The women are the devout worshipers of Dionysus and when they go to the hills they abandon their duties within the cultural order of the city. At the beginning of their sabbatical in the woods they still serve an educational function, but when a group of shepherds chase them, the women begin to imitate male behavior by hunting animals, pillaging villages, and defeating men in pitched battle. In contrast, their persecutor, King Pentheus, is intrigued by the women's strange behavior but is determined to suppress them. He agrees to disguise himself as a woman in order to spy on their rituals, there he is mistaken for a wild animal and his mother, Agave, leads the maniacal women who tear off his limbs like hunters, his reversal was finally his