(), a son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of
Cadmus. (Eur. Phoen. 4.942; Paus.
9.5.2.) He was the successor of Cadmus as king of Thebes, and being opposed to the
introduction of the worship of Dionysus in his kingdom, he was torn to pieces by his own
mother and two other Mainades, Ino and Autonoe, who in their Bacchic frenzy believed him to be
a wild beast, (Ov. Met. 3.513, &c.; Eur. Ba. 1215; Philost. Imag. 1.1; Apollod. 3.5.2 ; Hyg. Fab. 184;
Serv. ad Aen. 4.469; Nonnus, Dionys. 45.46; Oppian, Cyneg. 4.289.) The place where Pentheus
suffered death, is said to have been Mount Cithaeron, but according to some it was Mount
Parnassus. Pentheus is said to have got upon a tree, for the purpose of witnessing in secret
the revelry of the Bacchic women, but on being discovered by then, he was torn to pieces.
(Eur. Ba. 816, 954, 1061, &c.; Theocrit. 26.10.) According to a Corinthian
tradition, the women were afterwards commanded by an oracle to find out that tree, and to
worship it like the god Dionysus himself; and out of the tree two carved images of the god
were made accordingly. (Paus. 2.2.6.)