Agave’s Family Tree

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Family

• Cadmus(parent),Harmonia(parent),Autonoe(sibling),Ino(sibling),Polydorus(sibling),Semele(sibling)— Marriage

  Cadmus married Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, in the first mortal wedding attended by all the Olympian gods. Their union on the Cadmeia produced five children: Ino, Semele, Agave, Autonoe, and Polydorus.

• Echion(spouse),Pentheus(child)— Marriage

  Agave married Echion, one of the Spartoi, and bore Pentheus, who became king of Thebes after Cadmus abdicated.

Enemy of

• Dionysus

  Agave denied the divinity of her nephew Dionysus and slandered his mother Semele. In retribution, Dionysus drove Agave to madness, causing her to kill her own son Pentheus.

Slew

• Pentheus

  Dionysus drove Agave and the women of Thebes mad after King Pentheus denied his divinity. Agave, in Bacchic frenzy, led the maenads in tearing her own son Pentheus apart on Mount Cithaeron.

Member of

• Maenads

  Agave was among the Theban women driven to Bacchic frenzy by Dionysus, becoming a leader of the Maenads on Mount Cithaeron in Euripides' Bacchae.

Associated with

• Autonoe,Ino

  Agave, Autonoe, and Ino, the three surviving daughters of Cadmus, were all driven to Bacchic frenzy on Mount Cithaeron. Together they led the Maenads who tore Pentheus apart.

• Cadmus

  Agave, daughter of Cadmus, tore apart her own son Pentheus on Mount Cithaeron in a Dionysiac frenzy. In Euripides' Bacchae, Cadmus helps Agave recognize what she has done.

• Mount Cithaeron

  Mount Cithaeron was the site where Agave, possessed by Dionysiac frenzy, tore apart her son Pentheus during the events of Euripides' Bacchae.

• Pentheus

  Agave, driven mad by Dionysus, led the Theban maenads in tearing apart her own son Pentheus on Mount Cithaeron, mistaking him for a lion. She carried his severed head back to Thebes in triumph before her sanity returned.

• Semele

  Agave and her sisters denied that Semele had been loved by Zeus, spreading the rumor that Semele had lied about divine paternity. This slander of the dead Semele provoked Dionysus's vengeance on the house of Cadmus.

• Thebes

  Agave was a princess of Thebes through her father Cadmus. After killing her son Pentheus in Bacchic madness, she was sentenced to exile from Thebes by Dionysus.