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Euripides'
"Bacchae"
and Its Profound Relevance
for the World of Today
An Illustrated Presentation
by Dr. Lena Hatzichronoglou
The Bacchae
is one of Euripides’ most profound plays, and it was presented
for the first time in ancient Athens in 406 B.C. However, its
meaning and ideas remain most relevant today, particularly in
front of the troublesome issues that challenge our humanity in
the present globally and personally.
The god Dionysus, the most ambiguous and mysterious Greek god,
is the main character of this play; and through the way the
human characters interact with him, Euripides explores and
illuminates many eternal themes of our humanity like race,
gender, power, intelligence, military superiority, religion,
cultural understanding, ignorance, and above all the meaning of
wisdom in the face of all these.
Throughout the play, Pentheus, the king of Thebes,
threatened by the power of the God whom he does not understand,
is trying to reduce him through weapons, the army, and
imprisonment, fact which eventually leads to his own destruction
and to that of the people he is trying to protect. At the end of
the play, Dionysus, who is the dramatic expression of the
indestructible Natural Law, remains intact and most powerful
than ever. The metaphor, of course, was intended for the
ancient Athenians, whose hubristic imperialism was
threatening to destroy the Greek World; but, we
too can learn from it the meaning of true wisdom
as we are faced with the threat of global destruction in our
effort to reduce a world of ideas and natural law with our own
power and weapons, and with our own perception of what
constitutes racial, religious and cultural superiority.
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