notes
- Written during final years at Macedon, 480–406 BCE
- Appeared posthumously in 405
- Dionysus: son of Zeus and Semele
- Befriends Semele and convinces her to ask to see Zeus’s god form
- This smites her
- Bacchic rites = sex cult?!
- Commentary on audience fascination with violence
- Female roles played by men
- Metatheatrical
- Flipping gender roles reflects current interest in gender