The character of Bacchus, the god of wine, is given to us by Ovid as wild, vengeful, and a devotee of unrestrained pleasure and passion.

Given these qualities, it is no wonder that the cult of Bacchus consists of fervent acolytes who engage in all manner of wild behavior as part of their ritualized worship of the deity. Pentheus discovers this for himself in book 3 of The Metamorphoses when he’s torn to pieces by his mother and aunt, both crazed devotees of Bacchus, after spying on a Bacchic ritual.

It’s somewhat ironic, to say the least, that Pentheus wanted to destroy the Bacchanalian cult because he regarded it as a threat to the dominant male warrior values of the city of Thebes. Yet far from being “soft,” the cult of Bacchus is anything but, inspiring as it does extreme violence among its devoted followers. Such violence ultimately stems from Bacchus himself, who displays a propensity for revenge that manifests itself most graphically in the gruesome death of Pentheus.