken narrative. Bacchae is essentially a drama about violence, and the messenger-speeches establish a dialectic between spectacle and suffering as different
conceptions of, and reactions to, violence. The ironic deployment of imagery and
allusion, particularly concerning Pentheus body and head, presents violence as
ambiguous. The exodos then provides a model of compassion, in which knowledge of guilt does not preclude sympathy, nor does ambivalence towards violence.
Finally, it is concluded that the paradoxical humanitas of this Dionysiac tragedy
is grounded in its presentation of violence as a source first of pleasure, then of
pain, allowing spectators to be both entertained and shocked.
Keywords
Euripides, Bacchae, violence, messenger-speeches
Das Theater mit seinen realen Krpern vor einem ffentlichen Publikum ist
eine Form, fr die die Frage der Darstellung von Gewalt immer von besonderer Bedeutung ist. (~ Simon Goldhill)1)

Greek tragedy is violent in the extreme. It reeks of blood and is strewn

with corpses.2) Witness, then, the aesthetically productive paradox
1)

Goldhill 2006, 168.

Henrichs 2000, 173. Bremer (1976, 36-42) surveys the arguments; also Macintosh
1994, 126-57. Onstage deaths in extant : Alcestis and Hippolytus; possibly Ajax
and Euripides Suppliants (Evadne).
2)

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011

DOI: 10.1163/156852511X505024

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S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

underpinning Greek tragedys unique brand of formalism: although it

eschews onstage death, Greek tragic drama is fundamentally concerned
with the spectacleor spectreof violence. Indeed, as Macintosh has
shown, death is central to Greek tragedy, not as a moment but as a process. [T]o speak of an absence of death from the Greek stage is clearly
misleading: death in tragedy is a culmination, not an ending . . . For if
death is recognised as a dramatic process, we have indeed many deaths on
stage in extant Greek tragedy.3)
The following, then, proposes a reading of Bacchae in which this process of death specifically involves a response to violence, despiteor
rather, because ofthe low body count, as it were. Note, by way of illustration, marked use of , , and ; and in particular,
more instances of and its cognates than in any other extant tragedy
except Ajax.4) This play is concerned not only with theatre or with ritual;
it is about human agents committing violent acts against one another.
Bacchae is no more violent than, say, Antigone, or Choephori, or
Phoenissae, or Aristophanes for that matter; what is unique is the degree
and manner of emphasis, and the range of implicated responses.5) To my
mind, nothing better represents the violent nature of Greek tragedy than
the gruesome image of Agaue mindlessly holding aloft Pentheus disembodied head in supposed triumph. Further, nothing better represents
Greek tragedys preoccupation with violence than the second messengers
detailed, gruesome description of sparagmos. If Bacchae exemplifies Greek
tragedy, it does so not only through ritual or metatheatre, but also
through the tragic processes of violence and death.
Threats, suggestions, and hints of violence in Bacchae establish an
expectation of physical violence: a false expectation of the sort of martial
3)

Macintosh 1994, 142 and passim.

Ajax contains fourteen instances, Bacchae twelve: 9, 113, 247, 375, 516, 555, 616, 743,
779, 1297, 1311, 1347. Fisher (1992, 443-51) adds two possibilities for the second
lacuna, from Christus Patiens 1362 and 1664/1663, with the emendation <
>. and compounds: 492, 1039, 1199, 1243, 1245 (del. Diggle);
Chr. Pat. 1639-40 as in Willink 1966. Ba. 1374 is the only Euripidean instance of ;
Ph. 1529, Med. 1130, Or. 388.
5)
Henrichs 2000, 187: Aegisthus death in Electra is arguably the most graphic account
of a homicide in the extant plays of Euripides. Primavesi (2006) takes Bacchae as the
basis for an essay on the Gewalt der Darstellung in classical performance reception.
4)

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

39

narrative found, for example, in Helen or Seven Against Thebes, foreshadowing but also occluding Pentheus ultimate demise. He threatens imprisonment (503, 505, 509-14), beheading (239-41), strangling (246-7),
stoning (356-7), ritual sacrifice (796-7), and other punishment (674-6,
793). None of these threats are carried out, at least not by Pentheus himself; Dionysus, , is physically inviolate, while his antagonist,
and resolutely mortal, is not. What is more, Pentheus threatens
military action (780-5, 809). As March has shown, Bacchae alludes to versions of the myth in which Pentheus engages the maenads in armed conflict, so as to elicit the suspenseful expectation of a different sort of
violence before offering its own unexpected, brutal conclusion.6) When
Dionysus claims that he can bring the women back without weapons
(804), Pentheus prevaricating, arguably metatheatrical response questions
whether or not Bacchae will follow the strand of myth in which an armed
Pentheus fights the maenads: Im going: either I will go armed, or I will
follow your advice (845-6). Ultimately, he suffers an inversion of his own
violent threats, decapitated after a kind of stoning (1096-7) presented as
military defeat cum ritual sacrifice.
On the other hand, Bacchae offers two extended treatments of actual
physical violence: the messenger-speeches. Although superficially factual,
Euripidean messenger-speeches are not free from narratorial influence.7)
Given the dramaturgical necessity of messenger-speeches per se,8) the rhetorical colouring of the messenger-speeches in Bacchaeparticularly their
presentation of violenceis crucial. It is in these two balanced narratives
that Dionysus power is manifest: violence evokes first wonder, then
shock. The first contradicts Pentheus false assumptions about maenadism, bearing (eye-)witness to Dionysus power. The second responds with
a more complete account of sparagmos. The spectacle of violence is followed, inevitably, by the pathos of violence.
The first messenger-speech (677-774) negates a series of false assumptions (explicit and implicit) about maenadism, which is evidently not
6)
March 1989, 37-43. Cf. Macleod 2006 on the relationship between Pentheus supposed
military intentions and the messengers narratives.
7)
Di Gregorio 1967; de Jong 1991, 1992; Buxton 1991; Barrett 2002, esp. 102-31 on
Bacchae. Contrast, e.g., Bremer 1976, 46.
8)
Cf. Bremer 1976; Henrichs 2000, 177; de Jong 1992, 583 on the second messengers
narrative.

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what Pentheus imagines it to be; hence the messengers pointed counterfactual assertions about what Pentheus would have seen had he been present (712-13, 737-40). An extended sequence of counter-assertions
illustrates this agenda: (686); (758);
. . . (761-2); the adjective (736);
(764).9) In a marked example of such negation, Dionysus
remarks to Pentheus that he will find their chastity (surprising, 940). This first messenger-speech reveals the women to be neither
unchaste nor drunk (685-8), impervious to fire (758) and weapons (761);
they dismember cattle without iron (736, foreshadowing 1205-6), inflicting female violence on men with thyrsoi (762-4), thus becoming like male
warriors,10) all with divine approval (764).
The messengers successful aim here is to prove Dionysus power and
thereby prove Pentheus wrong; hence the injunction
(770), and the chorus fearful assertion,
(777). Afraid of Pentheus reaction to such contradiction (670-1), the
messenger begins in oblique, obsequious fashion, unlike the second messengers prosaic address to the chorus at 1043. Pentheus, then, acts as
sceptical interlocutor, first asking,
; (Youve come to tell me something. Why so eager?, 663).11) The
messenger responds by accounting for his . That is, by narrating
what he has witnessed in such a way as to prove that
(they are performing miracles beyond wonder,
667).

9)

Macleod 2006, 578: in negating Pentheus assumptions, this speech argues that Pentheus should accept the god.
10)
Note the emphatic juxtaposition (764). Cf. Seaford 1996, ad 762-4
on the motif of maenads becoming like male warriors.
11)
Roux 1970-1972, ad loc.: Pentheus , sur un ton sarcastique, relates also to the
very fact of the messengers arrival, as servants can only leave their post en cas de force
majeure. Compare the guard at S. Ant. 223-44. Citing Hecuba 130 ( ,
earnest discussions), Dodds (1960, ad loc.), followed verbatim by Kovacs (2002), translates And what weighty message do you bring? William Arrowsmith translates Get to the
point. / What is your message, man? Roux 1970-1972, ad loc.: littralement tu viens
nous prsentant quel empressement de discours?. Compare (speed of
foot) at E. Hec. 216.

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41

This is signposted to some extent by narrative present verbs (so-called

historic presents),12) the function of which, in tragic messenger-speeches
at least, is what I term selective differentiation: messengers use the narrative
present selectively as a marked, distinct, secondary tense.13) The primary
function of the HP [historic present] is to lift out from their context those
narrative assertions that are essential for what the speaker has stated to be
his immediate concern. . . . In some cases (for example, in the messenger
speeches) it is the addressees specific need for information that is decisive
for the speakers selection of HP events.14) In Bacchae, the first messenger
states explicitly his immediate concern: to tell of miracles beyond wonder. Present-tense verbs in the narrative proper manifest this concern,
responding to Pentheus sceptical need for information with eye-witness
eagerness: (I saw, 680); (leapt forth, 705); (they
rushed, 748).15)
Given the narrators aim (to recount strange and wonderful events), he
selectively differentiates events which demonstrate Dionysus power; his
narrative is one of spectacle. The first narrative present verb emphasises his eye-witness status.16) At 705, differentiates the first
12)
Following Sicking and Stork (1997, 166), I prefer narrative present to historic
present.
13)
Khner and Gerth 1890-1904, I 132; Smyth 1956, 1883; de Jong 1991, 38-45; Sicking and Stork 1997; Rijksbaron 2002, 7, and 2006. Allan (2007 and fc.) argues that
narrative present verbs in messenger-speeches mark the immediate diegetic narrative
mode and exhibit one of three features: (1) marking Peak sections, (2) marking dramatic moments in the Complication, or (3) punctuating a narrative by indicating the
beginning of the Complication (which somehow disturbs the stability of the opening
framework). Drawing on Labov 1972, 362-70 and Fleischman 1990, 135-54, Allan
divides the global structure of narrative as follows: Abstract, Orientation, Peak, Resolution, Coda, Evaluation.
14)
Sicking and Stork 1997, 165. Compare Allan fc., in which narrative present verbs are
connected with tellability or reportability, that is, with standards by which narratives are
judged and constructed.
15)
Following editorial tradition, de Jong (1991, 42 n. 115) favours the narrative present
, whereas Rijksbaron (2006, 146-7) argues that (i.e. ) should be read
with the MSS (L and P) as the unaugmented imperfect , suggesting the same reading at E. El. 777. This assumes that stative verbs never occur in the narrative present, on
which see Rijksbaron 2002, 7.3 n. 1.
16)
Roux 1970-1972, ad loc.: en tte du vers, [] exprime la soudainet de la
dcouverte.

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supernatural event in the episodethe spontaneous appearance of a freshwater springas essential to the speakers discursive strategy. After the
cattle-sparagmos, (748) inaugurates the attack proper, punctuating the narrative by indicating the beginning of the Complication section. This is an essential narrative element inasmuch as it marks the
moment at which the women initiate battle, which is precisely what the
men (and Pentheus himself ) fail to do. Moreover, the narrative concerns
the spectacle of physical violence. In the first instance, the cattlesparagmos foreshadows, in some detail, Pentheus gruesome demise. In the
second instance, at a moment marked as a turning point, the narrator
denotes miraculous violence, and miraculous invulnerability, as a sight to
see ( , 760). Yet this spectacle of women wounding men is itself
of little import, for at 765-6, immediately after committing violence on
members of their erstwhile community, the Theban women return to the
thiasos. Only when Agaue is directly confronted with the face ( prospon)
of tragic violence does she fully understand its nature.
In the second messenger-speech (1043-152), then, the violence already
inflicted on livestock and villagers is inflicted on Pentheus himself, with
the narrative constructed in such a way as to argue that the manner of
deathsparagmosdeserves sadness rather than celebration. In that
respect, violent spectacle in the first messengers narrative is answered by
violent suffering in the second messengers narrative,17) in which once
again hostile males concealing themselves on the mountainside will cause
peaceful maenads to inflict sparagmos . . . The change (to violence) occurs
because they are attacked.18)
This masterly narrative is preceded by a key passage in which the impatient eastern Bacchants request a narration of Pentheus death from the
newly-arrived messenger.19) The messenger, aptly described by one critic
17)

Taplin 1978, 57: lines 657-9 indicate Dionysus foreknowledge in arranging the messengers narrative, and the first messenger-speech as a whole foreshadows Pentheus own
ambush and destruction fairly precisely. de Jong 1992, 574: this first messenger-speech is
one of Dionysus indirect hints to Pentheus to change his mind.
18)
Seaford 1996, ad 677-774. Macleod (2006) argues that the first messenger offers Pentheus two possible outcomes in miniature: sparagmos or battle. Cf. 845-6. de Jong (1992,
574) characterises the townsmens defeat as sparagmos.
19)
Goldhill (2006, 157) and Verdegem (2001, 12) identify this speech as a masterpiece
of tragic narrative.

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43

as distressed,20) predictably expresses mourning for the house of Cadmus, whereupon the chorus break out in triumphant, excited, lyric (dochmiac) celebration.21) This echoes the recently-concluded stasimon, sung
almost entirely in dochmiacs, in which the chorus proleptically envisioned
the sparagmos, dehumanising Pentheus as both autochthonous and monstrous (that is, as the child of a lioness or Gorgon). Note the change from
iambics at 1029 to dochmiacs at 1031 after Pentheus death is announced,
and note also forms of at 1033 and 1040: having excitedly called
for vengeance on their inhuman foe, the chorus excitedly celebrate the
demise of this foe. In turn, the messenger (still in iambics) twice criticises
their response, indicating his own rhetorical position: /
, (1032-3);
, / , ,
(1039-40). At this point, the chorus (still in dochmiacs) react with
increased eagerness for an account of Pentheus death: ,
/ (1041-2).22) This is
not unique, of course. Medea, for example, responds in similar fashion
(Med. 1127-35); the messenger questions her positive reaction; and her
response is to claim that she will be twice as happy if her antagonists are
horribly () dead. As these messengers point out, Schadenfreude
is out of the question for a servant whose masters fare badly.23)
20)

Verdegem 2001, 12.

Cf. Dodds 1960 and Seaford 1996, ad 1031: excited dochmiacs alternate with iambics
in 1031-8 (construing 1031 and 1037 as dochmiacs); Dodds notes a similar occurence at
Ph. 1335-41. Dale 1948, 107-8: among other emotional states, dochmiacs can express
excitement, occasionally triumph or joy. Dodds 1960, ad loc.: dochmiac is the metre of
maximum excitement.
22)
Evert van Emde Boas (personal correspondence) suggests that introduces an
indirect question, with the aorist imperative, complete in aspect, ordering a complete act
of narration. Diggle (1994) punctuates with a semicolon after and a questionmark after ; Kovacs (2002) retains the direct question with a comma after .
Cf., e.g., Hdt. 3.74.3-75.1 for the distinction between (say that X is the
case) and (start speaking).
23)
Dodds (1960, ad loc.) reads (my masters) as a generalising plural, but the
possessive surely precludes this reading. is used plural for singular elsewhere in Euripides, e.g. IT 1421, Hel. 1630, Andr. 391. Alc. 212 offers a parallel: Weber
(1930, ad loc.) interprets as Herrschaft; Conacher (1988) translates for
my masters. Following Roux (1970-1972) and Seaford (1996), pace Kovacs (2002),
I interpret . . . at Ba. 1032-3 as denoting Pentheus and Agaue.
21)

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S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

Yet the Bacchae chorus-members are the most impatient of Euripidean

addressees. Leur invitation pressante (deux impratifs) introduit de faon
trs naturelle le rcit du serviteur.24) This appears to be the only such passage in extant tragedy in which two imperative verbs of speech prompt a
messengers narrative.25) Under Bakkers model of the imperative, the present orders an action in the here and now of the speaker, while the aorist
explains this action.26) In line with the orthodox premise that the aorist
aspect denotes complete states of affairs and the present incomplete,27)
and assuming that the chorus here order the messenger to begin speaking,
denotes fire away, as does, for example, in Plato and the orators. The force of , particularly if construed with an indirect question, is, like in Plato, tell me this one thing . . .28) Tell me! That is,
tell me how Pentheus died.29)
24)

Roux 1970-1972, ad loc.

Single present imperative: S. Ant. 1174; E. Andr. 1084, HF 920, IT 1325, Hel. 602,
Ph. 1076, 1355, Or. 863, 1393, Ba. 672, IA 1539 (preceded by prohibitive ).
Single aorist imperative: A. Pers. 333, 350, 439, 478, Th. 810, Supp. 603; S. El. 679, Tr.
671, Ph. 341; E. Med. 1133-4, Heracl. 881, Hipp. 1171, Hec. 517, Supp. 649, Ph. 1088.
Ion 1119 with aorist infinitive ( ). At Pr. 193-6, three
imperatives prompt a spoken narrative from Prometheus. Cf. the Homeric formula
(e.g. Il. 10.384).
26)
Cf. Bakker 1966, 54 on Aj. 371 (By the gods,
give in and have some sense): sounds quite emotional, whereas is
not meant as a command at all, but tries to express more clearly what the present
implies.
27)
Rijksbaron 2002, 1; Ruijgh 1985, 9-10. Sicking (1991) attempts to reconcile the
three main models of the aorist/present stem distinction: i) punctual versus durative,
ii) complete versus incomplete, and iii) that proposed by Bakker (1966, 31-66), who
argues that the weaker aorist imperative orders a state of affairs unrelated to the here and
now, and that the stronger present imperative relates the state of affairs to the here and
now in the speakers mind. Bakker essentially treats the present imperative as the imperative of emotion and impatience.
28)
Rijksbaron (2000, 151-70) argues that in Platos Gorgias and Philebus, is infective
(fire away), continuous (carry on), or iterative (answer a series of questions), whereas
= tell me this one thing. Likewise, Rijksbaron (2002, 16.2) distinguishes between
(Ask me some questions) and (Ask me this one question).
29)
If we interpret these imperatives as ordering continuation, we might turn to Bakkers
(1966, 35-43) alternative hypothesis: when referring to a state of affairs already under way,
the aorist imperative does not indicate simple continuation (for which a present impera25)

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45

At any rate, the chorus is impatient to know precisely how Pentheus

died. In Derek Mahons translation, the chorus avidly asks, Tell us the
details; how did Pentheus die?30) Having celebrated Pentheus death at
1011-23, they request detailed description with the present verb
(he died, 1041), which I should like to term an interrogative present: a
present-tense verb in a question referring to a state of affairs in past time.
When a tragic narrator summarises an event before narrating it, subsequent questions posed by the addressee using interrogative present verbs
tend to indicate a request for elaboration, not unadorned fact.31) At
Electra 772-3 and Hecuba 695, for example, the addressee first learns of
an antagonists death, then asks how using a present indicative in place of
the unmarked aorist.32) Contrast Bacchae 1294, where Agaue requests
unadorned information, as opposed to elaboration, with an unmarked
aorist: (How did we kill him?). Cadmus terse
reply neither interrupts the stichomythia nor in fact constitutes a particularly good answer: , (You went mad,
and the whole city joined the revels).33) Rijksbaron, for one, suggests that
the present tense at Bacchae 1041 may indicate that the Chorus consider
Pentheus death of great importance for their own situation.34) The
tive is regular), but interrupts, ordering swift conclusion. In particular: The aorist imperative may give the impression of meaning stop being busy and bring this action to a
conclusion exactly because the person to whom it is directed is trying to perform or not
really performing the action ordered (37). In the passage under discussion, this would
suggest that the force of the present imperative is Go on, keep talking, while that of the
aorist imperative is Come on, tell me properly.
30)
Mahon 1991, 47.
31)
Rijksbaron 2006, 130.
32)
Sicking and Stork 1997, 139: the force of at S. El. 679 may be deictic,
pointing to Clytemnestras personal investment in Orestes death, unlike her dismissive
attitude to Electras grief. Likewise, at E. El. 772, Electra wishes to learn how Aegisthus
died. At S. Tr. 748, Deianeira asks Hyllus to justify his allegations (Where did you
approach him and stand with him?) and he attempts to prove them. Cf. Rijksbaron
2002, 6 for the aorist as unmarked narrative past tense (complete aspect).
33)
Roux 1970-1972 and Seaford 1996, ad loc.: Cadmus claim is true only of the female
population (cf. 35-6, 195-6).
34)
Rijksbaron 1991, 135-6, noting that the imperfect has a different effect, as at Pl. Phd.
57a6 ( ;). It is often claimed that present tenses of verbs like
and can be perfective (to be dead, to be the killer of ); the examples cited above

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chorus themselves assert as much at 1035 and 1037-8: Dionysus, not

Thebes, is their master; they no longer fear imprisonment. In their request
for elaboration, then, they manifest single-minded concentration on the
question at hand, a question marked by an interrogative present. For
them, at least, tragic death is a dramatic process (as Macintosh might have
it) worthy of elaborate description.
It must be acknowledged that such a request for detail, including the
How did he die? question, is far from unique. There is a recognisable
pattern to the reception of unwelcome news-reports in Greek tragedy, and
Mills (1981, 132) outlines the formula as follows: 1) the reporting figure
makes a general statement of disaster, 2) the addressee asks what has happened, 3) the speaker sums up the disaster, 4) the addressee requests
detail, often with an accompanying expression of grief, 5) the speaker
delivers a rhsis proper, and 6) a display of the corpse(s) is usually made.
On the one hand, then, questions of the type How did he die? merely
represent the fourth element in this formula, constituting a logical, dramaturgically useful prompt for an extended spoken narrative. In that
sense, Tell me how he died might be interpreted, in a meta-theatrical
sense, as It is now time for a messenger-speech. On the other hand, however, the particular interaction in Bacchae between chorus and reporting
figure is highly marked in its detail: the chorus emphatically partisan status, commented upon by the messenger; the excited lyric response; the
two imperatives; and the interrogative present .
The antagonistic chorus presents a negative paradigm of voyeuristic
pleasure in violence for its own sake, a paradigm which is later repudiated
when the chorus expresses sympathy for Cadmusafter learning the
manner of Pentheus death. This suggests a dialectic between, on the one
hand, victorious, celebratory (lyric) eagerness, motivated by loyalty to
Dionysus, and on the other, mourning and disdain for Schadenfreude,
motivated by loyalty to ones masters. So Buxton (1991, 44): The Newsbringer [sic] has a quasi-choral authority, quietly but firmly distancing
himself from the actual chorus partiality. Responding to the vengeful
chorus members request for detail, the messenger also reacts against their
are confective. Seaford (1996, ad 2) nevertheless describes this as the registering present
tense. Cf. de Jong 1992, 575 on the chorus concern with how (comment) Pentheus
died.

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47

celebratory mood, constructing his narrative so as to present Pentheus

death as an . Aeschylus, for example, stages the
chaining of Prometheus to a rock by Hephaestus (Pr. 52-80); Kratos
instructions (56, 58, 62, 64-5, 71, 74, 76) emphasise the violence of the
act. Hephaestus, sympathetic to Prometheus (63, 66), states explicitly
and perhaps metatheatricallythat this onstage violence does not constitute a pleasing spectacle: (69). In
Bacchae, by contrast, offstage violence does constitute spectacle, at least
when dramatised by the messenger. Such is one axiom of the metatheatrical reading advocated by, among others, Segal (1997, 215-71), Foley
(1985, 205-58), and Barrett (2002, 102-31), according to which Dionysus stages sparagmos as a theatrical spectacle. The irony here is that while
staging sparagmos invites the audience to appreciate the theatricality of
physical violence, the second messengers narrative is itself structured so as
to emphasise the pathos of the episode and to undermine the chorus
members delight at Pentheus death.
Essentially, the second messenger presents a subjective narration of irrational violence qua suffering, humanising Pentheus the victim in response
to the chorus dehumanisation of Pentheus the villain. A string of seven
first-person plurals, and the eye-witness narrative present (I saw,
1063 as at 680), highlight the master-servant bond and demonstrate the
personal loyalty which is the messengers primary motivation.35) Decisively, this second observer sees Dionysiac violence not only as a spectacle,
but also as a tragic res worthy of spectatorial shock, and his speech in one
sense dramatises a progression from passive observation to active emotional reaction. Indeed, the messengers dramatisation in Bacchae is perhaps more concrete than we might at first assume. As Dickin observes,
the play is constructed in such a way that it may, keeping to the so-called
Three-Actor Rule, be staged with a single actor taking the roles of Pentheus, Agaue, and the second messenger: victim, assailant, and far-fromdispassionate observer.36) [T]he poet could have created an opportunity
for his leading actor to echo Pentheus emotional pleas to his mother to
35)

Buxton (1991, 45) notes the first-person plurals. Note also denominative use of

(echoing 1032-3) at 1046: (I was following my master).

Cf. Hipp. 1196.

Dickin 2009, 128-9.

36)

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S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

stop her attack. Finally, his moving account of the death of Pentheus is all
the more powerful since the audience is aware that it is his own demise
he is describing.37) Considering the opportunity for mimetic display provided by messenger-speeches, particularly involving oratio recta, this suggests a vivid dramatisation of Pentheus death, in which the mother-son
interaction, crucial to the pathos of the scene, is depicted by the self-same
actor playing Agaue and Pentheus.
The messengers stated concern with personal loyalty to ones masters
necessitates concentration on Pentheus and Agaue,
(1033). Consider the narrative present verb (1063), and
also the climactic grouping of three within five lines:38) (he fell,
1112); (she fell upon him, 1115); (he said, 1117). As
in the first messenger-speech, the historic present is used very sparingly
and thus with great effect.39) One might interpret the force of these
moments as follows: First we went up the mountain, but then I actually
saw something unbelievable () . . . the maenads were trying to get at Pentheus, they were making little progress, and then he fell out of the tree
(), and his mother fell upon him (); he even begged for mercy
(), touching her cheek. But to no avail . . .40) (1112) marks the
climax of the narrative, in which Pentheus physical and metaphorical
downfall encapsulates both his physical demise and his metatheatrical
37)

Dickin 2009, 134.

Rijksbaron 1991, 137: each of the four narrative present verbs in this speech picks out
key moments in the narrative. In Rutger Allans model, the first marks the Complication,
the others the Peak section. de Jong 1991, 45: Using historic presents in clusters, he [the
messenger] may single out persons or events, or bring to life a quick succession of events.
More specifically, de Jong 1992, 581: le rcit [with the present verbs from 1112] atteint
son climax dramatique. Contrast the messenger-speech of HF, in which fourteen narrative present verbs colour the entire narrative, rather than structure it.
39)
Rijksbaron 1991, 137. Contrast de Jong 1991, 40-1: messenger-speeches commonly
use verbs of perception (e.g. , 1063) in the narrative present; / (compounds included) is the most common narrative present verb in Euripides; narrative presents might thus be considered merely stylistic features. I would argue that, given the
marked nature of the narrative present as a selective discourse marker, this use of /
is not merely stylistic.
40)
These are states of affairs decisive for the messengers rhetorical aim, not necessarily
vivid or central: for a precis of events, one would have to look to the aorist indicative
verbs also. Cf. Rijksbaron 2002, 6.
38)

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

49

failure as a spectator.41) Whereas the first messenger-speech allows the possibility of figuring violence as a source of fascination, no such fascination
is allowed here. With (1115, rare in Euripides as attack or
strike), Agaueechoing the womens earlier attack on the villagersattacks first, falling on Pentheus in a violent embrace which mocks his own
supplication and ironically prefigures her own lamentatory embrace of his
corpse in the exodos.42) Such is the tragedy of Pentheus death, and of
Bacchae more generally, as Dionysus breaks even the bonds of philia to
encourage filicide. Narrative present verbs of speech (which in all but one
Euripidean instance introduce direct discourse) draw attention to what a
speaker has said;43) draws attention to the final mother-and-son conversation. Pentheus ignores Dionysus at the last,44) ineffectually invoking
philia ( , 1121), begging for mercy ( , 1120),
and acknowledging personal error ( / , 1120-1).
Even after her own anagnrisis, Agaue thinks first of Pentheus:
, (1298).45)
Nevertheless, Bacchae is the tragedy of divine mania par excellence (more
so even than Heracles), and this narratorno less than his predecessorat
41)

Barrett 2002, 117; Bierl 1991, 213. in Euripidean messenger-speeches: e.g. Or.
871, 879; Ph. 1165; Supp. 653. Segal 1997, 204-5 suggests that Pentheus fall from a phallic tree is symbolic castration.
42)
LSJ, s.v. I.4: fall upon, embrace. March 1989, 57: v is very
often used of an affectionate embrace. Most Euripidean instances refer either to affectionate, familiar action, or respectful, supplicatory action, neither of which occurs in the Bacchae passage: of twenty Euripidean uses of v and twenty-two of v
(42 in total), I count twenty referring to supplication or prostration; twelve as embrace;
one as fall; five as encounter or befall; and four as fall upon, attack, assault. Alc. 350
and HF 1379 similarly juxtapose death and affection.
43)
Sicking and Stork 1997, 145. (The exception is Ion 1191-3.) Note that emphasising
Pentheus words also emphasises the pathos of the attendant circumstances, as he literally
supplicates his mother, (1117-8). According to Allan (fc.), narrative
presents and direct speech efface the messengers presence as perceivable intermediary in
the representation of the narrated world. Indeed, deployment of such linguistic phenomena is part of a narrators focalisation, even when introducing the embedded character-text
of an internal narrator-focaliser.
44)
March 1989, 57.
45)
Murray 1921, 78; Dodds 1960, ad loc. Roux 1970-1972, ad loc.: Agaue directs audience attention to the corpse. Seaford 1996, ad loc.: psychologically inhibited from seeing
the corpse, Agaue asks its whereabouts.

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S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

some point realises Dionysus supernatural power. From 1079 he specifically eschews the denotation (earlier used at 1047, 1063, 1068,
1077), preferring , , or .46) Yet despite the double
determination implied by Dionysiac enthousiasmos, violence in Bacchae
tends to be a human affair, with mythological innovations emphasising
human tragedy over divine agency.47) The messengers focalisation indicates sympathy for Pentheus and Agaue, and a regard for their motherson relationship. Each is (1058, 1102, 1117).48) Agaue is
when focalised in relation to Pentheus at 1114-15 (
/ ) and 1139-40 ( , /
).49) However, she is named Agaue when
first mentioned (1106, assuming deletion of 1092), and when focalised in
relation to the messenger himself at 1117 and 1149. As Macintosh asserts,
tragic descriptions of the point of death concentrate on the violence of
the living, and this narrative of murder most assuredly
(Arist. Poetics 53b19-22) outlines a subjective conception of filicide, verbally reperforming a tragedy of mother and son.50) So de Jong (1992,
583): Mme si nous ne savons pas quelle tait lopinion dEuripide sur le
conflit entre Penthe et Dionysos, il est clair que le meurtre de Penthe
par sa mre doit tre vu comme un fait extrmement tragique. This is
above all a narrative of pathos.
Let us not forget, moreover, that Bacchae ironically incorporates physical violence in . At 877-81, for example, the chorus claim that
violent revenge is the best reward known to man. The fifth stasimon
immediately follows the narrative of Pentheus death with an explicit,
46)

de Jong 1992, 579. Cf. Pentheus at 1059.

March 1989. Contrast Foley 2001, 291: the initiative [behind Pentheus death] is
divine rather than mortal. Agaue acknowledges Dionysus agency at 1296 and 1374-6.
48)
E.g. , 1024; , 1100; , 1112;
, 1126; , 1139; , 1144; ,
1147. At 1117, manifests the focalisation of the messenger (as primary
narrator-focaliser, in de Jongs terminology), rather than embedded focalisation of Pentheus cognition. Note that she is , not . Optative (rather than
retained vivid subjunctive) at 1116 emphasises the messengers perspective. Cadmus
evokes similar pathos with at 1323-4.
49)
At 1118 and 1120, direct speech marks Pentheus as a secondary narrator-focaliser.
50)
Macintosh 1994, 127. At 1211-2, having described her victory, Agaue first asks after
her father and son not by name but by family relationship (, ).
47)

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

51

compressed collocation of and violence:

/ (A fine deed it is to put your arm
around your child, dripping with blood, vel sim., 1163-4).51) The other
stasima likewise romanticise Dionysiac experience (e.g. 862-76), and
express a hope for violence (e.g. 1011-16). The first messengers narrative
begins with a picturesque image of Cithaeron, where the bright drifts of
white snow never cease (660-1),52) yet this is also a place where body parts
are strewn throughout the forest, and the victims cry mingles with the
killers ( , there was one common scream, 1131).
Indeed, peace and quiet is in Bacchae merely the calm before the storm,
the silence before violent epiphany: , /
, (1084-5).53) This suggests a
poeticised locus amoenus which becomes a place of noisy, violent death.
What is more, in this locus amoenus, violence is a form of play. The
messenger describes how the women, arms bloodied, played ball
(, 1136) with Pentheus flesh; for them, Pentheus dead body
is a source of pleasure. Nonnus, for one, adopts this grotesque notion of
Dionysiac sparagmos as ball-play: ,
/ , /
(One tore off the hind legs, one
grabbed the forefeet, tugged, and hurled the hooves, tumbling, straight
up in the air, Dionysiaca 43.49-51).54) And although the Theban women
play with Pentheus flesh (, 1136), hints at his disembodied, spheroidal (ball-like) head, presumably constituent in the
but not mentioned until 1139. Pentheus headwhether on his
shoulders or in Agaues handsassumes greater and greater significance,
and further signification, as the text progresses: consider the moment
51)

Regardless of how one construes these verses, the result must surely be an ironic collocation of violence and , with a in some proximity to spilled in
violence.
52)
Cf. 677-9, 723-7.
53)
Also 1051-3. Dodds (1960, ad loc.) and Seaford (1996, ad loc.) note the trope of
silence before epiphany. de Jong (1992, 579) argues for silence before sacrifice.
54)
Noted by Sandys (1880, ad loc.). Seaford (1996, ad loc.) considers a possible allusion
to Odyssey 6.99-17: playing ball evokes a scene such as Nausikaa and her young female
companions playing ball by the river. Compare Oilean Ajax hurling Imbrius head like a
ball () at Iliad 13.202-5.

52

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

when Pentheus uncovers his own head and touches Agaues, the artful
omission of any Homeric-style description of decapitation, the bitter
irony of the ball-playing, and the exodos. One is encouraged to think of
the prospon, even in advance of its arrival onstage in Agaues hands, as a
thing of pleasure and as a thing of pain. The point of all this business
with Pentheus head is that it is an ambivalent object which sums up a
central ambivalence in the play. It may beand isviewed in two ways.55
When Agaue at last sees Pentheus head, what she sees is utter agony
( , 1282). The prospon, both bloody memorial and object
of play, is a physical reification of violence, a constant reminder of the
violent actions, and sufferings, of individuals within the community.
With this in mind, I would like to suggest that Bacchae well illustrates
Eagletons (2003) notion of tragedy as sweet violence. If the Dionysian
is ecstasy and jouissance, it is also the obscene enjoyment of playing ball
with bits of Pentheus mangled body.56) The first messenger presents violence as spectacle, manipulating Pentheus (and our own) voyeuristic pleasure, so as to warn against that violence which the second messenger
presents as suffering. So Buxton (1991, 46): By the end of the Cowherds
[sic] tale it had become clear that Dionysiac ecstasy is dangerous but at
the same time beautiful . . . By the end of the Newsbringers account, the
inflexion has changed. Dionysiac ecstasy may be beautiful, but it is also
very, very dangerous.
Beautiful and dangerous, violence in Bacchae is not unproblematically
victorious, nor is it wholly undeserved. None of the various perspectives
on violence in the play takes precedence prima facie;57) except, perhaps,
that offered by the second messenger, whose focalised narration reperforms a tragedy in miniature so as to elicit not so much pity and fear, as
fear and shock. Moreover, his rhetorical strategy is effective: the partisan
chorus consider Agaue (1184) and (1200), eventually
remarking to Cadmus, , /
, (1327-8). Although Pentheus suffers fit
55)

Taplin 1978, 76.

Eagleton 2003, 269. Dodds 1960, ad 1136: Euripides does not shrink from the grotesque.
57)
These perspectives include: excessive (1346, 1348); pitiable yet justified (1327-8);
merely pitiable (second messenger); spectacular (first messenger); the means to an end
(Pentheus); divinely ordained (Dionysus, e.g. 1349).
56)

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

53

punishment, his death nevertheless occasions sympathy for the living.

Sweet violence is deserved () but painful (), both to suffer
and to witness.
Inasmuch as the of Greek tragedy derives from repetition,
recall, and recognition of tragic death,58) the natural pleasure of Bacchae
is violence, through which the play prompts repetition, recall, and recognition of the value of human life.59) Unlike, say, Orestes, to cite a late
Euripidean example, Bacchae is neither anti-tragic nor anti-climactic,
manifesting not the end, but the epitome of tragedy.60) The text does to
some extent treat violence as ambiguous and ambivalent, prompting both
mourning and celebration, victimhood and triumph:
/ , (1161-2).61) Nevertheless, its
destructive consequences, for Thebes as for Pentheus, are everywhere evident and inescapable.62) Responding to Pentheus death, then, the
exodosin which, according to Apsines, Euripides rouses pitymanifests the discovery of compassion.63) Consider Platos argument, in the
fifth book of the Republic (462b4-7, 464c-e), that collective emotional
responses ( ) unify () the state.64)
58)

Macintosh 1994, 180.

Fisher 1992, 451.
60)
Verdegem (2001, 21 n. 2) collates accounts of dramatic climaxes in Bacchae. On the
second messenger-speech as the key climax of Bacchae: Lejnieks 1967, 332; Stinton 1975,
249; Van der Stockt 1999, 157-79. Cf. Burkert 1974, 97-109 on the end of tragedy in
Orestes.
61)
Dionysus is , (1147). The chorus congratulates
Agaue, , on her . . . (1200-1).
62)
The violence continues (1334-6); Semeles tomb still reminds of Heras violence (6-9).
In killing Pentheus, the daughters of Cadmus symbolically destroy themselves: at 925-7,
Pentheus is explicitly marked as a doublet of Dionysus Theban worshippers. Pentheus
removes his cap (1115-17) so that his mother will recognise the family resemblance and
spare him. Cf. also 1316-24.
63)
In Arrowsmiths introduction to his translation of Bacchae, Grene and Lattimore 1959,
152. Cf. Apsines, Ars rhetorica 10.35, 10.40-1 on how Euripides and Agaue rouse
() pity in the final scenes. Easterling 2006, 55: the compositio membrorum is funerary ritual, reintegration in terms of ritual order, which may provide the context for
expressing the essential values of human society in the face of suffering and death.
64)
Contrast Gilbert Murray, introducing his translation of Trojan Women (1905, 7): Pity
is a rebel passion. Its hand is against the strong, against the organised force of society,
against conventional sanctions and accepted Gods. In Republic 3, personal concerns cause
59)

54

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

Bacchae mobilises just such a commonality of feeling, in pursuit of a public autopsy of violence. Despite an excess of optimism, Radke (2003, viiviii) is thus correct to emphasise the plays humanitas:
[D]ie Bakchen [sind] als ganzes Werk nicht ein Schaubild von Brutalitt und
grausamer Hrte, sondern sie sind ein Schulbeispeil einer klassischen
Mitleidtragdie. Sie erziehen den Zuschauer (oder den Leser) dazu, Humanitt zu entwickeln, sie frdern, so knnte man heute vielleicht sagen, seine
emotionale Intelligenz und soziale Kompetenz.65)

I would suggest, moreover, that the humanity of Bacchae does in fact consist in aesthetic experience of such brutality and hardness within the
confines of a Mitleidtragdie. So Taplin (2005, 251): It might be argued
that one of the fundamental ways in which tragedy gives some meaning
to human suffering (or, if you insist, seems to give some meaning to suffering) is by turning it into poetry and music. Essentially, Bacchae effects a
muso-poetic reification of violence, centred on Pentheus ,
which leads to a discovery of compassion.
This is not to say that Euripides allows us to exonerate Pentheus. Arguing that both Pentheus and Dionysus are violent figures (), Fisher
(1992, 451) concludes that violence in Bacchae engenders not pity but
shock at the disproportionate ruthlessness of the revenge inflicted:
[W]hat is involved is the scale of the human suffering and horror seen in a
mothers sparagmos of her son, the recognition, by the son, his mother and
her father of their errors, and their, and our, awareness that this has been
deliberately and carefully engineered by the powers in charge of our world.

We are to be shocked, then, at the powers in charge of the world, and at

the violence and suffering which they engender. One such power, classical Athens, was home not only to intellectual, political, and artistic
achievement, but also to violence. [D]as 5. Jahrhundert . . . [war] auch
a dangerous fear of the enemy within:
(417b2-4). Cf. Henrichs 2000, 173-4 on audience response to
tragic violence.
65)
For a similarly optimistic reading, cf. March 1989, 64: Agaue and Cadmus offer by
their response to catastrophe a further feeling of affirmation in the face of tragedy.

S. Perris / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 37-57

55

und nicht zuletzt ein Jahrhundert der Gewalt.66) Nor is the present era
unfamiliar with dangerous, charismatic leaders inciting violence: ethnic
cleansing, honour killings, and so on. Bacchae resonates with anyone
well-versed in violence, and it is here that I should like to locate the moral
compass of the text: in its humanitas, its capacity to encourage emotional
intelligence and social competence by allowing its characters, readers, and
audience to be shocked by violence. Consider Puccis (1980, 21-58)
assessment of Euripidean drama as a therapeutic exploration of violence,
a song aiming at the paradoxical kerdos (gain) of tears as a medicine for
grief .67) Bacchae engages in just such therapy, first juxtaposing the messenger-speeches, then dissolving the resulting dialectic with funerary
lament. Such is the progressive discourse of the play, in which delight at
spectacle prefaces shock at suffering, and compassion follows. As a narration of violence committed and suffered by human individuals within a
community of ,68) Bacchae offers a twenty-first century interpretive
community, and a twenty-first century audience, more than ritual and/or
metatheatre.

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