Agaue 3

vol. I p.765-766

3) Agaue (Ἀγαύη)

Daughter of Kadmos and Harmonia, wife of the spartos Echion, <30> with whom she bore Pentheus. After the death of her sister Semele (see there), she and her sisters Ino and Autonoe spread the rumour that Semele had had sex with a mortal and, because she said that Zeus had been her lover, Zeus had struck her down with lightning. Later, when he arrived at Thebes on his travels, Dionysos took revenge for this slight against his mother; he made the Theban women celebrate a Bacchic festival on Mount Kithairon, <40> and lead Agaue and her sisters on in madness to tear apart her son Pentheus, the king of Thebes who had resisted worship of Dionysos, when he wanted to watch the rituals in secret. Agaue was already named by Hesiod. Theog. 975f. (ie in an extract from the κατάλογοι γυναικῶν, in which the story was probably told), then she appeared in Aeschylus’ Pentheus (FTG 60 N.², perhaps also in the Bacchae frg. 22 N.). <50> The time following was influenced by Euripides’ Bacchae: Pacuvius Pentheus (?) TRF 111 Ribb. Ribbeck Röm. Trag. 280 (wrong); Accius Bacchae TRF 167-170; Röm. Trag. 569. Senec. Oed. 438 and elsewhere, cf. Horat. epist. I 16, 73. Apollod. III 5, 2 (cf. Jahn-Michaelis Bilcherchron. Taf. III D. VI). Hygin. fab. 184. Paus. II 2, 6. Philostr. imag. I 18 and in part Nonnos Dion. XLIV-XLVI, who used a Hellenistic poem alongside it, <60> just as Theokritos’ (?) Λῆναι (XXVI; cf. Knaack Herm. XXV 86. Maass ibid. XXVI 178). Ovid. met. III 511ff. (see Knaack Anal. Alex. Rom. 56; dependent on Ovid is Schol. Verg. Aen. IV 469 = Myth. Vat. II 83). In order to make the gruesome charge that a mother ripped her own son, whom she had mistaken for a wild animal, to pieces a little less gruesome, a later though probably still Hellenistic poet, whom Ps.-Oppian. Cyneg. IV 287ff. follows, <page break 765/766> has Dionysos’ Bacchae turn into panthers; these tore apart a Pentheus who had been turned into a bull (a clear attack against the older myth 319). Nonnos seems to play on a similar version in the “Dream of Agaue” (Dion. XLIV 60f.). As well as these, there were tragedies by Iophon (FTG 761 N.²), Xenokles (FTG 770), Lykophron (Πενθεύς Suid.), and Pseudo-Thespis (FTG 832), which are no longer recognisable.

[from suppl. I p.24: Statius wrote the textbook for the dancer Paris on a pantomime Agaue, Iuven. VII 87. <50> A (late?) stage-play is mentioned by Claudian. in Eutrop. II 364. Agaue with the bloody head of her son in Dracont. X 561. The combination made in p.766 15ff. is found in Unger Theban. Parad. 51; it is hardly correct. [Knaack.]]

<10> Later, Agaue fled to Illyria, married the king Lykotherses, but killed him in order to get her father Kadmos (cf. Eur. Bacch. 1330ff.) rule over the land. Hygin. fab. 184. 240. 254. As she was fleeing to Illyria, she stopped off in one of the holy groves to Artemis in Chaonia (Ps.-Vergil Culex 110, clearly following the Hellenistic model; the missing location is given in Parthen. amat. 32). <20> On portrayals of Agaue in works of art, see O. Jahn Pentheus und die Mänaden, Kiel 1841; Archäol. Ztg. XXV (1867) T. CCXXV 1 nr. 225, on that Arnold Festgruss der Würzb. philol. Gesellschaft an die XXVI. Philologenvers. p. 142ff. and Schlie Bull. d. Inst. 1869, 33. Dilthey Archäol. Ztg. XXVI 6ff. Agaue with the head of Pentheus on a coin from Amastris (in the time of the empire) Head HN 433.

([Knaack.])