Echoes From Statius in Massinger’s The Roman Actor (1626)

The Roman Actor opens with a dialogue involving three players, Paris, Latinus, and Aesopus. The mythological episode of Agave, who tears her son Pentheus to pieces in a fit of Bacchic frenzy, is the theme of Euripides's The Bacchae and is also recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses (III.531 ff). On the other hand, Agave is also the title of a lost play written by Publius Papinius Statius (AD 45-96) and mentioned in an anecdote related by Juvenal.