The Bacchae

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Euripides' great tragedy, which was first performed in Athens in 405 BC when the Athenians were on the point of defeat and humiliation in a long war with Sparta. The action seen or described on stage was brutal: Pentheus, king of Thebes, is torn into pieces by his mother in a Bacchic frenzy and his grandparents condemned to crawl away as snakes. All this happened because Pentheus had denied the divinity of his cousin Dionysus, known to the audience as god of wine, theatre, fertility and religious ecstasy.

The image above is a detail of a Red-Figure Cup showing the death of Pentheus (exterior) and a Maenad (interior), painted c. 480 BC by the Douris painter. This object can be found at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

With

Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King’s College London

Emily Wilson Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

And

Rosie Wyles Lecturer in Classical History and Literature at the University of Kent

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:07.2	There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our
0:10.8	programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC in our time. I hope you enjoy the programs.
0:16.1	Hello, when Athenians first saw Eurypides play The Bachy in 405 BC, they're on the point of defeat in a long war with Sparta.
0:25.0	Their fate beyond that unknown.
0:27.0	The scene on stage was even worse.
0:29.0	Penthes, King of Thebes, torn into morsels by his mother in a
0:33.3	Bacch frenzy, his grandparents condemned to crawl the earth as snakes. All this
0:38.5	because Pentheus denied the divinity of his cousin, Dionysus, known to the audience as a god of wine, theatre, fertility,
0:46.4	and religious ecstasy. It's been called the greatest tragedy ever written.
0:51.2	With me to discuss the Baccia I, Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Rosie Wiles, lecturer in Classical History and Literature at the University of Kent, and Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Kings College, London.
1:05.6	Edith Hall, can you tell us something about Euripides and the range of his works?
1:11.2	Euripides was one of the three great most famous Greek
1:15.0	traditions whose works have come down to us.
1:18.0	He lived in the 5th century BC, his entire life, was in K-spyke. He died just a couple of years before the first
1:26.0	performance of the back eye in 405 at a great age he wrote at least a hundred
1:32.0	tragedies and satata plays, but we've got 17 of them.
1:38.0	And they cover a broad range of different mythical topics from plays about the Trojan Royal House and
1:46.6	Euripides Madeer which is set in Corinth to some that are set in Thebes of which Bakhai is by far the most famous.
1:55.0	It's amazing for us to think that he wrote a hundred places only 17 remaining.
2:00.0	Do you think what's left is as good as it got?
	...

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