ing the worshippers closer to the god, as he was believed to be present inside the victim (Girard 119).In the Bacchae, by Euripides, the primary structural plot of the play revolves around Pentheus, and his tragic misfortune. Yet his ultimate demise left him a sacrificial victim to the worshippers of Dionysus. The story portrays Pentheus and his progressive failures leading to his sacrifice. He left the city disguised as a female worshipper of Dionysus, yet decides to stay and defend his right to rule what was intended to be his. But eventually, he was hunted down and defeated by genuine Bucchae members; and finally he was dismembered, and symbolically devoured by his own mother. The frenzy of this animal-sacrificing group, led by Pentheus’ mother, was so vehement; that she ate her son before realizing what had happened. This instance of sacrifice, constructed through immutable acts, functions as a means of reciprocracy—balancing utility in the community (Euripides). The pattern of sacrifice in Greek tragedy provides a means of objectivity with which to measure the levels of morality amongst a city-state. During the Homeric era, the Olympians reined the world of Ancient Greece; and they communicated ethics through engravings and wise words of wisdom. However, because the Olympians did not create laws, the presence of sacrifice as a moral component was a vital addition to the Greek religion. Ideally, the city was a sacrificial community, “watched over by its protecting deities who guarantee its duration and thus the continuation of their own honors: city and gods are mutually dependent on each other” (Burkert 256) Ultimately, the social order of Greek life came to depend on the foundation of sacrifice as a crucial tool in regulating governmental issues. The inter-dependence of numerous thematic elements in Greek tragedy has constructed a society directly indicative of its contrasting influences, “...
