The tragedy was written in Macedonia and staged in Athens after the poet’s death along with Iphigenia in Awlida. Although the tragedies were timed to coincide with the festivals of Dionysus, the plots associated with this god, they were developed quite rarely (about 20 names out of 600 preserved). The probable predecessor of Euripides is Aeschylus, who wrote the drama “Penfei” that has not come down to us. The Theban princess Semela, daughter of Kadma, was the lover of Zeus. She asked the thunderbolt to appear in glory and was killed by his thunderbolts. Zeus saved a premature baby (according to one version - he sewed it in the thigh and, when the time came, "gave birth"). As born of Zeus, Dionysus, unlike all the earthly children of God, is a deity. His epiphany glorification as a god began in the East, and from there he came to Greece and attracted women (Vakkhanok, Menad) to his orgiastic festivals. Men prevent the "indecent" cult, the main opponents - Pentheus, King Thebes and cousin Dionysus, as well as aunts, confident that the sister has sinned with a mortal, and not with God ("they did not recognize their own"). As a punishment, Dionysus blinds the mind of the king and takes away the eyes of his mother and aunts...From antiquity to the present day, disputes continue whether to consider this tragedy a religious work glorifying the omnipotence of God, or another attack of Euripides against the gods, who are amused by the sufferings of people.