Bacchae was another name for the Maenads, female followers of Bacchus. See Maenads for more detail.
The Bacchae was a play by the Macedonian playwright Euripedes. In "The Bacchae", Theban Maenads murder King Pentheus after he bans the worship of Bacchus because the Maenads deny Pentheus' divinity. Bacchus, Pentheus' cousin, himself lures Pentheus to the woods, where the Maenads tear him apart and his corpse is mutilated by his own mother, Agave.
